DrWicked.com

Announcing Write or Die Desktop Edition!

2009-10-23T21:38:00.002-05:00

I am proud to announce the release of Write or Die: Desktop Edition! Now you can have all the procrastination-destroying benefits of Write or Die without the giant kitten of the internet pawing at you for attention! New features, new look, new sounds, same awesome!

Features:

Offline, unplug and write!
Custom colors
Custom sounds
Variable grace period
Statistics (high score, average wpm, total words written)
Save to file
Add to existing file
Publish to blog
Head to Head Word War!
And many more

It is written in Adobe AIR so it works for Windows and Mac and it only costs $10. So unless you're really attached to your writer's block, you might want to check it out.

Ritual vs Habit

2009-07-20T11:55:00.003-05:00

"I am a brain, Watson, the rest of me is a mere appendix"

Those are, as you may have guessed, the words of Sherlock Holmes. To provide some context, in the story The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone, Watson and Holmes's landlady are increasingly concerned about Holmes because he refuses to eat until he solves the case. "What one's digestion gains in the way of blood supply is so much lost to the brain."

I am not advocating an eating disorder in pursuit of your creative craft, but there is truth to what Holmes says. This is the second Monday in my "Monday is creative day" regime and so far it's working splendidly (I know it's only been a week, but optimism is essential). Think about your day, think about when it really starts. For me personally I feel like the day picks up speed as soon as I have breakfast and does not slow down until late at night. This may not be true for everyone, but I would suggest to you that you pinpoint when your day starts and try to get some writing done before then.

In the case of postponing breakfast, one might think that this is "dangling the carrot," and for some it might be, but I find that this is a simple way to exercise your willpower and make your writing time your own.

What we're aiming for is a writing ritual, not necessarily a writing habit. Rituals are a lot easier to start and maintain than habits, which is why they're employed in some form by every religion on earth. Let's take a look at the word habit:

Habit noun
3b: The involuntary tendency or aptitude to perform certain actions which is acquired by their frequent repetition.

This would be a very nice thing to have, I would like to get to the point where I write so consistently that it is second nature. I would like this to stop just short of hypergraphia, which would be interesting but also terrifying. On the other hand...

Ritual noun
Any customary observance or practice; the prescribed procedure for conduct.

This seems well within our reach. We use rituals to develop behaviours which can turn into habits. We can't aim directly for the habit or we will fail. Only bad habits are easy to acquire.

So when we choose, for example, to abstain from food until we have written, we lend the writing act a significance it might not otherwise have. We also sanctify (literally: to set apart) that period of time, recognizing it, consciously and subconsciously, as important.

I encourage you this week to set apart some time for writing. As always, write whenever you can, on the back of a napkin, in the margins of your newspaper, but also find your own ritual to build walls around your writing time. Perhaps in building your ritual you will acquire the writing habit, but either way, you'll get more writing done.

The Morning Muse

2009-07-13T10:49:00.001-05:00

I’ve decided to start a new regimen. I’ve got a new job, I no longer work at Starbucks so I never again have to wake up at 4AM, I usually get to work by 10:30 or so and stay till around 7. It’s a good job, so far, I love it. But in a way I miss the things that happened to my mind when I was forced to be conscious at an unreasonably early hour. I’ve been, overall, less creative and less productive with writing. Even my Tweets have suffered because I’ve got this blasted morning muse that I can’t seem to switch over.

So I’m off every Monday and Monday shall now be my creative day, the day on which I court my morning muse and get things done. I will not allow myself to eat or watch movies or leave the house until I have blogged and written. I’m starting with a goal of 500 words and intend to increase it. I find that it’s better to start small because otherwise one gets discouraged and falters right at the start.

So here’s the plan,

The newsletter will be far more frequent
The podcast will actually have new episodes
This blog will be a little more about my life and thoughts

That’s a start and a good one. And hopefully this inkling of productivity on Monday will lead to more throughout the week. Another perk of my job is that I get to sit at a desk with a computer with internet access so it is conceivable that I can create from there. UNMITIGATED JOY!

So I’d like to thank both of you that are still subscribed to this blog, there will be more, it will be better. I’ve felt like the biggest hypocrite, I made this thing that helps writers to write and I hardly write at all. The meandering tone of this blog post makes me want to delete it but it’s going out their and I’ll just have to keep adding better and better words to make up for these.

Thanks and stay tuned.

Write or Die Desktop Edition Feature Requests [UPDATED]

2009-05-26T19:19:00.001-05:00

I did an informal Twitter poll of what people would like to see in Write or Die Desktop Edition, here are the results, feel free to add your requests in the comments.

Things I'm Planning to Implement
A Mac version. (@callista, @kyrina)
Choose your own sound (@AlabasterFalcon, @belcasas)
Linux version (@Kyrina)
Save to disk (@unfocusedme)
Post to blog
Full-screen mode (@rjbman)
Tweet results

[NEW]
Cumulative words typed, "high scores" ( @joaovc)
Different warning animations/images (scary clowns perhaps)
Set your own time period. (Allie, Seliza)
Spaces don't count, perhaps? I sometimes cheat by pressing the space bar (Allie) [Note: So do I]

Things I hadn't thought of but are good ideas
Kamikaze mode eats more words, faster (@Caanz)
Boss/Panic Button (@saoki)
Append to existing file (@jedidiplomat)
Simulated blood pouring down the screen when you fail? (@Hoshiko_Malfoy)
Different warning colors (@lostcheerio, @tinahunter)
Change font size (@wielding)
Allow/disallow unlimited pauses (@lienne)

[NEW]
Daily Goal in addition to per session goal (Allie and Jo)
Graphic to visualize your progress (Allie)
Ability to change background color to something more soothing (AdventureAddict)

Things that are unlikely to happen (but thanks anyway)
Spellcheck (@rjbman)
I want to make a separate super-spellcheck program for writers but IMO this would be counterintuitive for Write or Die.

Kittens (@saoki)
You must supply your own kittens.

iPhone version (@unfocusedme)
If you can convince me that this would be useful and/or find me a good iPhone developer I will reconsider.

Save to .doc file
Word formatting is annoying and exists mainly for higher level editing, I'm planning on sticking with txt files for simplicity

This is just the beginning of the list, if there's something missing that you'd like to see in the desktop version, feel free to tweet me or comment below.
Thanks a lot!

P.S. Does $10 sound like a good price to you?

Write or Die Update

2009-03-02T12:57:00.000-06:00

Minor but important update to Write or Die. It seems that Flash version 10 broke the autocopy functionality so I all but removed it and replaced it with a script that makes sure you want to leave the page before you navigate away and possibly lose your precious words.

Let me know in the comments if there are any problems.

Desktop Edition is coming along, I'm hoping for a March release.

Stay tuned

Writing Hacks: The 48 Minute Rule

2009-02-28T23:07:00.000-06:00

One of the biggest problems I've been having lately is my internal (or infernal) editor sitting on my back looking over my shoulder like a highly literate monkey. This monkey is hungry for words but it is very selective about which words. That's often the problem with writers, something inside them gives them immense guilt if they do not produce anything but the same force seems to be employed in rejecting what few words they do manage to crank out. I've been plagued with this and I've hardly written anything this year because of it. So instead of lamenting this fact in private, I've opted to share it with all of you along with a few solutions for combatting the evil editor monkey. This is the first in a series of newsletters dealing with the topic of motivation and productivity in writing. If you have any ideas you'd like to share on this topic, please feel free to drop me an email, I'd love to hear your solutions.

The 48 minute rule

Often times the problem with getting things done is the simple tendency towards distraction. As creative people, we simply cannot be trusted to remain on task. It is no easy thing to sit still and do the same thing for a set period of time each day. Let's say you've managed to snatch from the jaws of your busy life 2 hours in which you plan to work on writing. I'm sure you've had this happen, the 2 hours seem so vast and full of potential but before you know it you've wasted an hour and a half simply distracting yourself. Either you're folding socks or reading the news or God forbid you turn on the TV and your time is gone.

Those 2 hours loom too huge in your mind, I personally cannot imagine myself typing for 2 hours straight, as much as I'd love to be that productive I simply cannot work with that large of a chunk of time. On the other hand, when I've worked on NaNoWriMo I've been very productive in much less time because it's all the time I have and I can easily work all the way through a shorter period of time.
The answer, therefore, is to break the time down into smaller chunks, and the magic amount of time is 48 minutes. Get a countdown timer or egg timer, either software or hardware. I recommend ChimooTimer for Mac or EggTimer for Windows. Or just use the timer on Write or Die.

Break each hour into 48 minutes of productivity and 12 minutes of break time. You'll find that it's much easier to write this way rather than trying to force yourself to write constantly for several hours, or even one whole hour.

Your brain likes structure and digestible amounts of time. This is why it's easy for people to get sucked into watching hours and hours of television, because it's broken down into small chunks. The 12 minutes of break time also helps you put off anything else that might interrupt your writing because you can say to yourself "I'll do that on my break in x minutes" instead of "I might as well do that now, it's not like I'm going to get anything done." So all of the sudden your writing gains a greater importance in your mind. You can put off checking your mail and twittering till you're done with your current bout of writing.

Think of it as breaking your work time into mental chapters. When you read a book there are logical stopping points where you can put the book down and do something else. If you plan these logical stopping points within your writing time, you'll find yourself being more productive by far.
Next week I'll give you another tip on motivation and productivity, and it most definitely will be next week because I'm going to write and schedule the darn thing right now because I'm on a roll. Thanks everyone for joining and I look forward to being more frequent with my newsletters.
Godspeed and good writing.

Writing and Technology: Finding Your Place

2009-02-07T11:05:00.020-06:00

As writers, we have more available technology than is probably good for us. Technology can be useful or distracting. Technology can help you or hinder your creativity. Given the wide spectrum of options, it is the job of the creative person to carve out their own space in the continuum of technology. Artists must choose if they work best in charcoal, clay, sharpie, pen and ink, or on the computer with tablet and vector drawing program. Often times the writer will ignore the concept of different media that might be more conducive to his or her creativity. In this article I'd like to consider some options available to the writer.

Pen and Paper

This is the bottom of the spectrum, the way that people have been writing for thousands of years. Before 1873 when the typewriter was invented this was your only option for drafting prose. Current novelists like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman still write their first drafts longhand. Personally, I can type a lot faster than I can write, not to mention a lot more legibly. My hand also cramps up a great deal when I write for any length of time so this is not an option for me. In favor of the pen and paper option, besides the fact that some great writers swear by it, is that it's a great deal more tactile, there is a sensory joy to writing on paper that you don't get from keys on a keyboard. Another benefit is that you must keep writing forward, you can't go back and effortlessly delete words or sentences, your only option is to throw away the entire page, which would certainly make me think twice. Write or Die wouldn't be necessary in a world where everyone who wanted to write was writing in such a permanent medium. You also have the bother and benefit of needing to type up your written manuscript. This is time consuming but also allows you to catch mistakes and trouble spots

that are harder to spot on the screen. You're also forced to re-read your entire manuscript, which, judging by many modern novels, most authors do not do.

The Typewriter

Ah that romantic machine-gun sound of the typewriter. Regardless of implement, many aspiring novelists fancy themselves toiling away in a small attic room in the city, slanted ceilings making it difficult to stand up straight, hunched at the desk with their typewriter, a stack of clean white pages on one side of them and on the other side, a stack of paper stained with GENIUS! Typewriters share the benefits of pen and paper, once something is typed, it's rather more permanent than words in a word processor on a computer. I have tried to draft stories on typewriter to keep myself writing forward, I dragged out my parents' old electric typewriter and it whirred softly at me when I typed. The trouble with me is that I must fix things, it is a natural part of my
process to misspell words, use backspace and correct sentence structure as I go. I would very much like to achieve better accuracy but in the heat of composition I want to keep my inner proofreader silent. All that said, I recommend borrowing a typewriter to see if it helps you keep writing forward.

The Computer

This is the one we all know, the fact that you're reading this means you're fairly well-versed in your computer's capabilities. Everyone knows about typing in a word processor but I'm going to discuss a few more options.

Word processor.

This is the default tool for modern writers. At some point I will do an extensive article on some tips and tricks for Word and its ilk, such as cutting down the clutter, but for now I will just assume that you're all familiar with the function of a word processor. The drawbacks of word processors are that they are often bogged down with a great deal of unnecessary features. They are fairly good for editing but even when editing the

spelling and grammar check can give a writer a false sense of security. Spellcheck will not catch homonyms such as their/there/they're and grammar check can be downright non-sensical. That said, if you've only ever used Microsoft Word I recommend giving OpenOffice.org a try. If you're on a Mac I cannot recommend

Scrivener highly enough, it's the best software for organizing story ideas and research. If you have tons of different documents all containing different versions and bits of your stories, you can integrate all of them into one document. You can't go wrong.

AlphaSmart 2000

Now that we've covered the common
options, I'd like to introduce a new one. Consider dialing back your
place on the technology continuum to a slightly earlier era. You
don't need to buy a typewriter, you don't need to buy a fountain pen.
I am talking about the AlphaSmart series of word processors,
particularly the AlphaSmart 2000.

These little machines go for about $30-$40 on eBay and it's the best money I've spent on a writing implement. It is a simple blue word processor, it's like a keyboard with a very small brain. You get four lines of text and 8 different files in which to save your work. It requires no special software, compatible with Mac, PC and any computer into which you would plug a keyboard. When you're ready to transfer your words to a computer for editing, you simply connect the AlphaSmart to your computer just like you would a keyboard and it simply re-types everything that you've typed into any document. Word, blog window, text editor, anything at
all.AlphaSmart have released models since the 2000 but in my opinion they have just added more distracting

features, thus negating the attraction of the originals. Not to mention the AlphaSmart Neo goes for about $300. For the additional $260 you get some PDA functionality and (I think) e-mail. But we don't want those things, we want simplicity. One thing that I forgot to mention, you get upwards of 200 hours of use out of three AA batteries! That alone is reason enough to pick it up just to have on hand when your laptop dies and you're far from an outlet. I love my AlphaSmart 2000, I love that I can take it into a field and write and not worry about losing it or damaging it as I would my laptop. The only somewhat specialized piece of equipment you need is a Male to Male PS/2 keyboard cord. That sounds more complicated than it actually is. While you probably won't be able to find one at your local Best Buy, they usually ship with your AlphaSmart if you buy them on eBay, otherwise Fry's or Micro Center will carry them. The easiest way is probably to get one online, Newegg is a great resource, here's the cable you'll need.

By the way, I have nothing to gain from this, I'm not selling them nor do I work for them, I just think they're a great tool for writers. They're usually available on eBay in droves because one of their primary uses was for schools so there were a lot of these made.

If you have any questions about AlphaSmart ownership or other suggestions for additional points in
the history of technology where you carve your niche, please make a comment or send me an e-mail.

Good luck finding your creative space in the technology continuum.

Creator, Critic; Process, Product. Full interview

2008-12-22T18:39:00.001-06:00

Here is the interview I did for The Thing Is.co.uk, it has been three weeks and is still not up on their site so I think it's okay to post it here in its entirety.

TTI: The numbers of NaNoWriMo participants have increased massively from 21 in 1999 to 101,510 in 2007. Why do you think this is?

DrW: When the internet is at its best it is focused on community. This is exactly what NaNoWriMo provides. Ask just about anyone who is participating about their favorite aspect of NaNoWriMo and they will say the community, the people that they meet through the forums and the write-ins (participants gather to sit and write and talk about their novels). That is what accounts for its spread, it's hard to find kindred spirits in the world but if you can get into a community of people pursuing the same goal and having fun doing it, it is more than likely that you'll find someone with whom you can mesh.

TTI: Do you think writers have to be self-obsessed in order to write? To elaborate, the idea of someone thinking that the general public would like to, or perhaps even should, read 100,000 of their words is perhaps childish in some respects. Does it therefore take, in some respects, a selfish, stubborn, child-like mentality to be able to write?

DrW: One could claim that it is hubris to open our mouths, we are assuming that everyone around us wants to hear what we have to say. Yet we consider a person shy if they don't think they have anything important to say and therefore remain silent. The writers who are self-obsessed have a pleasant tendency of weeding themselves out of the literary gene pool simply because they lack balance, they either write for everyone and produce watered-down works or they write selfishly and become so disgusted when the world does not beat a path to their door that they rarely try a second time.

TTI: What is the point in churning out 50,000 words without any kind of editing process?

Your Write or Die tool, like NaNoWriMo, promotes writing without procrastination. Do you think this really has any merit? All of the world's greatest novels took years to write, so what's the point in trying to churn out writing as fast as possible, just for writing's sake?

DrW: If you had the apparatus to look inside the head of any creative person you would find twin beasts; we will call these the Creator and the Critic. In the well-organized mind they grow together: the more one creates the sharper one's eye becomes to the details in the creation of others, the more one looks critically at the works of others the more one is driven to create something better. The problem occurs when the Creator sits down to create; the Critic cannot differentiate between the process and the product and therefore begins to make loud comments about how horrible this creation is and how it could be so much better.

The goal of Write or Die is to get the Critic to shut up during the process and wait for the product. A lot of people criticise NaNoWriMo, saying that it's about nothing more than churning out reams of bilge. These people have the same problem as the Critic, they do not see that NaNoWriMo (and Write or Die) is about the process, not the product.

So, these things must be separate: Creator and Critic, Process and Product.

It's true that most novels take years to go from inception to publication, it is foolish to argue that point. I simply posit that the answer for the writers toiling in obscurity is to first take away the toil and then tackle the obscurity. Writing Does Not Have To Be Hard. The creature inside you that makes it hard is not the Creator, it is the Critic, holding you back and telling you it's not good enough. Make the Critic wait for the product when it can be used for things like editing, and by the time you're ready to edit it will have plenty of things to say.

TTI: On the NaNoWriMo site, it states that one of the reasons to participate is "to be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work." What makes a "real novelist"? Do we simply have to write a novel, or does it need to be read by others, or perhaps even published?

DrW: If you read Chris Baty's book (No Plot, No Problem, Chris is the creator of NaNoWriMo) or, indeed, more of the site, you'll get a feeling for his sense of humour and the tone of the whole endeavour. It's a literary freefall and it revels in irreverence. I think that "novelist" is defined, in this case, as "one who has written a novel." Much like "writer" can simply mean "one who writes." I think the word that is held aloft is "Author," which connotes publication and, to some extent, renown.

TTI: Why are people so obsessed with becoming writers? Shirley Dent of The Institute of Ideas said in a recent article for the UK Guardian that: "literature is about standing on the shoulders of giants, enabling us to see beyond, and understand more, than our own little slice of time and space". Do you think people want to write simply as a way to become "giants" and that NaNoWriMo offers a quick fix towards this end? As the NaNoWriMo website says, one of its reasons to participate is "to be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties".

DrW: I think everyone dreams of becoming an Author because it is the one thing that every literate person is capable of doing. Nearly everyone writes almost every day, be it a grocery list or an inter-office memo. We know how to read, we know how to write and the telling of stories is wired into us at a primordial level. It is almost unique among creative pursuits in that there are no tangible obstacles between the aspirant and success. To be a famous actor you must be beautiful (or talented, I suppose). To be a famous musician you must have not only the gift of musicianship but also equipment and connections. But to be an Author it takes only words, paper and practice, with the added benefit that you can safely work in the proverbial closet without any danger of embarrassing yourself.

I don't think that Chris Baty or any of the 101,000 participants are under the illusion that on December 1st they will emerge from their dimly-lit hovels with their lengthened fingernails scritching at the binding of the Great American Novel. It's true that the best-seller Water for Elephants began as a NaNo novel but I can assure you it is longer than 50,000 words and went through many revisions before publication. But I rather think that that book would not have been started if it weren't for the impetus of National Novel Writing Month.

I am also not suggesting that Write or Die will, by itself, produce great works of fiction. It is a very purposefully a simple application. You can't format your text, you can't spellcheck your document, in its current incarnation you are forced to copy to a word processor to even save your work. As I said, it might not produce greatness, but it might induce the seed of something great. At the very least, what it can do is grab your inner Critic by the neck, shut him up and hold him at arm's length so that your Creator can get some actual work done.

TTI: In the same article, Shirley Dent also wrote that "contrary to the popular myth, we don't all have a book in us and pretending otherwise devalues great writing". To what extent do you agree or disagree with her?

Everyone might not have a book but every single person is a reservoir of Story. I knew a man named Bob Williams, he is rather old and now too sick after dealing with several bouts of pneumonia to come to the coffee shop where I used to meet him every Sunday. That man is a towering giant of story, he can take any topic and tell you about a fascinating life experience he has had. He's lived everywhere, done so many things from working for the Secret Service to designing rollercoasters. But he's never written a book. If I had publishers beating down my door to publish my writing I would turn them away just to have the book he would have wrote.

The next time you're disappointed with the year's crop of fiction, think about what would happen if everyone planted a story, not all of them will grow into books, but the crop would be wide and bountiful and ripe for harvest.

This is Dr Google's Office, we're going to refer you to a specialist.

2008-12-19T19:42:00.001-06:00

I would love to hear the ways different writers do their research. I always feel at a loss trying to contact different professionals for info. Having web search is great, but some questions I need direct answers to so, is there any set rule on how to approach for info?

-Novice writer

This is an excellent question. There are a couple of ways the researching writer can get beyond Google and Wikipedia in their quest for story fuel.

Reference Materials

The most surprisingly neglected place to go for research is the standby of writers of old, your local library and the librarians within. The people sitting at the reference desk have a degree in finding information and they have vast quantities of it at their fingertips. Not only do they know the best techniques for finding web data, they also have access to catalogues and archives that we mere mortals cannot access. Not to mention knowing where to find a great deal of data in the research books available at every library.

If you are a student or you know one you can do some digging yourself, colleges and universities subscribe to searchable archives of research and reference materials. One of the many underutilized resources for which your college tuition is paying.

Getting in Touch

If your question is not one that is easily searchable or your search proves fruitless, your next option is to find an expert. The internet can also help in this regard.

The first step that I would take is to look for an online forum. There are hundreds of thousands of forums on the internet and it is likely that you'll find one that is related to your question. It's best to read the FAQ on any given forum to make sure that you're posting your question in the right place but there are a few rules one should Always follow when posting on forums

"I have a question" is a terrible topic title. Everyone has a question. Ask the question in the topic.
Think about the best way to ask your question. Be succinct and clear. Every person that asks "Please explain more, what do you mean?" is a person who probably could have answered your question the first time around if you'd asked it right.
Thoroughly search the forum before you ask a question, use the forum's internal search as well as Google to make sure the information hasn't been addressed already

Other alternatives to forums include sites like Yahoo! Answers and Experts Exchange.

The next step is to get in touch with a professional directly. Try a professional network like LinkedIn. LinkedIn even has an Answers section where you can ask questions of professionals. You could even try doing a Facebook search for a professional who you think would know the answer to your question and simply send them a message.

A service I recently discovered is Ether.com, which lets people talk to professionals on the phone for a set charge, either per minute or per block of time. Everything is arranged through e-mail and they can usually give you an idea of how long it will take them to answer your question.

A few guidelines to follow when contacting professionals:

Explain why you are contacting them, tell them you're a writer doing research for a story. If you're writing a murder mystery and send a doctor an e-mail containing only "What's the fastest way to drain blood from the human body?" you can count on having your e-mail forwarded to the authorities.
Keep in mind, professionals are just people who know more than you do about a particular subject. Always be respectful but don't be intimidated.After all, you probably know more than they do about dragons.
Thank them and offer to send them a copy of the book (upon publication), even if it doesn't get published, it is a kind gesture they may well appreciate, though they may not want to give you their address if you're writing about draining people's blood 8).

I hope that gives you some more options for research, if anyone has any particular question that they'd like to ask the community, feel free to e-mail me and perhaps I'll do a Pesky Research Question of the Week section.

Creator, Critic; Process, Product: In Defense of Writing Quickly

2008-12-05T17:13:00.000-06:00

Recently, Ian Shine from TheThingIs.co.uk contacted me asking for an interview. I'm not going to post the whole interview here because Ian hasn't yet posted it on the site so if you'd like to read the whole thing you'll either have to wait or else subscribe to the newsletter where I posted it in full. I welcome your comments.

IAN:

What is the point in churning out 50,000 words without any kind of editing process?

Your Write or Die tool, like NaNoWriMo, promotes writing without procrastination. Do you think this really has any merit? All of the world's greatest novels took years to write, so what's the point in trying to churn out writing as fast as possible, just for writing's sake?

DR WICKED:

If you had the apparatus to look inside the head of any creative person you would find twin beasts; we will call these the Creator and the Critic. In the well-organized mind they grow together: the more one creates the sharper one's eye becomes to the details in the creation of others, the more one looks critically at the works of others the more one is driven to create something better. The problem occurs when the Creator sits down to create; the Critic cannot differentiate between the process and the product and therefore begins to make loud comments about how horrible this creation is and how it could be so much better.

The goal of Write or Die is to get the Critic to shut up during the process and wait for the product. A lot of people criticise NaNoWriMo, saying that it's about nothing more than churning out reams of bilge. These people have the same problem as the Critic, they do not see that NaNoWriMo (and Write or Die) is about the process, not the product.

So, these things must be separate: Creator and Critic, Process and Product.

It's true that most novels take years to go from inception to publication, it is foolish to argue that point. I simply posit that the answer for the writers toiling in obscurity is to first take away the toil and then tackle the obscurity. Writing Does Not Have To Be Hard. The creature inside you that makes it hard is not the Creator, it is the Critic, holding you back and telling you it's not good enough. Make the Critic wait for the product when it can be used for things like editing, and by the time you're ready to edit it will have plenty of things to say.

Newsletter and Fame in 15 Minute Intervals

2008-11-30T16:35:00.002-06:00

Due to popular demand I have added the option to set your Write or Die time goal to 15 minutes.

Good luck to everyone who is frantically finishing their NaNo novels! You can do it! Someday I'll finish mine but I want to get the offline version off the ground first. Development is coming along, thanks all for your support.

I would also like to say how thankful I am for everyone who has written me and followed me and shared my site with their friends. This is the best I've ever felt about a project and I'm glad that I have helped some people with their creativity. In the month of November I had over 100,000 different people come to use Write or Die and I am grateful for each of them.

I have more projects in the pipeline, the largest of which will put your skills at writing good work, quickly to the test and I'd like to involve as many people as I can so please subscribe to my newly created e-mail newsletter for updates and writing tips. I will never spam you or sell your e-mail, not ever. What I will do is send you interesting links and writing advice in a weekly newsletter. Join in the conversation by entering your e-mail on the right side of this page or by clicking here.

Thanks again to everyone who has helped support Write or Die.

A Wicked Christmas Greeting, Write or Die Offline Development

2008-11-12T18:50:00.002-06:00

First and foremost I'd like to thank you all for your kind responses and feedback regarding Write or Die. I've been overwhelmed by how it has spread and how many people it has reached. So thank you very very much.
I'd also like to wish you a Merry Christmas (or Happy Holiday, whichever you prefer) and give you this by way of a greeting card. I usually write a Christmas poem around this time of year and this is it, please feel free to share it with friends.

The Grinch's Mother

A Sequel
The roast beast had been sliced the last toy was silenced
but that was not yet the end of the violence
Here is a tale that goes back up Mount Crumpit
To meet the she-fiend, the worst kind of strumpet
Though her son's heart was two sizes too small
The Grinch's mother, as you'll see, had no heart at all
She lurked in the depths, in the deepest of caves
Plotting to make all the Who's into slaves...

The other announcement I would like to make at this time is that, due to overwhelming demand, I am starting development on an offline version of Write or Die. It will include some new features, some fiendish, some helpful, but watch this blog for updates.

Thanks again to everyone for all your support.

Write or Die: New Features

2008-11-09T19:55:00.003-06:00

I promise that sometime soon I'll post something that's not blatant self-aggrandizement, really.
I've been gradually upgrading Write or Die based on a lot of great feedback from users.
New Features

Victory Sound: When you have reached either your word goal or your time limit, a majestic victory song will be played. This now only plays once, thanks for letting me know all of you who were getting annoyed with too much victory.
Variable Grace Period: This has been requested since I put out the first version and I'm pretty sure I got it working seamlessly. There are now 3 modes that affect how long the delay is between the last word typed and the consequences. Forgiving gives you a little longer than normal, 13 seconds to red, 23 to consequences. Harsh is the normal mode, 7 seconds to red, 17 to consequences. Due to surprising demand, I've added Evil Mode, which give you 1 second till red and 10 till destruction.

Enjoy, and let me know how you like the new features or if there are any problems.

Write or Die on CommandN, Delicious, glee!

2008-11-09T12:51:00.002-06:00

[UPDATE: They fixed my URL, they are fast and also awesome]
I got featured on the technology podcast Command N!

http://commandn.typepad.com/commandn/2008/11/commandn-156-november-7-2008.html
I am the featured web link towards the end of the show, but watch the whole thing, it's nifty.
Seem like a cool bunch of people even though they got my URL wrong.
If only I could get writeordie.com, that would be nice.
Also of note today, Write or Die was featured on the Delicious.com front page!
For posterity:

Click to save to your delicious bookmarks

Write or Die 2.0, Putting the "Prod" in Productivity

2008-11-07T11:18:00.006-06:00

We're one week into NaNoWriMo and many, many people have used Write or Die.
I'd like to thank you all for your feedback and for sharing this with your friends. Now it's time to introduce a few improvements to the application. No, there's still no Electric Shock mode, though if anyone knows a USB device manufacturer we could perhaps talk.
Without further ado I'd like to introduce:

Write or Die 2.0

Here's a rundown of the new features.

Auto Clipboard Copy! If you navigate away from the page it will prompt you if you'd like to have your work auto-copied to the clipboard. Should save some people some hair loss (credit)
Pause function added, but it will only work once! This is the only concession I make to your human needs.
Done button added. If you're done writing, click done and a frame will pop over the text box, showing you what you've written as well as...
Bragging Widget! On the Done Page, I've added a widget that you can copy to your page to show everyone how much you wrote and in what little time!
More Evil Sounds! Some people didn't think Rick Astley and Hanson were bad enough, now we've got the Devil's interval, among others.
Word Count decreases in Kamikaze mode for extra ominosity.

Please send me an e-mail if you have any comments about the changes or the application in general. I'll still provide a link to the old app if needed but I think this version is an improvement all around.

Rust and Ashes : Excerpt

2008-11-03T22:23:00.000-06:00

The night is quietly rumbling. Snowfall and gaslight illuminate the Loop and sparks fall like hellfire on the white drifts. He is looking out the spider frosted windows of his laboratory and wondering where she is now. He looks at the quite curious cat which is all that remains of the adventure. Having received the desired attention, the cat meanders elsewhere, twining its way through the shining copper tubing of the apparatus like a blue black thread. The darkened and cracked chambers, concoctions spilled from beakers like wax from an acid candle eating into the metal leaving a verdant patina. There is an anguished squeaking as he moves his desk from the dark corner where it, and several other less savory things, were living. He places it in front of the window, even though it is cold, so he can watch the snow, perhaps it will be warm by the time the tale is done with its telling. Assuming that winter ever ends, which seems increasingly unlikely.

Halloween, NaNo, Domo

2008-11-01T17:45:00.000-06:00

Last night was a lovely night for Halloween, this is my costume:

Got as much candy as one is allowed to get when one is the chaperone. No Take5s this year, which is disappointing.
In other news, apparently people like Write or Die

That makes me deep happy.
Went to the NaNo Countdown meetup in darkest Maplewood (there are THREE (3) Denny's in Maplewood, the one with the meeting was technically in Landfall, MN, pop 700, like a Venn diagram inside of Maplewood proper). It was fun, stayed till about 1 AM then jaw was hurting so bad that the words were no longer coming. It was good to see people though. I will most assuredly be attending more write-ins as the month plonks onward. Only have a mere 500 words so far. Time for more Write or Die.
Catch you all later!

Write or Die (Just in time for NaNoWriMo)

2008-10-29T07:44:00.006-06:00

Check out my Screencast Demonstration of Write or Die
or Watch on YouTube

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.

Many people find themselves unable to write consistently. I believe that this is because their reason to write is intangible. For instance, I want to write and finish a book because I want to be published and make a living as a writer. That goal is a long way away so I often find it difficult to sit down to the task of writing.

Conversely, I'm in a creative writing class for which I manage to consistently write and finish projects (albeit at the last minute). I therefore draw the conclusion:

A tangible consequence is more effective than an intangible reward.

-serif;">If I don't write stories for class, I will receive scorn from my teacher and a bad grade in the class. If I don't write my own stories I am only disappointing myself. I experience perpetual disappointment in myself so I'm kindof used to it. Add to that the fact that I simply have neither the self-discipline to write consistently on my own nor the capacity for self-deception that would enable me to create artificial deadlines. That is how Write or Die was born.

The idea is to instill in the would-be writer with a fear of not writing. We do this by employing principles taught in Introduction to Psychology. Anyone remember Operant Conditioning and Negative Reinforcement?

Negative Reinforcement "strengthens a behavior because a negative condition is stopped or avoided as a consequence of the behavior."

Consequences:

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
These consequences will persist until your preset conditions have been met (that is, your time is up or you've written you wordcount goal or both)

This text box is not a word processor, it is not for editing, the way to save is to select all of the text, copy and paste into your own text editor. The idea is to separate the writing process and the editing process as much as possible.

This is aimed at anyone who wants to get writing done. It requires only that you recognize your own tendency towards self-sabotage and be willing to do something about it. If you're sick of saccharine writing advice that no one could honestly follow and you want a real method to getting work done.

Works great for real deadlines too!
Excellent for getting your 1667 words a day for NaNoWriMo
Good for writing on lunch breaks, just enter 30 minutes in the time limit box

You can't explain to a child that they should eat their vegetables or do their homework because, a long way down the road, they'll be glad they did. You must explain to a child that if they don't eat their vegetables or do their homework there will be dire consequences.

Your inner writer is very much like a willful child, this is how you discipline it.

Quick and Dirty SFWA Submission Links

2008-10-26T13:39:00.006-06:00

For those who want to be accepted to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, there are a set of specific magazines in which you must publish. There is a list on their site but it is not linked to the publisher's respective websites. I linked them which should make it easier to find and submit if SFWA membership is your goal.

Analog Science Fiction and Fact (guidelines)

Asimov's Science Fiction (guidelines)

Baen's Universe (guidelines)

Brutarian (guidelines)

Cemetery Dance (guidelines)

Clarkesworld Magazine (guidelines)

Chizine (guidelines)

Cosmos (guidelines)

Dark Wisdom (guidelines)

Dragon (guidelines)

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (guidelines)

Odyssey - Adventures in Science (guidelines)

Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show (guidelines)

Pedestal Magazine (guidelines)

Realms of Fantasy (guidelines)

Strange Horizons (guidelines)

Subterranean Magazine (no unsolicited subs)

Writers of the Future Anthology (guidelines)

But the most wonderful thing about tiggers...

2008-10-06T13:33:00.001-05:00

HowManyOfMe.com

There is
1
person with my name in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Steampunk Fonts Vol: III

2008-10-02T00:26:00.001-05:00

This is the last in the series of fonts culled from AcidFonts.com. Pickings were slimmer in this the latter part of the alphabet so there's a bit more Art Nouveau influence in the selections, I hope it is useful!

I will do another series of these in the future so please bookmark or subscribe to my RSS.

Braindump

2008-10-01T23:51:00.001-05:00

Having iced coffee late-ish in the day is good for pinball and good for writing and good for blogging and good for cleaning out Google reader.

I have all but completely switched over to Google Chrome when I’m on my Windows machine at home. This makes me a bit sad because I rather like Firefox and I still use it on my PowerBook (which is out of commission right now because of a dead power supply, the third dead power supply, grr). But once they port Chrome to Mac I’ll probably use it there too. The thing about it is that it’s so simple, it’s like moving into a smallish apartment: you only bring with you the stuff you need and then you realize you need less than you thought you did and it makes your life better. I keep trying to make mental lists of things I miss about Firefox but they’re mostly bellsy whistles, like TwitterFox and FireFTP and Google Bookmarks integration (which I’m surprised aren’t synced but I suppose that will happen soon). The positive effect of having a browser that doesn't totally lock up and misbehave because of one bad page outweighs having plugins.

I also recently discovered mouse gestures, which are nice.

I've been reading the Graveyard Book, which is so very very good. To counteract its deleterious effect on my writing self-esteem I also grazed through a smattering of bad SF&F books at Barnes and Noble, this made me feel better. I did actually have a positive end in mind, rather than just putting others down to make myself feel better. I want to get a better feel for endings. I realize that I've started reading way more books and started writing way more stories than I've finished. That's why I get stuck in the middle, I simply don't have enough experience with the middles and ends of things. So I wrote a crappy, five-paragraph essay conclusion style last chapter. i.e, in the end, it all didn't seem so bad, and in conclusion. This was painful but apparently necessary because I figured out a couple story threads that I needed to weave and chapters I needed to write to get to anything like an ending. And of course I know that the ending won't be anything like what I wrote today but it at least gives me a direction, and at this point I'd rather be writing in the wrong direction than not writing at all.

Today Friend Bat perched low on the brick wall outside my Starbucks, here is his picture

I petted him very gently, he was soft. Then I washed my hands, not because bats are icky but because I was making drinks and I thought customers would probably appreciate clean hands on my part.

I also saw this today, which made me laugh, LOLSpeak auto ad!

To prove how ADD I am, I was almost distracted from finishing this by removing duplicate songs from my iPod.

One last thing, both of you reading this blog post should go out and purchase the new Enigma CD because it is deeply awesome.

Thanks!

Robert Redford's Hair, and other observations

2008-09-16T17:49:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine stated recently her admiration for the actor Robert Redford.
It has always seemed to me that his hair is a separate, alien entity from the rest of him, I would even go so far as to conjecture that it tells him what to do because it is threatening to eat his head.
Now, we have photographic evidence:

Sharks, Guns and Other things that get jumped

2008-09-14T21:57:00.000-05:00

I try to follow a fair number of blogs to get some general idea of what's going on in the world of the webernets, and what I keep hearing from any number of sources is that Steampunk is dead, over and done with.

This bothers me. And it speaks to the dreadful indie tendency of the internet where maximum clout is earned by being the first to declare something uncool. Being on the edge of cool is no longer enough, it is now necessary to prematurely declare the death of certain subcultures just so you can be the one who got over it first.

One of my favorite things about Steampunk is the work ethic involved, the time and craftsmanship that is in lovely opposition to a lot of the me me me now now now clamoring of culture. It's not likely to ever gain a lot of acceptance outside of a select circle of people for that same reason but I happen to like that circle of people. I also enjoy going to the Renaissance Festival, and while that might not be cool it's still fun and enjoyable to experience a version of the way things were. Why else do we read historical novels? Certainly Steampunk is no more authentic Victoriana than RenFest is a genuine mimicry of the actual Renaissance, but we are a romantic species and we enjoy this.

So stop trying to declare that Steampunk has jumped the shark, it hasn't even got its skis on yet.
In the words of many a drunken lout at the Renaissance Festival:
"I'm not dead yet!"

I did this tonight

2008-07-16T22:35:00.000-05:00

That is, I made my own laminar flow nozzle using the method they describe.
There shall be pictures and video later when it is installed in the back garden.