Write or Die!

Do any of you blog readers out there struggle with getting distracted when you really need to be writing instead? Do you lose your focus and log onto facebook or some other popular social networking site instead of working on hitting your 50,000 word target by the end of the month?

Okay, maybe I'm the only one out there who has this problem. I am the biggest procrastinator in the world, and I REALLY know how to waste time when I'm supposed to be writing. It's amazing how interesting my desktop background can be and how many times in a ten minute block I absolutely have to save my file and check my word count. Let's just say it's not very conducive to getting my novel written this month and leave it at that...

We were recently directed to an site here to try something called "Write or Die", which I did for my Sunday writing session. Talk about a complete changing of my ways - I hardly recognized myself after so much productivity!

If you read the "Write Or Die" blog, it explains why the program was created, but to sum it up, some of us just need to be prodded a little bit with a tangible deadline and threat of disaster in order to get creative writing done. For the full explanation, go here. There are consequences if you don't keep writing, and they run as follows:

• Gentle Mode: A certain amount of time after you stop writing, a box will pop up, gently reminding you to continue writing.
• Normal Mode: If you persistently avoid writing, you will be played a most unpleasant sound. The sound will stop if and only if you continue to write.
• Kamikaze Mode: Keep Writing or Your Work Will Unwrite Itself

Yes, it actually DOES start deleting your work if you don't keep writing - we tried it. Not only does it make a nasty noise, but it also flashes pink and red all over your screen until you start writing again. Remember that studies have been done all about how negative it is for teachers to use a red pen when correcting their students' homework? So how do you think that makes a person feel when their monitor suddenly starts flashing pink and then darker into red? It feels like the whole computer is about to spontaneously combust, that's how. I was so anxious the whole time I was writing that even though I told the program to give me 90 minutes to get my 2000 words written, I finished in about 35.

Holy cow, talk about an epiphany! So would I use the program again? You betcha! Will I buy the desktop version that just got released for $10? Yessir! Am I going to whup Tom's word count score one of these days? Um, I'm working on it....

-Amy