I have to give props to all of you working on completing the NaNoWriMo challenge. I considered joining the challenge myself. Unfortunately for me, I was a latecomer and kept making up excuses not to write during each day. Still, I perused forums of people discussing their progress and their frustrations. On one of these, writeordie.com by Dr. Wicked was mentioned and I was curious.

I moseyed on over to writeordie.com and tried the web app (it’s free!). I’ve tried all of the different ‘consequences’ modes as well as each ‘grace period’ level. On the gentle mode, once you stop writing a popup reminds you that you’ve stopped and need to keep writing. In the normal mode, you hear the dulcet sounds of Hanson if you’ve stopped writing. Believe me, you’ll start writing immediately after that starts. In kamikaze mode, the app will erase your written work!

The ‘grace period’ modes simply determine how long the app will let you go without writing. I have been keeping it on strict for myself. I tried evil on kamikaze mode and it was frightening. Forgiving mode takes too long for me to suffer the consequences. It doesn’t push me hard enough.

You get to choose your word count minimum and your time limit. Once you’ve reached your word limit, the punishment will end and you can continue writing if you choose, but you can also stop without further consequences. Once you’ve finished, simply hit done and copy your work to whatever program you save your work to and voila! you’ve managed to get past whatever hump/plateau/block you were suffering from!

It is a great app to use to bust your writer’s block. It’s helped me tremendously to get some writing done this week. Head on over to writeordie.com and give it a try. You won’t be disappointed.