750 Words & Buster Benson

Writers: You tell me you’re looking for a challenge.

This one (based on Julia Cameron’s ‘Morning Pages’ exercise in The Artist’s Way) will take you to a whole new level. And yes, I’m thinking of doing it myself. Yeow!

Read about the  750 Words Challenge … some folks write daily for a month, some write less or more than 750 words, some write every other day or only now & then. He rewards you with points (!) for as much as, and how,  you do write.

What’s super-cool, is that Buster Benson (the writer-designer) has ‘geeked-up’ the site, where you enter your writings, with a series of diagnostic filters, with stats revealed to you, and only you, to help you quantify (if that’s possible!) your writing habits, or non-habits, your style (introvert, extrovert), so — heck, if nothing else, it’s much better than reading your fortune in a cookie, no? Read all his rules for the Challenge and don’t let the one below frighten you. From the site:

★ What kind of stats do you collect about my usage of the site?

I try to collect as much implicit information about you as I can without asking you to fill out a lot of forms. It’s the accidental information that is often the most interesting, I think. That said, here’s where I get information about you:

1. Your behavior on the page: I watch how quickly you type, how many breaks you take, etc to draw some very general conclusions about how “focused” you are at the moment. I also time how long it takes to get to 750 words.
2. Facebook: any general information that you’ve made public on Facebook is temporarily stored on my servers. For example, things like gender, age, and relationship status.
3. Your IP Address: I use Google’s Client Location Service to try to see if your IP Address can say anything about your general location. Right now I only use this in order to then try and see what the weather’s like where you are. Who knows, maybe there’s a correllation between the weather and the emotional content of your daily writings.

Note that I respect the privacy of all information collected, and will not make any information public that can be used to identify you.

Not only are you challenged to write whatever is on your mind (it’s okay to write drivel) but it will be analyzed for you… and you can take that to the bank, or to the garbage pail. Either way, you must admit it’s gotta be fun.

So check out the site 750words.com — and it’s creator, Buster Benson.

At the very least, check out his list: “A Few Rules I Try to Live By.” Good one to post on the fridge. Enjoy!

[Photo taken by me, Aug. 2010, of an actual shop, Possibilities, in the artists’ town, Marfa, Texas. Note: the door’s standing wide open! Love that.]