When you write, you write

Hello, reporters! For the last year or so I’ve found myself needing to write a lot – like thousands of words – and casting around for tools to help me do so.

The coolest-sounding tool was the Squibler Most Dangerous Writing App, which deletes your writing if you stop for even a few seconds (!). Unfortunately, it seems to have either been broken or updated, because all it does is export your text if you stop.

That’s kind of cool, but I was looking for something that was willing to beat me over the head for the sake of productivity, and I found my way to Write or Die.

If you stop typing for more than a few seconds, the Write or Die screen starts to bleed red and honk at you – yes, honk. The free version offers a whole dashboard of settings to choose from, like word count, timer, and what exactly you want to pop out at you if you falter (spiders? office zombies?). It includes all kinds of ridiculous settings I didn’t even try, like “Horrible” and “Disable surrender.”

Write or Die may not the most on-point tool for journalism – most of us are trying to write fewer words, not more – but if you need something to kick your butt over a certain productivity hump, here you go. Keep writing, reporters!