As some of you may know, I dabble with writing. Whether it is writing articles or stories, I enjoy spinning yarns with my words and creating new and exciting worlds and tales to explore. Writing is fun, except when it isn’t. When I find myself staring at a blank screen, the white glare almost blinding as I try to figure out how to word the scenes playing out in my mind’s eye. When I eventually get round to laying down some words, I end up spending an obscene amount of time editing the same paragraph over and over until I am happy with it. This hinders my writing and, in all honesty, saps the joy out of it for me. Instead of just going with the flow and allowing myself to enjoy the moment, I obsess over perfecting a scene or a line of dialogue. I am left feeling drained and tired.
Recently I came across a writing website called 4thewords which is a ‘writing game’ where writers create a character and have to defeat monsters by matching a designated word count in an allocated time. Players then earn gear for their character and items to edit their homes. Players can pick up quests and partake in timed events for cool loot as well. While the game aspect is basic in the sense that it is really just clicking on a quirky looking monster, starting the battle and typing as fast as you can, the art is colourful and light-hearted. This is all about writing more than it is about the game aspect but while writers like me sometimes feel disheartened at the prospect of the long-term rewards gained from writing that are so far out of reach, this game offers smaller rewards that come at regular intervals which makes the long journey a little less gruelling with instant gratification and shorter term goals.
If you are a writer, I highly recommend giving the free month trial of 4thewords a chance to see how it works.
