Write every day with 750words.com

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Gearing up for NaNoWriMo, I'm working on getting back into the habit of writing every day. After a busy summer, and a crazy fall so far, my writing has gotten more or less sporadic. Sometimes I wish there was someone to give me a push.

Well, I've found one.

The brainchild of Buster Benson, a Seattle-based writer, 750words.com is a site to get your creative juices running freely.

Unlike a blog, what you write is completely private. Unlike writing on your computer, you have some accountability.

Here's how it works. Users set up an account, and a blank screen pops up where you can write your 750 (or more) words. Your writing gets auto-saved every minute or so. When you reach 750 (about 3 pages), a pop-up box will let you know you've hit your goal.

Benson was inspired by the advice in The Artist's Way to write "morning pages".  These pages (either longhand or on the computer) can be about anything that enters the writer's mind. There's no pressure to be creative, just to empty out concerns, ideas, and extraneous thoughts. The process can free writers to tap into their creativity by emptying out the static. Benson calls it his daily brain dump. He explains more of the reasons for trying it on his blog.

Benson's site gives you the reminders and the motivation to actually write morning pages. You can choose to get an email (at the time of your choice) with a gentle reminder to get it done. Writers who use the site get points for 1)writing anything, 2)completing 750 words, and 3)consecutive days of writing. Users receive animal badges for achievements like writing quickly, or without distraction, or for multiple days of success.

If that's not enough, writers can sign up for a monthly challenge. Completing 750 words every day for a month gets your user name on the "Wall of Awesomeness", while slacking off tags you on the "Wall of Shame".

For the more nerdy writers, you'll find stats on how fast you wrote, a computer-generated rating of the mood you may have been in while writing, and all kinds of other information. However, what you wrote is still completely private.

I've tried the site for the last couple of days, and it's been very motivating to me. On Wednesday, I'll highlight a similar site to this one and let you know how it compares.

Would something like this make you more likely to write every day?