Fun Friday Resources

So let’s pretend we could all use a little nudge to do something.

Sorry, I’ll be serious: let’s pretend we would use a little nudge to do something. You’re probably a better person than I am, so these are for you.

First up, Write Every Day, a web-based version of morning pages. (Here’s the explanation of Julia Cameron — the originator of the concept.) It’s the ultimate ABORTIVE ATTEMPT: nothing you write is meant to be SUCCESSIVELY APPROXIMATED or ABANDONED to an AUDIENCE. If nothing else, it’s a good way to pin those complicated emotions to the dissecting tray and slice them open.

Full disclosure: I have just started using the site, so I will report back on its efficacy. It is also one of those sites that you can “start writing for free” but is actually a subscription site. I’ll let you know if I think it’s worth it.

For the visual artists among us, there’s YDays, a site that allows you to engage friends in a friendly (?) 5-day drawing project. Each day you get a prompt — “Draw a face” — and an online sketchpad with a drawing tool that may or not behave the way you expect. Everybody votes for their favorites (competition yay) and much merriment is had.

You will notice that both of these sites have gamified your ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS with accountability. I myself tend to resist such Pavlovian tools, but that’s because I was an obstinate child. You may welcome the discipline.

Finally, there’s Brick, “a super lightweight platform for creating small sites. Imagine if Google Docs was built for making sites.” If you don’t have your own website and don’t really want to maintain one just for your one-off announcement, here’s a great way to get your content up on the web with little hassle. (Another option, even quicker — and I suspect more prone to errors — is publishthisemail: just email their address, and they’ll publish it as a webpage.)