Show HN: Nowrite.fun – If you stop typing, your text disappears

[vseplet]

https://nowrite.fun

Hey HN,

I built a small experimental writing tool called nowrite.fun.

The concept is brutally simple: You set a timer (e.g. 5 minutes), start writing — and if you stop typing, your text vanishes. No drafts, no recovery, no forgiveness.

Inspired by apps like Write or Die, but rebuilt from scratch with a lightweight stack: Deno + TypeScript, XState, anime.js, and canvas-confetti. Hosted on Deno Deploy.

It’s a tool for short, focused writing sprints — a tweet, a blog paragraph, a newsletter blurb. Keep typing → you win. Hesitate → it’s gone.

It’s minimal, a bit stressful, and surprisingly motivating.

I also posted it on Product Hunt to see if this kind of weird, borderline masochistic UX resonates with anyone: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/no-write If you find it fun or useful, I’d really appreciate an upvote!

Would love your thoughts, feature ideas, or performance roasts.

Try it here: https://nowrite.fun

[layman51]

I haven’t tried it yet but it is an interesting idea for an app. My initial thoughts are: if I have something that seems to be important or significant that I wrote down near the start of my note, I would probably type gibberish or nonsense if I wanted to prevent it from being erased. Is there some way to ameliorate this situation where I would end up padding the note with fluff? My guess is to just make the timer shorter. Or maybe have some “checkpoint” for a longer timer.

Also, when it comes to handwriting, is there a way to support this input? I’ll say that a lot of left-handed writers have the opposite issue when writing with ink on paper. If they write too fast, most of them will end up smudging what they just wrote. This is not an issue on electronic writing devices of course.

[freedomben → layman51]

Same, and I could also see myself compulsively using Ctrl+A Ctrl+C to get it on my clipboard just in case. I already do this in webforms (like on HN) because of so many years of losing my text.

I like this idea but I think it would be great if the text went into a recycle bin instead of fully gone. At least for me that would still accomplish the desired result, but I wouldn't live in fear of losing some important point because I took too long proofreading or something.

[vseplet → freedomben]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll think about how to implement this beautifully in the near future!

[nashashmi → vseplet]

Offer a pay service to recover stuff that was lost

[vseplet → nashashmi]

Do you think this will be fair?

[nashashmi → vseplet]

It will remain a form of remediation to lost work. OTOH you will end up keeping lots of works of garbage value with no end date. That could be unfair.

[vseplet → layman51]

Maybe I didn't understand you, but on the sides of the timer there are buttons + and -, you can choose a time convenient for you

[skeptrune]

Beyond writer's block, this helped me lock in. I often take long thinking pauses and get lost in mental rabbit holes, which wastes time and reduces my productivity.

I would appreciate a version with slightly lower risk. As it stands, I don't think I could use this current version for anything beyond your intended use case of short, paragraph-long blurbs.

[vseplet → skeptrune]

Thank you very much for the feedback! I think that all people are different and the time of going into darkness should be adjustable

[votick]

I can’t use it on mobile looks like which is annoying as we’ve had touch screen phones for almost 20yrs now, the good thing is at least I care enough im annoyed I can’t use it. I’d imagine you’ll get a lot more sharing if mobile works

[vseplet → votick]

I will definitely support mobile today/tomorrow but I am sure it is almost useless for mobile phones

[codazoda]

I've seen similar tools before. This seems like it fades out a bit too quickly.

[smartmic → codazoda]

Like this one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41819800

[vseplet → codazoda]

I think I can increase time

[xtiansimon]

I imagined this as a multiplayer writing experience.

[vseplet → xtiansimon]

How do you think this should work?

[xtiansimon → vseplet]

I guess I actually imagined how it wouldn’t work. Which is to say, if you know a text disappears when some stops typing, then the text takes on a life (and death) of its own.

[vseplet]

I’ve increased the time before failure — now writing will be a bit easier, and losing a bit harder.

Huge thanks for all your feedback!

[purplecats]

kind of off putting to have to wait and go through all the dialogue screens when you just want to start typing

[vseplet → purplecats]

Yes, we need to do a quick restart!