This week I focused my attention on a story I was writing, so I’ve not posted upon WordPress in the last few days. I had to envelope myself with that sense of self-discipline – which being on WordPress has helped me maintain since the start of 2015 – in order not to let the story become one of those half-baked ideas that sits in a drawer for another year.
I’ll post that story up by Monday.
Anyway, it was whilst researching this story that I came across a website called 750 Words (www.750words.com); I’ve no idea how I got to it during a random keywords search in Google, but I think I’ve found a potential cousin for all my WordPress endeavours.
The concept of the site is to encourage users to write at least – you’ve guessed it – 750 words daily. The authors of the site explain that it is a dumping ground to clear the mind for the day or ahead of more serious writing endeavours. You don’t have to worry about being word perfect: the site encourages the writer to write freeform about whatever comes into their head.
Sure, anybody could off-load their thoughts in a notepad each day, so what makes this site special? Well, once you’ve hit the 750 word mark and saved your work, you are greeted by an analysis page – and this is a really groovy feature. Here, you’re given a measure of the emotional content of what you’ve written about and the themes that you’ve covered.
Bar graphs and pie charts are used as part of the critique, making the info more easy to digest. When somebody presents facts to me in pie chart form especially, that is when I intend to listen!
The analysis also covers whether you’ve written in the first or third person. I particularly liked the word most commonly used feature: this will definitely be a useful tool in helping me avoid repetitive words and phrases in my story writing (I do tend to use the words ‘but’ and ‘however’ a lot).
In time, I will put a draft of a story as one of my entries. It will be interesting to see how the site analyses that.
There is also the chance to link up with other writers too. I haven’t looked into this yet, but, like being on WordPress, having the chance to connect with others who share the same passion is always a good thing.
The key thing that I have taken away from being on WordPress and 750 Words is that I can never be stuck for ideas of what to write about. Even if I just write something short each day, the fact is I’m being committed.
And that’s a good thing.
Have a good weekend, everybody.
P.S. I only put up a picture of a cake because cake is great!