Finding a Word-Crank Tool (NaNoWriMo November 8th)

Ensconced in my comfortable corner at Chick-fil-A this morning, preparing to double-up on my word output for the day, I realized I haven't given credit to another "comfortable place to write", an online site that offers no bells and whistles for word production, just a regular reward for output.

I'm talking about Written?Kitten. 

In this minimal editing environment, I can only write. I can't highlight, bold or underline any of the words I write here. They travel out to the cloud, where they accumulate, stream-wise. To excise anything, I must delete; there is no strike-through. 

But the results are stored in the cloud, so I can add to them from my Chromebook in Chick-fil-A or from my desktop at home. Every hundred words, I am rewarded with a new picture of a kitten, like the adorable Angry Kitten above, from NeilGHamilton (CC-BY). 

At the bottom of the adjustable-height writing window, Written?Kitten. gives me a running total of the words I have produced so far. Since I used the site for writing last year's NaNovel, too, I know the count algorithm is nearly identical to that used by the NaNoWriMo's validation tool. 

The reward is configurable. You can set it to change the picture every 50 words, or only every 500 words. You can also adjust the reward for a different Flickr tag if desired: instead of kittens, you can have dogs, babies, birds—even the suggested dinosaurs. I like the kittens, so I leave it at the default reward and frequency, but I adjust the height of the window to fill my screen, top to bottom.

And that's it. No other distractions, just a blank window waiting for sentences and paragraphs to tot up, and the promise of a new kitten every so-many words.

Time to write.

Total at 5PM on Double-Up Day: 12,881 words
Total at 9PM: 13,481 words and back to the 1667+ per day average.