New things for 750words.com
I added a few features over the last couple days to 750words.com, my daily, minimalist, private, unplanned, unfocused writing app.
- Search – you can now search your writing in case you want to go back and find something you wrote about on some other day.
- Export – you can export your daily writings by month.
- General stats
- Timer – You can see how long, on average, it takes you to write 750 words during a given month period.
- Speedometer – You can see how many words per minute you write, on average, to get to 750 words
- Streaks – you can see how many days in a row you’ve completed your 750 words
- Scoreboards per month – go back and see who won on any month that you did some writing
- Customize – you can change the font color, font size, font family, and background color of the writing page to suit your aesthetics
- Extra point for writing in one sitting – added an extra bonus point if you finish your daily writing in one sitting in less that 30 minutes
- Last 10 completed pages – you can see who the last 10 people to complete their pages were, and how long it took them.
- Tab – you can now tab from within the textarea that you’re writing, in case you want to indent or format lists that you’re writing. All these little tweaks that make it feel more like a real writing tool are super interesting to me.
This is a silly project, but I’m finding that it does have a noticeable effect on my mental state and productivity (on things other than working on this project) when I’ve done my daily writing. Which is why I guess I’ve been doing it on and off for 4 years, when I needed some forced brain purging.
Anyway, I’m getting a kick out of this. I hope you do too!
January 11th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Wow! I’ve never banged out my 750 words so fast as today when I knew I was being timed! Thanks for implementing that. The “share stats” thing is kind of scary because my common phrases include the topics and names of people I’m writing about, which I don’t ever want exposed. But maybe that’s just me.
January 11th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Yeah, that’s what I figured would be the case for many… that’s why it defaults to private. I feel a little sensitive about making mine public too. For those who are comfortable with it, they can choose to do it, I guess.
I’ve got another text analysis thing that I think will be much easier to share if people choose to. Just wait a couple days, it’s gonna be pretty amazing.
Maybe if I get a moment I can create a way for people to create a blacklist of words they don’t want to share publicly in the frequent words list.
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Hello! I found 750words through lifehacker. It is an INCREDIBLE concept. I am an artist/musician/writer by trade and this practice of stream of consciousness flow is by far the most powerful and helpful in all my crafts. I already used it to a certain extent, but the idea of having the content analyzed and charted, plus the challenge to do so every day for an entire month is mouth-watering! I was very much dismayed to find the new signups disabled. Also, very little of the website is working; I can’t read any of the public stats and most (or all) of the drop down links do not work properly. I’m sure you know about the problems, but I would like to add my enthusiasm and anxiousness to the pool, to perhaps encourage the betterment of the project? Just wanted to chime in to let it be known that this is a product I would use regularly and for which I would consider paying. I do hope to be one of the April writers. Incidentally, I wish there was a way to start your 30 days at any point in the month. March 15th-April 13 would still be a 30 day increment.
Anyhow I love your blog, love your ideas, and I thank you for sharing! I’m grateful for your efforts and look forward to further endeavors.