Joke's on you, Write or Die, I LIKE Rick Astley!

Step aside, Kindle, Write or Die has taken your spot on my list of coolest thing ever. Following through on their claim to put the "Prod in Productivity," they take the approach of ceaselessly annoying you to get you to keep writing.

Here's how it works: Go to the website. Enter your word count goal and how much time you want to spend writing. Then choose how hard you want the site to be on you (go all out, pick "evil!"). Then write. Write and don't stop because if you do, you will not enjoy the result. Unless you happen to like the lyrical poetry and harmonized vocals of the virtuistic 90's pop band Hanson. Some people do, and if you're one of those people, I'm not judging you. Hell, if you like them, check out this site anyway and don't write anything, just sit back and enjoy the ride.

If you don't like being steadily annoyed by the musical stylings of Ricky Astley or crying babies or the Banana Phone song (my personal favorite), you'll find a way to stay motivated. Perhaps worse, "Kamikaze mode" will start deleting your work word by word if you don't keep the keys moving. If this is all too stressful for you, you can downgrade to Easy mode. You'll be rather politely reminded that you've stopped writing and should continue please if it's not too much trouble. A progress bar keeps track of how quickly you're moving toward your goal.

There's an extra-special desktop edition for only $10 if you want to personalize your options: disable your backspace key, disable "save" until you reach your writing goal, program your own audio nightmare to play if you happen to stop. Dr. Wicked, the clever creator of Write or Die, seems to have thought of everything. You can even compete with a friend, someone you know or some other poor writer halfway around the world.

Thanks, Dr. Wicked!