Write or Die?

Well, aside from being my slogan in life, "Write or Die" is the name of a pretty awesome writing program that forces you to write. I'm not joking. There are a bunch of different modes so you can have the program be gentle with you or you can have it kick your ass. You tell the program how many words you want to write or how long you want to write for and then a timer starts. You type for that period. If you stop, the nicest thing that happens is little reminders pop up. If you want a stricter hand, then noises start playing and lights flash (I never keep the sound on but the lights are pretty annoying). In the most evil mode, if you stop writing, the program starts to delete what you just wrote. So to keep your words, you have to keep typing. It's pretty good at forcing your creativity out. I used the program in ten minute intervals. The first time, I got 850 words. The second time, I went up to 950 words. And the final time, I went back down and got 915 words. But that's not bad. I got almost three thousand words in a half hour. It was actually 2,715 words. Give or take about twenty. But that's not bad. Not at all. The website even mentions that if you're doing National Novel Writing Month in November (http://nanowrimo.org) using the timer settings will be a great day to get your word count. Don't forget that NaNoWriMo suggests writing about 1,700 words a day to reach the 50,000 word total at the end of the month so Write or Die could really be helpful. I'm actually kind of impressed by it. It's a simple program but quite effective. I think I might use it very often now. Oh and if you want, there is also a desktop version that is going for available on the website for about $10. So you don't even have to go to the website. I think I will buy it very soon. Mostly because I can see that being a program I would use very often. Now I can make sure that all my pieces are the same amount of words or that I spend the same amount of time on each one. So that's that. Go to http://writeordie.drwicked.com/.


On a side note, I got distracted for a second because some kid was running up the block shouting for someone to wait up. I hate yelling. It makes me want to keep the windows closed but then I don't get the benefit of the fall air (which I happen to be allergic to). I've been sneezing since yesterday.