The Copywriter Underground

Getting words on paper (excuse the archaic reference) is either our job, our passion, or our biggest roadblock.

Of course, writer’s block isn’t exactly new. What is new are some of the high-tech (and often high-comedy) techniques we use to deal with it.

One of the oddest is the “Write or Die” Web app (found via Lifehacker), which uses a highly questionable negative feedback loop to “encourage” you to write, and frankly, I thought it was a hoot.

Negative feedback loops typically fail over time (the lab rat [us] becomes acclimated, requiring ever larger doses of negative feedback to generate the same response), but it’s something you should probably try at least once in your writer’s life:

The idea is to instill in the would-be writer with a fear of not writing. We do this by employing principles taught in Introduction to Psychology. Anyone remember Operant Conditioning and Negative Reinforcement?

Negative Reinforcement “strengthens a behavior because a negative condition is stopped or avoided as a consequence of the behavior.”
Consequences:

• Gentle Mode: A certain amount of time after you stop writing, a box will pop up, gently reminding you to continue writing.
• Normal Mode: If you persistently avoid writing, you will be played a most unpleasant sound. The sound will stop if and only if you continue to write.
• Kamikaze Mode: Keep Writing or Your Work Will Unwrite Itself

These consequences will persist until your preset conditions have been met (that is, your time is up or you’ve written you wordcount goal or both).

Stuck on a project? Tell your client you would have finished it, but you simply didn’t find Rick Astley’s whining voice motivating enough (stop writing in normal mnode, and you’re punished with Mr. Astley’s singing, a violation of the Geneva Accords if ever there was one).

Keep writing (or else), Tom Chandler.

write or die

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Need a reason to turn off that “you’ve got mail” tab, ghost box or other notification?

Every time it pops up, it takes an average of 64 seconds to regain your train of thought.

Via the Sydney Morning Herald:

It had been assumed that email doesn’t cause interruptions because the recipient chooses when to check for and respond to email (bit.ly/email3). But Dr Jackson found that people tend to respond to email as it arrives, taking an average of only one minute and 44 seconds to act upon a new email notification; 70% of alerts got a reaction within six seconds. That’s faster than letting the phone ring three times.

I’d add up the consequences of that 64 seconds of downtime by multiplying my daily email interruptions by 30 (days in a month), but frankly, I’d rather not know.

In truth, after years of doing things the same way – mostly because that’s the way I’d been doing them – I’ve been looking hard at alternatives.

Moving from Windows Vista to Linux is one result (I get more done).

Now – as I support a pair of ongoing online engagement marketing projects, and write more online copy than ever – I find I’m using my “main” word processor (OpenOffice) less than half the time, and taking advantage of the project management/html/speed features of a Linux programming editor (Bluefish).

It surprised me too.

I tell my students marketing’s changed more in the last five years than it did in the prior 50; I’m starting to see the same trend in my own work habits.

Is the same true for you?

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

writing, writing tools, editor, openoffice, open office, email, email interruption