Thursday, August 2, 2012

750 Words Continues to Be AMAZING

For some reason, it motivates me as much as Write or Die does, even though it's not threatening me with loud, unpleasant noises or electric shocks. I mean, it's 750 words, fast. What else does one need during a NaNo event?

But anyway. The details.

It's basically a motivator to write every day, with the very sweet and simple goal of 750 words. It gives you a space to write, a timer, and a word count, and sends you on your merry way. I suppose it's the mere fact that you're being timed - you develop this need to pump out words as quickly as possible. Everything you write is private. The web site keeps track of how much your write every day, and gives you points based on quantity and (I believe) consecutive days written, and whatnot. You get a score card and everything, and there are monthly challenges to participate in.

What amuses me the most is that the site also builds up statistics on what you write, based on what sorts of words you used. It will give your writing a rating, all movie-style (mine's just PG right now) based on violent or sexual words, or swear words you used. It tells you if you've been writing about death, or food, or family a lot, or if you're mostly positive or negative. And it will give you your averages compared to the site-wide average. So that's fun, plus all the typical averages like number of words and words-per-minute.

Oh, yes. There are also badges to win. Because, honestly, who doesn't like badges? Now, I kind of forget 750 Words during the NaNo off-season (shame on me) so I only have badges for joining, writing three days in a row, and writing five days in a row - but there are a ton of other nifty ones to get. The badges are based on birds, so you can aspire to penguins and a phoenix and what have you.

Anyway, if it's getting into the habit of writing that is giving you trouble, this is definitely a good site to try.

1 comment:

  1. This sounds like an awesome site! Thanks for the recommendation. I've heard of it before but now it sounds really useful. =)

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