Fighter's Block

Hi guys!

It's Noelle (I mean who else would it be) and today I am kinda just writing a spontaneous sort of post.  I'm not even sure if I want to post it at all, but hey, that's what drafts are for, right?

I recently discovered this website called Fighter's Block.  I don't know if you've heard of it or not; if you haven't, well....  *Eliza Schuyler voice* Imma about to change your life.

The idea behind Fighter's Block is well... fighting.  It's like a tiny RPG to help you combat writer's block, obsessive editing, or sheer laziness (I especially struggle with the obsessive editing thing, despite the fact that the amount of typos on my blog exceeds the amount of money I have in my life savings).  You're a cute little mage who fights a weird egg thing (not really sure about that bit) that's constantly attacking you.  The only way to heal and fight back?  WRITE!!

Your word count is literally your magical attack.  Now, I know it's just a game mechanic and stuff, but it's actually really cool when you think about it in the abstract.  Your words are literally magic.  You words have the power over life and death.  What you write, how you write it, all the wonderful things that you can and can't say?  Those are your weapons, your spell with which you charge into the world.

...I'm drafting this late at night don't judge me.

Okay more about the game itself.  One of the things I really like about it is that it's pausable and adjustable.  When I first heard about it (thank you Pinterest) I was worried that it'd be too fast, too stressful, I can't change tabs, I can't take breaks, aHHHHH.  But no!  If you need a break, you can hit pause.  If you don't want to write a billion words, that's fine, you can start with just 100 words, or 200, or whatever you feel comfortable with.  If you don't want to die at the speed of light, that's cool, just adjust the monster's attacks and you are in a much less stressful environment.

I'm going to try and use this website pretty frequently, because in my writing projects, I find that I am what I've dubbed...an "OEP" or Obsessive Editing Person.  It's pronounced "oops" and it's what happens when you never actually write anything new, you just edit and ponder the meaning of life over your original late-night inspiration piece.  Fortunately for me, this forces me to just get writing and WRITE, even if it forces me to write badly.

Pro Tip:  Bad writing is almost always better than no writing.  (The only time that this is not true is when you're forcing yourself to write just for the sake of writing and you're not enjoying it anymore and the societal pressure is too great and you don't want to DO THIS ANYMORE UGH.  Then bad writing is harmful to your mental health and you need to take a break)

Cons of Fighter's Block:  there's not much too it.  I know that sounds kind of silly and I doubt that this is a complaint that many people are going to have, but it was described as a "game" and then later "RPG".  I was kind of expecting maybe a basic storyline, or maybe a variety of monsters for you to fight?  As of right now, I haven't found anything that really makes this a game, specifically.

Like I said, not really a complaint that anybody's going to have.  However, if I could turn this into a full-blown computer game, I'd be so down for that.  Fighter's Block, hit me up.

Anyway, that's my take on this website.  I know I'll be using it a lot soon, because I've decided to participate in NaNoWriMo!

If you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, then don't feel bad, I don't either.  Well, I know the basics.  I'm sure there's some super inspiring story or fundraiser or something behind it, and I'll research it more soon.  For now, here's what I do know:

The idea of NaNoWriMo (which I have been mentally pronouncing as Nah-No-Mc-Rhyme-Oh... no clue why) is to write a novel in a month, or more specifically, set yourself a daily writing goal of blank many words and write that amount of words every single day for the entire month of November (are you seeing where Fighter's Block might come in handy now?)  I've wanted to participate for two or three years now, but always shrugged it off and was like, "Noooo I don't have the time for that, blah blah blah I can't do that November's so busy!"

But here's the deal:  I've been tracking how much I write on a regular basis....  I don't really write every day, but when I do write, I casually write 500 words.  A Today I Met post is usually around 500-750, a section of one of my stories averages around the same amount.  An International Bffs post can be anyway from 1k to 5k words, an essay somewhere between 800 and 1k!  My point is, I do have time for it, and I think it's time to take the bull (or in the case of Fighter's Block, weird egg shaped thingie) by the horns and tackle NaNoWriMo.

Anyway, I'll be sure to keep you guys updated as I progress along through both Fighter's Block (maybe there's a bit more storyline / game mechanics as you get more HP?  *fingers crossed*) and, once November starts NaNoWriMo.  Lemme know in the comments if you try out either of them, and what your thoughts are!

And now my hands are extremely annoyed at me for writing for fifteen minutes straight, so Imma gonna leave now.  Have a wonderful day and cya next week!

*this blog post was not sponsored lol.  But I do want to say that this blog post was brought to you by Fighter’s Block and was 950+ words long*