If any of you follow authors on Twitter, you may have seen them refer to something called Write or Die.
Write or Die is software which is designed to make writers more productive. You can decide how many words you want to write in a specific amount of time.
There are three modes to choose from. Depending on the one you opt for, there are various consequences which will befall you if you don’t type fast enough to keep up the pace necessary to meet your goal.
Gentle Mode: This gives you a reminder to keep writing if you’re falling behind, but doesn’t include annoying sounds.
Normal Mode: Failure to keep up the pace will result in annoying sounds being played at you until you start writing again. There are various warning sounds to choose from, including ‘Air Raid’, ‘Evil Violins’ and my personal favourite (not), ‘Alarm Clock from Hell’.
Kamikaze Mode: If you stop writing, Write or Die will start eating your words. Literally.
Apparently, Write or Die can also tell if you cheat, as I discovered when I created this screen shot. I simply copied and pasted the following nonsense text, and the screen turned red and started yelling at me. Not very friendly!
As the title of this post indicates, I have a love/hate relationship with this software.
On the positive side, I find it enormously helpful on days when I’ve failed to meet my word count goal. I fire it up and force myself to type like crazy for a half hour or so.
It is fantastic for increasing productivity, especially in full screen mode. Procrastination and time-wasting activities such as checking my emails or Twitter are less straight forward than when I use Word. Seeing my daily word count stats soar is a wonderful feeling, and sets me up for another day of writing.
The downside of the Write or Die method is that quantity is not synonymous with quality. The chunks of text I’ve written with Write or Die are a mixed bag. Some are so atrocious that they’re unusable. No amount of editing can salvage them. Others are quite good, and don’t require too much tweaking before I add them to my current WIP.
I find Write or Die useless for writing dialogue. It takes too long to add the necessary punctuation. In any case, I generally write dialogue at a slow pace. It can be useful for writing short, descriptive pieces of text, or for scribbling my thoughts or goals for a particular scene, and then inserting the dialogue later.
Write or Die is seductive. Seeing my word count soar gives me a definite buzz. However, this can quickly turn to frustration when what I’ve written turns out to be crap. A high word count means nothing if the text produced is unusable.
If you’re a writer, have you tried Write or Die? Or simply set a clock and typed like crazy until the alarm went off? Does this method work for you?
If you’re not a writer, have you found ways to increase your productivity when writing emails/blog posts/academic papers, etc.? Do you find that the speed at which you write has an adverse effect on the quality of the work you produce?
{ 9 comments }
Heh. I use a different word processor like Liquid Story Binder if I am not feeling productive.
For me, word counts mean nothing and while I get that most people like something to help them feel productive…I dunno.
Feeling like I have to write quickly does affect my quality and having graded enough “midnight specials” from undergrads of all ages I would also have to use that as an indicator of quality being sacrificed at the altar of quantity.
But, how else do you measure productivity? I have read a few studies that show just writing something and having a set goal of writing X amount each day (not huge amounts, but let’s say 1K a day) does help improve quantity and quality.
As you can tell I am waffling on this subject.
I think it is one of those things where different things work for different people.
I have tried that.
Doesn’t work for me. If it’s not going to happen, it just isn’t going to happen and pushing will just make me wanna kill myself. Like writing most days doesn’t make me want to do that as it is.
I think if I tried to use this software, I would be driven to violence.
I have encouraged myself to write under a time limit; for instance, if I have to go somewhere in half an hour, sometimes I will see how fast I can write for that limited time period. I often do this when I write on my lunch hour, as well. This method works best for me if I already have the topic before I begin. If I know what scene I’m going to work on ahead of time, I don’t spend time reading over the last bits of the previous day’s work and pondering.
The speed of my work (and my mood while writing) seems to have little connection with the quality of what I produce. Writing fast might mean, in a physical sense, that I skip over little words while typing, but that’s easily fixed. If it’s a scene that requires deep thought, I usually don’t attempt to write in in a limited time period unless I’ve already planned it out to some degree.
For the most part, I’m a tortoise rather than a hare.
I use Microsoft Word, which has the word count in the lower left corner. I don’t time myself; that way madness (or just anger) lies. But I keep track of how I’m doing in my word count. It helps that I’ve got business cards that say I have an 80,000 word manuscript!
I can imagine using Write-or-Die to get out of a writer’s slump. I’ll report back when I need it, but for today, with thanks to the gods of writing, I’m good.
I use Freedom. It locks you out of the internet. http://macfreedom.com/ That’s my big time waster.
A first draft is a first draft no matter how fast you write it–it’s going to need editing. But that being said, I think everyone needs to work at their own pace. I know I can average about four pages a day without going crazy, so that’s what I set as my goal. If I try to write more, I burn myself out and it’s too hard to sit back down and write again the next day!
Fixed deadlines are the only thing that ensures full productivity. If I have to hand in a proposal within 24 hours, I usually can deliver. But that’s a rarity, thankfully, as the average turnabout is ten working days.
Without deadlines, though? I’m utterly useless. Shiny things are everywhere. Lack of deadlines is the reason why I have a mountainous pile of half-finished work-related articles, personal blog posts and reviews. Gah.
@Dhympna: Liquid Story Binder? Must look up… I’ve looked at the Dramatica Pro software with interest but it costs over $200. Er…no!
@Emily: I try to write every day, even if it’s only a few sentences. My goal is 1,000 words per day, six days per week. I am pea green with envy when I see authors tweeting about writing 5,000 to 7,000 words in one day. With my current schedule, and relatively slow pace of writing, that would never happen.
@Victoria Janssen: I’m also more of a tortoise than a hare, hence the Book in 3 Months Challenge. In my case, this really is a challenge!
@Magdalen: I had reservations about the newest version of Word when I upgraded, but I’ve grown to love it.
@Keziah Hil: Yep, I’m with you on the internet being a great time waster. Write or Die also locks me out of the net when it’s in full screen mode. This is an advantage, I must admit.
@heidenkind: Ooh! Are you also writing a novel? Four pages per day is a very respectable number. That’s probably around 1,000 words, which is what I shoot for as my daily goal.
I find there’s a limit to the number of quality words/pages I can produce in a day, even if I have the opportunity to devote more than my usual 1 to 2 hours to writing.
@Maili: Deadlines are an absolute must for me, even if they’re self-imposed. Since I began the Book in 3 Months Challenge, I’ve been posting my weekly writing progress on the blog in my Sunday round-up post. I doubt it’s of great interest to the majority of my blog visitors, but I find it beneficial.
It’s the old Catholic guilt thing: If I publicly announce my goal for the coming week, I have to meet it or I will feel bad.
@Sarah: Ah, but I don’t have that high, or that solid a goal.
I settle for about 150k-250k a year, but I typically write every day.