Free and Useful: 750 Words

So in past lives (or previous years, or whatever) I’ve tried morning pages as recommended by Julia Cameron. Many a writer has, and a lot of those that I’ve talked to find morning pages incredibly useful. Some have told me they can’t write three notebook pages longhand first thing every morning, but even most of them wished they could.

I’m one of those who can’t. Sorry, I don’t think that’s ever going to work for me. Morning pages are supposed to be a brain-dump. The whole idea is to just pour everything onto the page without censorship or worry about tangents, but I find that nearly impossible. Writing longhand is what I do when I need to think about what I’m writing.

Enter 750words.com. The creator, Buster (or so he calls himself), also had issues with writing longhand. So he created a site that’s not about being social (I tried doing morning pages on my blog too, and it didn’t work for me either) but is about getting your words in. The site emails reminders so I don’t forget. It gives silly badges. It does funky metadata things that are interesting but not necessarily useful (yet). It’s helped a lot. I’ve written my words every day for two weeks (though I guess I didn’t wait for it to save last night and it thinks I broke my streak. Oh well. Last thing I need is to get compulsive about it, so I’ll let it go.)

I spend about twelve minutes doing it, usually, and my average typing speed is 52wpm on it. So clearly, I’m not taking much time to think–I’m brain-dumping. It’s lovely. Some fascinating stuff comes out! And it’s all saved by the site, but not accessible to anyone…I can copy and paste anything I need to keep, or download the entire month so far, or…lots of things.

The reminder is especially handy. I can’t do morning pages first thing in the morning on workdays yet. Maybe when I’m not going in half an hour early…but anyway. I leave the reminder unopened in my inbox until I have fifteen minutes or so, and then I go and do it and it’s still helpful. (Except for last night when I was exceptionally tired and at some points was typing “one two three” and so on because there were no words in my head. Still swear I did 755, not 745…)

Anyway. Useful, cool, and free site. Check it out if the idea of morning pages appeals. I’m getting some great ideas from my words, and figuring out some things I don’t always take the time to think about. It’s been even better since I broke the habit of making it 750 words of “I should do this today, and oh, I really should do that too, and should…”