The Friends & Members of 750 Words

750 Words exists because of mutual good will between the people that run this site (Buster & Kellianne) and the people who use it (you). The site wouldn't exist without the generosity, patience, and humor of everyone involved. For the first 3+ years that the site was running (Dec 2009 to May 2013), the site was free to use but with some encouragement to donate. That served us well (and most importantly, generated enough income to keep the site up), but as the site grew the need for support also grew.

On June 12th 2013, all existing users of the site were given lifetime free accounts (we hope you'll continue to donate when you can). New accounts created after June 12th, 2013 are now required to become members within 30 days after signing up in order to keep writing. Everyone will always have access to previous writings, stats, etc, even if they choose not to become members.

We're listening to your feedback and want to make sure that first and foremost, we offer a friendly and safe place for people to dump their private thoughts. I expect that we'll continue to adjust the way this all works for the near term. Thanks for being an awesome community!

Who runs this site?

Our names are Buster and Kellianne, we live in Berkeley, California with our two sons (Niko and Louie) and this is something we've built and run in our spare time.

Badge.latte<a href="https://750words.com/auth">Sign up or log in</a> to buy Cups of Patronage

Notes of inspiration from members

3 cups

A little more motivation to remain in the running for the next month…

One Month Challenge Bounty from David Habib on Fri, Oct 01
2 cups
Double Down on Charity Note from Beverly Army Williams on Fri, Oct 01
1 cup
More badges for accomplishments

I love badges!

New Feature Vote from lacinda on Fri, Oct 01
1 cup

I just completed my first One-Month challenge and I am very delighted. For the first time in my life, writing has become a habit and I look forward to doing it every day. Sure, somewhere along the line, I felt like I should skip a day or two. But at around 10pm, I had that nagging feeling inside of me that told me to boot up my laptop and write. 750 words a day is now an attainable goal and I refer to it as my “bare minimum”. Before, it took me forever to even get 500 words. Now, I can write 2,000 words in a row without feeling like losing steam.

I have been recommended this site on FaceBook to my academic friends. In graduate school, the sooner you finish your thesis or dissertation, the faster you see yourself walking down the aisle to receive your diploma and get hooded. While 750 words a day may be too much for people in academics, the practice of writing every day is not. I hope my friends will take my advice and join this site.

Thank you for making this site available free of charge, Buster. Every day, I feel a lot better coming here to see another day marked as “completed.” Sure, those badges are silly but they do keep me motivated. It is like playing games, as soon as I get to one level, I want to get to the next. I hope there will be some badges between an albatross and a phoenix. Also, I hope there will be more badges beyond the phoenix as well. For example, there should be a badge for those who write everyday for the whole year. That would be really cool.

Double Down on Charity Note from Dao Lam on Fri, Oct 01
1 cup
More badges for accomplishments

I enjoy the feeling of getting rewarded and just seeing the little badges along the top of the screen is amazing! Thanks!

New Feature Vote from Courtney Smith on Fri, Oct 01
1 cup

As a patron of NaNoWriMo too, this website helped set me up to not only get in the habit of writing everyday, something that i desperately needed to do, it also helped create such an interesting flow of ideas! Thank you 750! _

Testimonial Note from Courtney Smith on Fri, Oct 01
1 cup
One Month Challenge Bounty from Anonymous on Fri, Oct 01
1 cup

This site has been great for really getting me to sit down and write. I’ve used it for morning pages, to bang out fiction, and even write a message to an old friend that I wanted to reconnect with.

It’s flexible enough to accommodate whatever I want to use it for and has just the right amount of motivational tools — reminders, badges, and a bit of friendly competition — to keep me going.

Many thanks for a great site!

Testimonial Note from Anonymous on Fri, Oct 01
4 cups
Double Down on Charity Note from maf on Fri, Oct 01
2 cups
More badges for accomplishments

I have to say that I love collecting badges and I wish there were more of them! For instance, perhaps there could be a badge for completing a monthly challenge, that is awarded each time you complete it. Or perhaps there could be a badge for completing 60 or 90 days in a row, or 2 or 3 consecutive monthly challenges. I would definitely love to see more badges for long-time 750words.com posters! Thank you!

New Feature Vote from Anne Gaal on Fri, Oct 01
1 cup

Yesterday I finished my first one month challenge. I have tried other months but always missed a day or two for silly reasons. I feel so accomplished now that I am on the Wall of Awesomeness for a few reasons; most of them are silly, but the challenge helped me come to some really big conclusions and put these things into action.
The biggest thing that has come out of this one month challenge is me ending my 2 year abusive relationship and beginning to move on. Without 750 words I know what I am doing would have been much more difficult. I am so thankful to this website for providing a forum to express my thoughts and feelings in a very cool way. I am almost to 100,000 words and I know that I am finally on the right path, despite how difficult these last weeks have been.

Thank you for everything. You have truly changed my life.

Testimonial Note from Amanda Zakoske on Fri, Oct 01
2 cups

Congratulations to all of us who crossed the finish line! Don’t stop now! You are on a roll! Did you know that if you do something for 40 days in a row it creates a habit? If you are going to have a habit, this is a good one to have and you are now 3 quarters of the way there! Happy Writing :)

Peace & Love,
Holly M. <><

One Month Challenge Bounty from Holly White Roddam on Fri, Oct 01
1 cup

I’ll pass on going into detail, but: Buster Benson, 750 words literally saved my life. I’ll never stop writing. Thank you.

Testimonial Note from kian on Fri, Oct 01
11 cups
More badges for accomplishments

Please, please, please make more badges to spur me on. I am running out of steam at day marker 211 having spent the last 111 days not having any accomplishments lauded.
Yes, I’m a child. But I embrace my neuroses.
thanks for all the great work :)

New Feature Vote from Pamela Dulaney on Thu, Sep 30
4 cups

I’ve just completed the September challenge after discovering the site in mid-August and writing every day since. A recent Patron wrote that the site has got them back into doing regular writing and become a part of their daily routine. That is definitely my experience. I’ve been meaning to start regular writing for years and I suppose things came together recently but it’s finally happening, with a large part due to the addictiveness of 750Words. I try to write my pages in the morning and have used them to exorcise negative emotions, write character sketches or sections of stories, and for journalling. I’m now planning to add extra time into my day for “proper writing” (where I’m not racing for a word count, and quality over quantity), but I wouldn’t be thinking of that now without having got the confidence at 750Words to see that I could write every day. I’ve signed up for Nanowrimo in a month and am planning to use my morning pages for it. Roll on the 100,000 word mark. Thanks Buster and everyone for making this site a fun, motivating place to come every day!

Testimonial Note from Thor McCready on Thu, Sep 30
1 cup

After my first ten days here, I want to express a genuine appreciation for this site. I love using 750 words! It’s fun and useful and helps me practice enjoying the process of writing, which is a major improvement over feeling pressured by my perfectionism while writing. Using this site also allows me to have fun with my competitive nature, instead of feeling driven and pressured by it. I’m dreaming of seeing that Turquiose horse badge on my stats page at the end of October. Thanks for creating and maintaining this space, Buster.

Testimonial Note from Wendy Beall on Thu, Sep 30
1 cup

as i close the door on september, i have now been writing 750 words every morning for two weeks. it is amazing how this has become such a part of my day in such a short time. i love to write and having the goal of trying to reach 750 words every morning has really helped me kick writing up the list as something i should do.

i am dealing with quite a bit right now; death in the family, relocation, new job, and 750words has been a place for me to dump a lot of the emotions and thoughts i am having right now. it has also become the place to chronicle what is going on in my life and what i want to go on in my life.

i love it. thanks for the site.

Testimonial Note from James Edward Hervey on Thu, Sep 30
4 cups

Yesterday I reached 100,000 words. Lots of words, and some of them helped me write papers last spring; some of them helped me participate in classes and respond to reading intelligently. Some of them bolstered my spiritual journey; some called in aid for other people who were in need of prayers. Some words took me on a short fictional journey through characters I have created. Some words helped me process complex emotions during my first year of a second marriage. I may have written 100,000 words before, maybe even a million words, multiple times, but not with the discipline and focus that I got from visiting this site every morning and having it count my words, analyze their content to some extent, and reward me for my daily grind with silly animal stickers. Just like way back when I studied piano and got a silly animal sticker when I had memorized a piece. I like that then, and I like this now. 750words has, as I knew writing could do, generated thousands of new ideas and recombinations of thoughts that have propelled me along my way toward a dissertation in the long run, but toward papers of note in the semester run. I am grateful, Buster.

Testimonial Note from Anonymous on Wed, Sep 29
1 cup

Well done to everyone who completed this challenge! You are fabulous!!

One Month Challenge Bounty from Anonymous on Wed, Sep 29
1 cup

I started writing here 13 days ago, thinking it would be an interesting diversion and something to kick-start my writing again…it’s been all that and more than I expected, too. Writing every day, every morning, has been illuminating and surprising and a comfort as well, a place where I can get out all the crap bothering me, the preoccupations of the day, and then I don’t have them rattling around in my head. So thank you, 750 words. Cheaper than analysis and much more fun! And I love the badges. Can’t wait to earn my Turquoise Horse :)

Testimonial Note from Anonymous on Wed, Sep 29
3 cups

It’s built my confidence that I can write regularly and well. It’s got me into good solid habits. I’ve only been writing on this site since June, but already it seems hard to believe I did without it! Thank you, Buster!

Testimonial Note from Yonmei onIJ on Tue, Sep 28
1 cup

We are awesome! (I’m assuming I too will make it to the end of September.) Thirty days, 750 words a day, WE ARE AWESOMESAUCE.

One Month Challenge Bounty from Yonmei onIJ on Tue, Sep 28
2 cups

Sometimes I go into San Francisco to write with a friend at a local coffee shop. A few doors away is 826 Valencia (the mothership, so to speak). Although I knew they were located in the city and was actually very familiar with the anthologies that had been produced there (we used to sell them at a job I used to work at), I had never actually seen it for myself. This month, the display is messages in bottles. There’s something very satisfying seeing the creativity that’s gone into creating things like that. Knowing that my patronage helps 826 Seattle makes it even better.

Double Down on Charity Note from Jacqueline A. Gross on Tue, Sep 28
2 cups
Timer

I’d love to see a timer added to the site, one that would be voluntary. I find that I focus better when I’m doing timed writing. It also serves as a way to clean things out of the brain quicker.

As I said, it would be voluntary. If someone wanted to use it, then they could. Or not. I like the idea of having an extra something that gives me an umph.

New Feature Request Note from Jacqueline A. Gross on Tue, Sep 28
8 cups

This comes a bit late…I wasn’t very solvent around the end of August! I joined the August Challenge and my pledge was 8 dollars (or cups, in this case) if I succeeded…and I did, so here they are, as bounty, better late than never.
Today also marks my 70th day, and while I may sound nonchalant about it, to contemplate this sends a shiver of anticipation down my spine…I can’t believe I haven’t missed a day since I started writing (it’s so unlike me! LOL) and though this may seem strange (it does to me) writing 750 words has become such a a part of my life and routine that I really don’t find it hard to do anymore; in fact, it’s missing a day that has become nigh impossible. I tell myself that I may give it a miss just once, to see what that feels like, to show myself that I can do it all over again, or that the badges don’t matter, but when evening rolls around I start to fidget, to fret…once I was even drunk and had just 17 minutes left before midnight, and I was panicking openly and violently! It’s great to be addicted to something good, for once.
Buster, thanks very much for this site, it’s been wonderful and you’re an ace guy!

One Month Challenge Bounty from Smallest Forest on Sat, Sep 25
1 cup

Hey, I’m not gonna lie… I’ve been in a bit of a rut, and then magically, a friend put up a link to 750words.com on Facebook… I’ve always been the dreaded writer who didn’t write, a million ideas a day and no production… 750words is a brilliant idea, a gentle push to do something I’ve always meant to do… its early going for me, but 750words has been the best thing I’ve done each day this week so far… and it feels great. Thanks for the service you’ve provided.

Testimonial Note from Thomas McDonald on Fri, Sep 24
6 cups

I’m celebrating receiving my Phoenix badge tonight. Whoo Hoo!!! I can’t tell you how tickled I was to see the new badge after I wrote tonight. Whee!

Way back a few months ago (like 101 days to be exact), I had a trip to the emergency room for an asthma attack and missed writing my 750 Words after maintaining an 83 day writing streak. It broke my heart. Since then, I’ve been kicking myself about it even though really it wasn’t anything I could have helped. Stuff happens, after all.

Yet, as I neared 100 this past couple weeks, for some reason I can’t explain, I found myself dragging when it’s come to writing my words.

This note is to help remind anyone at that kind of point to just keep putting one word after another. They don’t need to be brilliant… not every day is a gold letter one. But each day is one more closer to the end of the month, to the next goal, and badge. And when you get there? THAT feels pretty darn good.

Thanks for such a great site, buster!!

Testimonial Note from Gaelyne Gasson on Thu, Sep 23
2 cups

This is my weird way of celebrating reaching 100 days. I’m happy to add to this great charity.

Double Down on Charity Note from Gaelyne Gasson on Thu, Sep 23
2 cups

I made it 83 days and had a set back, but I got back in the game immediately and finally reached the Phoenix Badge. This is my weird way of celebrating – with lots of Coffee-Note sharing! Enjoy!

One Month Challenge Bounty from Gaelyne Gasson on Thu, Sep 23
1 cup
More badges for accomplishments
New Feature Vote from James Edward Hervey on Wed, Sep 22