Stretch Your Goals

Photo Courtesy of PublicDomainPictures.net
By Gerd Altmann

Alright, I'm stretching my post writing muscles for my return to OctPoWriMo and warming up for a good deal of writing!  Gear up for some style, some freeform, and many interesting words. 

You should be too! Warming up that is. During the pre-writes, I'll be sharing cool tools I use to write and some pretty sweet resources. Also, I'll be taking topic requests. 

Now, the single hardest challenge I face is consistency. Say it again: CONSISTENCY. Now there are many people who call me a nerd, they're absolutely right. I have to make everything a game, including my writing. 

How do I do it?
Well there's a little web-app I use and absolutely adore. I stumbled upon it while gearing up for NaNoWriMo last year. This is an app that lets you battle monsters with your words as well as tracks how many you write and how much time you spend writing. 

What is it? This wonderful site called 4TheWords!

How this works is that you'll pick a monster to battle based on how many words in what time limit. You'll write and you'll write because words are how you "attack" the monster. When you defeat it you get quest items, upgrade items, and experience points. That's IF you defeat it. How do you lose? Simply by not typing what you said you'll type in the time limit. Don't worry there are enough options for most writers, at least if you're not George R. R. Martin. 

Why do I love it? I really love watching numbers and bars move. This makes it a game and my character has a nice little goal now. There are a ton of events to unlock wardrobe items (which is purely superficial but awesome) and it always comes down to "I just gotta fight one more" and that'll keep me writing. The best part is I started becoming a lot more aware of how much I was writing per hour, which is a big deal for me considering I'm a full-time writer that writes fiction and screenplays for other clients. It gives me a loose idea of what I'm getting per hour. 

Oh oh oh! It AUTOSAVES! On the downside, it autosaves, so be careful if you delete stuff because you WILL lose it if you close out of the window. You can easily duplicate a copy though. 

Also another notable feature is the project organization. I love it. 

Sure, it's super easy to cheat, you can always copy and paste already written words for your quota, but let's be real you're playing against yourself at that point. 

How much is it? The first month is free but it's only $5/month, which is me drinking one less beer. I get a 3-month subscription for the price of a whiskey which is pretty cool. 

Okay Bev, you love it, do you work for them? Actually, I don't, I'm not that cool. 

However, I DO have a referral code to get free months. OGNWL83348  Obviously I'd appreciate it greatly if you use it, even just to try it out and it's fun to have friends around.   

Yes, I totally am writing my posts here, fighting some Lorsas which are 575 words in 50 minutes.

Time for the Indie Ebook:

Autumn Poetry by Jan Darrow

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