RESOURCES – WRITING

The Free Writing App that’s Tackling Perfectionism

BY SARAH PRATT
UPDATED MAR 14, 2023


Image credit: Angelina Litvin

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Image credit: Angelina Litvin

We earn commissions on some links. Read more >


How many writers out there get bogged down with trying to make each sentence they write absolutely perfect? Taking time to pick each word, correct the punctuation, and fix the flow of clauses in the moment can end up costing you huge amounts of time, effort, patience, and sadly, inspiration. By the time one crisp, beautiful sentence is written, all the thoughts that were going to follow it have long been forgotten.

Let’s change that with the MDWA.

What is this MDWA? It’s The Most Dangerous Writing App.

For anyone who creates written content I highly recommend trying this out. There is a tendency when writing to keep going back and trying to make everything perfect. When we edit as we go we’re not only taking much longer to write out our thoughts, but we’re also constantly interrupting those thoughts.

The MDWA puts an end to all that, real quick! The idea – you start by choosing an end point – either a word limit you want to reach or a set amount of time. Then… you GO! Start writing and DO NOT STOP. If you pause for more than a few seconds – everything goes blurry and then gets erased and you have to start over. No, you can’t get it back – talk about high stakes! There’s no temptation to edit what you’re writing because you know you have to keep typing or else it will all get deleted.

As most writers will tell you, it’s always easier to edit something that is already written versus trying to perfect it the first time you write it. That’s what rough drafts are for, and there’s nothing wrong with writing and editing drafts on your way to your finished work.

We are all rough drafts in this life anyway, no?

Image credit: Hannah Grace

If you are a perfectionist type or if you find yourself with writer’s block, this is quite helpful and even a little bit fun! There’s a thin progress bar along the top that’ll give you an idea of where you are. Once you reach your chosen word count or time, you’re done – you can safely put down your keyboard as your work is no longer at risk. The site then allows you to copy or export your work and edit/use it as you like.

There is a handy option to include a prompt as well if you need an idea of what to write about. The timed options include 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, and 60 minute-session, and the word count options are 75, 150, 250, 500, and 1667. That last one seems pretty random at first, but it’s specifically for NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month – which challenges authors to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. Those 50,000 words divided by the 30 days of November gives you 1667 words per day, hence this option!

Another great idea is to use this as a stream-of-consciousness journaling exercise, even if you’re not trying to publish written content. You could also make a challenge out of it by attempting to type a certain amount in a given time.

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Go try it out! It’s free!

And once you’ve experimented with it a bit, don’t forget to try Hardcore Mode!

Also, yes, some of this article was written in MDWA!

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