Over at Slate magazine I found this fascinating article by Jacob Brogan involving an app called Flowstate which has a very unique way of trying to get you to write more…

The Flowstate App Wants To Help You Write Faster

How does Flowstate do this?  Easy: It has a timer and whenever you pause or stop, the work you’ve done begins to fade away.  If you take too long, it’s gone for good.

Now, I understand the idea behind this: Rather than have people pause or hem and haw, this program forces you as a writer to go, go, GO and not pause.  I imagine the thinking is that this will bolster your ability to write quicker and finish what you’re working on.

I can see that.

I can also see that, depending on what you’re writing, its a stupid idea.

If I’m writing a blog post like this one, I tend to get it done relatively quickly.  However, I often have to go back and correct problems, either grammatical or general, to ensure whatever I’ve written makes sense.  Further, there are times when I have to pause to check a website or grab a bit of dialogue or paste an image, etc. etc.

If I were working with Flowstate, I wonder how long it would take me before I rammed some sharp object through my monitor.

It’s even worse when we’re talking about my novels.  If I had to break-down my writing habits with my novels, I’d say I spend maybe 40-60 percent of the time simply thinking about what I’m working on.  I then spend perhaps 30 percent of the time actually writing -taking many breaks here and there to think– and another 10-30 percent of the time revising my work after printing it out.

If I were using something like Flowstate, what I’d be doing is effectively changing my whole method of writing and, it is my belief, I would be doing myself a great disservice.

I hate wasting time writing things that I subsequently have to cut out.  I noted before how some 30,000 words written in my latest novel had to be either eliminated or re-worked to fit the story.  It was during the writing of these words (and they were from different parts of the book) that I was spit-balling, ie taking flights of fancy and seeing where they led.  Usually, to a dead end.  Now imagine I write most of my novel this way!

30,000 words could easily become 60,000 or more!

If you feel a program like this one might help you write more, then by all means give it a try.

The reality is that you will write more if you dedicate yourself to doing just that.  Make the time each day to write and you’ll be surprised when one day you look back and realize you’ve written quite a bit!