This writing app will delete your work if you stop typing

Starting to write, whether it’s a novel or a blog post, can be daunting even for experienced authors. The fear of penning thoughts that don’t immediately make sense or stringing together all-but-unreadable sentences, and thus concluding that you’re a failure, is real.

That’s where The Most Dangerous Writing App comes in. The idea behind this free Web-based tool is simple: choose how long you’d like to write for  — say, five minutes or a half hour — and then write non-stop until the clock runs out. If you pause for even five seconds, it’ll wipe everything you just typed.

It’s an interesting premise that works well for brain dumping and quickly jotting down ideas. The app’s threat of deleting your progress forces you to move from one thought to the next.

It’s worth having your ideas written down, even if in a rudimentary form. This makes it easier to shape them into a readable piece. And after all, writing is an iterative activity; it isn’t a performance art where the object is to get things right the first time.

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After you’ve tried The Most Dangerous Writing App a few times, you start to get the hang of writing without worrying about the quality of the final product.

I tried writing this article using the app and failed miserably on my first few tries. But I did manage to get my ideas for it down in a couple of minutes without dwelling on the details and that was certainly helpful in reducing the time I spent on my piece.

When you’re done penning your thoughts, you’ll likely want to switch to an app that doesn’t automatically delete your work to complete your writing.

If The Most Dangerous Writing App sounds familiar, it might be because you know of Flowstate, a similar tool for iOS and OS X. But with this one, there’s nothing to install and you can use it with any browser to help kickstart your creative flow.

➤ The Most Dangerous Writing App