The Friends & Members of 750 Words

750Words is the closest thing I have to a religious commitment. It is a ritual of my belief in the writing life–not a delusion of grandeur, but a testament to the power of making your thinking visible. I’m fully aware that not all people write, but all people do think, even if they do it poorly. Writing changes that. It does so both in the consumption of GOOD writing as well as in the production of your own writing over time, regardless of the quality of your craft. I knew some years ago that Cameron was onto something with her Morning Pages. But, the longhand wasn’t working for me. You see, I hate my own handwriting, but am quite proud of my ability to type. Also, I’m a far different person than I was then, and 750words.com has been a part of that evolution let alone possibly a key ingredient to sustaining its continued trajectory. Even when I fall out of the daily routine for a spell (which I regularly do as a non-dogmatic human), I always experience a redemption when I return. It feels like no other experience. My faith in this ritual, this experience is fairly well committed. I can’t imagine life without it, even if I’m not the most robust disciple. When I love it, I love it wholly, so thank you for that Buster. Four cups to you.

Thankyou for this brilliant, simple and super effective site! In the short amount of time I have been using this my work has blooooomed! I wasn’t even aware that I could flow like this! Yeaah baby! How great does it feel to be in this state where I know I am contributing to a healthy habit and that it will happily stick with me?? Massive gratitude to you guys for creating this and I will share and share and share it :)

Before I found this site, I would only write when I found time to do it. Now I actually make the time to write, which sounds like the same thing but hopefully it makes sense to people out there.

I am completely and utterly inspired by this website. I am a lifetime member because I got in early because how could this possibly be a bad idea? I find that I am always in need of a supportive community of writers looking for that extra inch of clarity and 750words has continued to provide that to me in times of need, in times of serenity and in times of pure happiness. I am proud to continue to use this site and plan on using it for as long as this wonderful resource exists. When you find an oasis in the desert, why would you build your home anywhere else?

Remember you don’t have to do this. You get to do this. To write every day is a privilege, like coffee, to be savored.

“I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m finding that …” people are obsessively concerned that they are obsessively concerned about Death.

Why is that?

I’m concerned.

I’m concerned that people are obsessing over the wrong things, and are therefor living disordered lives. The sole end of your life, your entire ‘reason’ (your ‘end’) is your death.

And you’re concerned your concerned about that?

You celebrate the completion of something. “Completion.” Guess what that means? To complete something is for you to ‘kill’ it and for it to ‘die.’

That’s why so many people never get anything done. They’d rather, obsessively, prolong, artificially, the life of something: their project at home, their dead-end job, than to complete it, naturally, ‘kill’ it, and move on with their lives, no longer attached to that thing.

But no, they keep feeding the external thing with their own lives so that this thing, this job, this doctor’s thesis you’ve been working on for seven years now, this room you’re going to tidy up ‘when you get to it’ but you never do, this just-this-one-more-level-in-this-video-game that never ends, this whatever-in-your-life-you’re-attached-to that you keep feeding with your attention grows bigger and bigger in your life, until it is everything, it sucks up all your time and all your attention, it’s the big, white elephant in the room, and the only thing that isn’t there any more is you. Your husband can’t talk with you, because he’s talking to your job, not to you, any more.

Congratulations, you’re NOT concerned about Death, you’re concerned about doing a good job at your job, a perfect little cog in whatever wheel that feeds the beast …

… by sucking out your soul.

You know when I know that I have reached down deep enough into me, and how I know that I really haven’t opened up my heart, in my writing?

I look at my stats. If I don’t see ‘Death’ there, I know I haven’t done my work. I haven’t tried hard enough. I didn’t let go of this or that compulsion.

I haven’t truly lived, if I don’t truly die.

My daughter celebrates a birthday. Death.

I get promoted to ‘Senior developer.’ Death.

We have a new baby. Death.

I finish my taxes. Death.

I write a new chapter. Death. I publish that chapter. Death.

OMGosh, I finally, finally write ‘The End’ to “My Sister Rosalie.”

Death. Death. Death. And that death, I’m scared (death), just might kill me.

Isn’t that what you’re afraid of? That if you actually do something, and face your fear, and walk right up to it, embrace it, and with it, move forward into that new chapter of your life …

… aren’t you actually afraid you’ll die?

And, this time, the fear is justified: you actually will die. The old you will die, and the new you will be born, and you’ll actually live, for goodness sake, unencumbered by that stupid, pointless thing that was tying you down to who-you-used-to-be, and because why, because you were so frikken attached to that something, that pointless thing, that nothing: that job, or that thesis, or that Mommy van and everything that it says about you (that everything that you think other people think about you, but nobody really cares about you, and if they did care about you, you know: really care about you, WOULDN’T IT BE LOVERLY?).

But no, you’re too scared to think on your final end, you are dust, and everything you do is empty and meaningless, no, you’d rather care about your job, or about how you think other people think about you, than actually kill those things binding your life, constraining it into this tight little box that you can pretend to control, so that you can ‘live’ your ‘life’ on ‘your’ terms, worrying, obsessing, over everything, and accomplishing nothing.

When you accomplish something, you kill it in your life, so that it becomes free of you, and gets to live, and so that you become free of it, and you get to live.

But, oh, noes! That’s too scary and unpredictable (Death), and We. Can’t. Have. That.

Death.

The autocracy of ‘oh, I’m not scared of death, I don’t even think about it, because that so not cool!’ has moved Death from ever before you, so now it’s behind you, biting at your heels, the invisible monster under the bed you refuse to confront, so that, paradoxically, you nerve more and more about it: you’re giving Death life, and killing your self in the process. You’re scare to die, but you won’t admit that, not even to yourself, so you will never truly live.

I’d prefer to put Death front and center. And you know what? When I do, it is so liberating. I am going to die. I am going to die today; I am going to die tomorrow. I don’t know when, precisely, but I do know that it will happen in my life.

So, is this thing, this little thing worthy of my time and effort? Yes? Then I will do it, and put my hand on the oar and pull with all my might and pull this ship into battle, for … Today is a good day to die.

No? Then fuck it. This little thing is not worthy of my time nor of my attention? Fuck it, and fuck you and your petty fear of death, refusing to live, and refusing to let me live and revel and dance gleefully in this life I’m given. You can live your small, little, mousy life in your little, tiny box, scared of everything, but not concerned with death, because that’s not P.C., but you’re not going to drag me down into the sewer of your empty, grey, and only-existing-and-not-truly-living life.

I’d like to start a new trend here, standing against this wave of fear and conformity I see at present. I’d like to be the one to stand up, and to be proud of the fact that one of the things, and, most times, the primary thing, I’m concerned about is Death. I’d like to propose that when you, dear writer, check your stats to see how Buster and Kellianne, and Dr. James W. Pennebaker have to say about what you say to yourself in your writing, as opposed to how you truly think and feel about yourself (eh, you’ll get there, … or you won’t), and how you see Death prominent, or even preeminent, that instead of being afraid or angry or perplexed, that …

That you’re proud.

“I’m thinking of the final things, the last things,” you say to yourself, proudly.

I’m letting go of this, so that I can choose that. I’m dying, in my writing, and, projecting: I’m dying. Full Stop.

I’m dying.

I am but dust, and to dust I shall return.

How then, shall I live?

More badges for accomplishments

I love the badges. My husband says if he knew that’s all it took to motivate me he would’ve started offering me badges a long time ago. I’d love to be able to earn multiples of behavior badges, like if I do the Speedy Typist for another 10 days straight, I would see 2 Cheetahs. That would be awesome.

More badges for accomplishments

More badges for accomplishments

i think it’d be cool if there were more weird/creative badges to work for while one is on one’s way to earning the big ones, which take a lot of time.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m finding that the “concerned mostly about” stats seem to be getting more and more out of whack. It’s truly disconcerting to be told that I’m mostly concerned about Death when I’ve been writing a congratulatory note to myself celebrating the completion of a task that I accomplished. What’s up with that?!

More badges for accomplishments

I just think it would be even more fun added badges as you get higher.

I have really enjoyed the first few months so much so despite having a free lifetime account I decided to subscribe. The major reason was of course the immense benefit it has on my mental state overall, but also just that it’s that fun thing every day where my inner child is chasing the badges.

It should be fun, and could be so much more fun adding more badges as you get higher. As I am honestly a bit scared that it will demotivate me a little bit as they are drying up… I feel it already with how long I have to 100 now… and then how I see the gaps get a lot bigger later…

this wonderful site is helping me on my journey to become a freelance writer.
It’s a treasure

Not how I intended to use 750 at first – but I discovered that using it as a daily journal has not only helped me work through a few issues, but has led me to some huge realizations about my life and how to change it and move forward. It’s almost better than chocolate and beer! :-)

More text analysis

Please add support for languages other than English. (Dutch in my case)

Love this site… for the longest time I kept throwing away each page of journaling after I wrote it. intuitively I didn’t want to keep all that paper as I had done assiduously in the past. but I also didn’t want to use my blog… because it wasn’t writing for the public. for the longest time I wrote on my blog but just saved as a draft… but this is sooo much better… and the badges give me metrics to shoot for… and the analysis of what I’m writing is fun and develops my self-awareness! thanks!

I’m really enjoying 750words.com! At first I thought, I’ll use this as a private journal, but then, I’ve come back from dinner or teaching with an idea for a character, or a story, or whatever, and I just let it flow here. It’s really a fun platform!

An iPhone/iPad app

I use my iphone and ipad more frequently than my laptop

More badges for accomplishments

More pretty birds, please! :)

One Month Challenge are a glorious way to motivate onself to write every day. I hope you guys can make it all at least once :) Good luck for the last contestant of July!

I’ve always known I was a writer, but as an adult I’ve been fighting it as a silly pipe-dream. By encouraging me to write every day, 750 Words has rekindled that lifelong love, and been instrumental in my decision to pursue it as a career. A lot of things have been happening very fast since I made that decision, and I’m so happy about all of them. Thank you for this, 750 Words.

I really love having this tool. It allows me to incorporate Morning Pages into my life in a way that writing them longhand never did. Not only can I get them done more quickly, but the speed has actually liberated what comes up for me in writing, making them more effective. This has quickly become one of the most powerful and most frequently used tools in my life.

I just handed in my masters thesis and 750 Words was an integral part of that process. So much of my thinking and drafting was worked out on these pages over the past 56 mornings. Thanks are also due to Stan James and Diana Kimball for their coincidentally coordinated nudges. I was reminded of 750 Words right when I needed it most.

Fastest words/minute

I’m a numbers addict and while the graph already vaguely tells you how fast you were typing during your fastest minutes, I’d like to see the exact number how many words I wrote during my fastest minute.

As I said, it can be seen from the brilliant graph, but not exactly. Also, speaking of the graph I’d hope the numbers on the axis in it were fixed and not adjusted based on how fast you wrote – at least give the option. Cause when the top is some odd number like 77 it becomes even harder to figure out how fast you were writing from the bars.

Anyway that’s just nerding out with the numbers which I love, I won’t mind either way. As I’ve stated before, I love this site regardless and it has become a big part of my life.

Jarkko
http://becom.in

I’m finding this website great for just writing about my day or stream of consciousness stuff of what comes up while I’m typing. I’m finding it very helpful to just purge my brain of particular thoughts instead of going around and around on particular topics without really getting anywhere.
Cheers for the awesome resource!

Secure server for writing

It’d honestly make me feel better.

Improve the daily reminder email

I think it might perhaps be generative for the daily email reminder to occasionally include a suggested writing prompt for the day. It could be highly philosophical or pedestrian, but either way the suggestion as a starter might help clear away the cobwebs on those uninspired days.

From Positive to Negative to Positive

So, I spend the last month or so averaging ‘Negative’ in my overall lexical anal
ysis, and that BOTHERED me, that I was negative. “I’m not negative!” I groused,
“Look! Every day, I’m WAY positive, so why am I averaging negative?”

I was really positive about the whole experience of being (acurately) labeled ‘n
egative.’

rolls eyes head-desk

But, today, I’ve just pushed the average analytical factors to ‘positive,’ again
, and so I’m now back at the top of my form and back in the game! … really exc
ited, even, to have to be working today and tomorrow for work, just because mana
gement says so, and who am I to turn down overtime?

Always a silver lining, I pray, … I just have to be strong enough to look for
it, even though that’s really hard sometimes.

Now, also, I’m working on something that I’ve never measurably done: extroversio
n. Really cool! I get to choose to be shy and quiet and thoughtful (and, oh, so smart!) or I can be outgoing and confident … and thoughtful and smart, too, bu
t instead of keeping that to myself and in my world, I can try to share it, and
to see if it lights up other people’s faces, and see if I like that, and see for
how long I wish to maintain that.

Extroversion. I’ve never, ever remembered myself being this way, but, for the pa
st month the analytics have been candy-red (‘Extroverted’) not silver-turquoise
(‘Introverted’) … so I actually can be diplomatic and customer-facing, a trust
ed and dependable liaison, instead of just a brilliant and dependable algorist a
nd subject-matter expert in category theory.

I can write and publish my stories, and I can spend time with my family, playing
with them, and having a great time doing it: sharing myself, not just to the pa
ge, but to others.

I can be me, and I can have plenty of space of you in my life.

Neat-o!

Now, I’m going to go off by myself and work all weekend while my dear wife takes the girls to the museum, and, now, I’m going to make time for family, too. I’ll remember my contributions to math and technology, and historical and science fiction, and I’ll also treasure my time spent with family and friends, the people
in my life.

love, geophf