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Show HN: Nowrite.fun – If you stop typing, your text disappears
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 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 https://nowrite.fun
- codazoda 1y agoI've seen similar tools before. This seems like it fades out a bit too quickly.
- layman51 1y agoI 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 1y agoSame, 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 1y agoThanks for the feedback, I'll think about how to implement this beautifully in the near future!
- vseplet 1y agoMaybe 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 1y agoBeyond 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 1y agoThank you very much for the feedback! I think that all people are different and the time of going into darkness should be adjustable
- vseplet 1y agoI’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 1y agokind of off putting to have to wait and go through all the dialogue screens when you just want to start typing
- vseplet 1y agoYes, we need to do a quick restart!
- votick 1y agoI 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 1y agoI will definitely support mobile today/tomorrow but I am sure it is almost useless for mobile phones
- xtiansimon 1y agoI imagined this as a multiplayer writing experience.
- vseplet 1y agoHow do you think this should work?
- xtiansimon 1y agoI 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.