Write or Die: A Word Processing Program That Compels You to Keep Writing

I'm not a writer in the conventional sense of the term. But writing is an important component of my work. I need to come up with clear, crisp, and hopefully entertaining prose quickly. When I'm trying to think of a joke, I can sit at my keyboard for far too long, staring at the screen. So the word processing program Write or Die might be just the tool I need.

Write or Die is designed to compel people to get over writer's block. If you stop typing, after a while, the program begins to delete what you've already written. Like running on a treadmill over a lava pit, you have to keep moving or lose everything.

(Image: Amazon)

David Nicholls wrote the novel Us on Write or Die:

“I was convinced that there was a novel in me and I had to just spew it out on to the page,” Nicholls told an audience at the Cheltenham Literary festival. “I produced huge piles of paper and I saw it was all rubbish. It was as if I was writing with a gun to my head.”

Nicholls threw away his 35,000-word manuscript. But it gave him a great premise for a novel. He rewrote it and published the manuscript. The resulting novel, Us, was nominated for the Man Booker Prize.

-via Marginal Revolution