Go to the site, login, and stare at an empty screen looking back at me with a tiny word counter in the lower right corner. This is what I have seen every day for the past 39 days that I have been using 750words.com

The site encourages you to write at least 750 words every single day. The idea is not like blogging which is intended to be published and read by the public. 750words.com is private and more inline with journaling and stream of consciousness writing. There are different badges you can collect based on how long your streak goes. Each badge is based on a bird. One day is an egg representing you’re new, three days gives you a turkey (just like bowling), all the way up to a Pterodactyl for 200 days written in a row. One day I hope to get the famed flying dino badge!

Besides collecting all of your words, the site gathers an array of stats. Things like words typed per minute, feelings & concerns, most used words, and even the weather in the city where you wrote that entry. These can all be aggregated over time thanks to a feature called “Enter your subconscious.” The stuff you can derive from these statistics is revealing and it compares you to the site average.

Each month they hold a contest to see who can write something every single day of the month. Members sign up for the challenge and are asked what they will do if they succeed the challenge and what they would do if they were to fail the challenge. I completed the January challenge and as a result my name was added to the Wall of Awesomeness. Some people who fail promise to donate money to the site which is run single-handily by Buster Benson from a Seattle coffee shop.

What originally attracted me to the site is the freedom to just write something with no rhyme or reason. My entries are pretty random and jump around all over the place. Most of my 750words.com writings will never ever see the light of day. Blogging can be a drag to write something interesting. My goal with 750words.com was to just write more. Simple as that.

After nearly a month of writing everyday I started to get burned out. Making my 750 word quota felt more like a chore than a therapeutic release. Luckily I powered through and plan to only write if I have something on my mind. Forcing something that just isn’t there defeats the purpose.

39 days of writing later and I’m getting back in to blogging. 750words.com is a great exercise for anyone wanting to get into the habit of writing more. It helps you get over the hump of writing something stupid because it doesn’t matter. You should sign-up for it and challenge yourself to write more today.