A perennial problem that is perhaps universal to all students is the difficulty of having to sit down and actually write something. A paper, a letter to a journal editor, whatever, many of us find it difficult to start/finish/write at all. Of course this problem is multiplied a thousand-fold when the document in question is a massive thesis. We’ve all had those days where we sit in front of the computer with a stack of journal articles planning to do a day of writing, before finding that there are so many other better things to do. Make a cup of tea. Check your emails. Do another experiment to (unnecessarily) check your results. Chat with your desk neighbour. Write for two minutes and then manically check your word count. ANYTHING but actually writing.
So are you stuck with your writing? Forget nailing your feet to the floor or bribing yourself with chocolate, Dr Wicked has a better idea. Why not replace your fear of writing with a fear of not writing?! Have a go at Write or Die, where they put the ‘prod’ back in productivity!
 | 467 |
 | |
23  | |
 | |
| lab.drwicked.com | |
The concept is fairly simple- you go to the website and set yourself a time and a word count as goals, and then you start writing. But the moment your mind starts to wander or you start checking your emails/the cricket score/your rsvp.com profile, beware... if you wait too long, the screen starts to go red, and then Dr Wicked is going to start playing you some seriously nasty sounds to remind you that you're supposed to be writing... think car horns, crying babies, and even the dreaded Hanson!!!! The only way you can get it to stop is to keep writing. You can even try Kamikaze mode, which actually starts deleting the words you've written if you wait too long!
And believe me, it's @#$&* annoying. I used it to write this blog entry and I think most of the people in this room now want to kill me- which was actually good incentive to keep those words coming! A nice bit is that when you reach your goals you get some nice sound effects (a fanfare from Star Wars) and even a little icon that you can download and put on your blog (maybe even your thesis if you are so inclined?) (see pic). Expect prolific writing on this blog from now on as the authors take advantage of this new tool! Give it a try and we'd love to hear if you found it useful! Just don't forget to copy and paste your text into a word file when you're done (the website does this automatically too but it's better to be safe!).