Dr. Wicked's Writing Lab and Write or Die!

I was recently made aware of Dr. Wicked’s Writing Lab, a blog dedicated to writing, and to a recent post, Write or Die.

Write or Die is a writing motivator that is both fun and serious. According to Dr. Wicked:

Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you’re fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences.

Writers can set word count and/or time goals and the level of strictness the system will use, then either write until they meet their goal or suffer the consequences.

That sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?

Just for fun, I gave it whirl, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. To be honest, I figured if it got me started writing for the day, it would have been a successful experiment.

But I was rather cowardly and set a word count goal of 250 words for ten minutes with the strictness level set at ‘forgiving’. Pedestrian, wouldn’t you say?

What I ended up with was over 400 words and the day’s blog post (Writing Left Handed).

A good start, but not what I really needed to do for the day.

So when I had more time that evening, I set a more challenging goal of 1,000 words in 30 minutes with the default strictness level of ‘strict’ (did I mention it goes up to ‘evil’?) and a mode setting of ‘normal’ (did I mention it goes up to kamikaze, then electric shock mode?) and started writing.

I must be honest. The hardest part of the process was starting. Until I typed the first word, my time was my own. Once that first keystroke is made, though, the clock starts ticking down and the word count starts ticking up (as long as I’m writing, that is). I set everything to go, then found a bunch of things to do.

It was hot, so I closed windows and turned on the air.

Better go to the bathroom, too.

Does the bathroom need to be cleaned?

Are there dishes to do?

The front yard needs to be mowed; too bad Neal has the mower at a client’s house. I wonder how long it would take to cut the front yard with a scissor?

You get the point.

I did do some of those things, but not all of them. A glass of chocolate milk (over ice) and a chunk of sharp cheddar cheese (sustenance!) and it was off to the races, so to speak.

Just for kicks, I deliberately stopped writing just to see what happened. The screen began to change color and that was interesting. But when the shrieking started, I thought it best to get back to writing. That was exactly the type of sound that would start a cat fight in the Lewis household and I’ve had enough of that for a while!

It took less than 14 minutes to write 1,000 words on my chosen scene and by the time the timer ran out on the half hour, I’d written 1,256 words. That’s not bad, considering I was wanting to go to bed instead of write tonight!

And the fanfare that sounded when I reached the word count goal and again when I reached the time limit was cool, too!

The moral of my story? Give this tool a try! Whether you’re a serious writer or would like to be, this is a great way to get the wheels turning. Who can tell what the result might be?

Now, if only Dr. Wicked could come up with something like this for artists!