PunishPad uses negative reinforcement to help you to reach your writing goals. Set how many words you’d like to write in a time period, and the program will “punish” you if you stop writing. Inspired by Dr. Wicked’s popular web-based Write Or Die.
Features:
- “Danger Level” shows how much time you have
- Escalating punishments
- Calculates WPM when you’re finished
- Limit how often you can pause
- Full screen “no distraction” mode
- Load an existing document and it will only count new words
- Toggle between time elapsed/remaining
- Toggle between new words/total words/words per minute
- Keep going after time runs out, without punishments
Download PunishPad v1.0.0.1 Setup [116k EXE]
Download PunishPad v1.0.0.1 Source [101k VS2008 Project]
Note: PunishPad requires .NET v2.0 or higher.
Update (08/30/12): Follow the progress of PunishPad on Launchpad.net.
Jon Thysell 
Everytime I click on one of the links to install this software, it says that the connection has been reset and no matter how many time I press try again, it will not get to where it is supposed to go.
It should work now. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
Hey Jon congrats on breaking 30k! I am using Punish Pad a lot these days, and I am over 30k on my NaNo novel too.
Question: I have PP set to use Annoying Buzz as my punishment. Turns out the sound is my good old Windows alert sound. Is that the expected behavior?
Thanks,
Mel
Yes, the current version of PunishPad only uses the windows alert sound because I couldn’t find an easy way in .NET to play/pause arbitrary sound clips. Hopefully that’ll be fixed in the next version.
Okay, good to know. 🙂 I’ll look forward to that next version!
I wonder if it could use a more obscure windows sound scheme item? I could set a rarer item in my Windows sound scheme to a really annoying .wav file, but I really don’t want that really annoying .wav to play as often as I get a windows alert sound. Hmm…
Works under linux by compiling under MonoDevelop and executing thru Mono!
Does the timer work properly? Last time I tried running it under Mono (using the exe compiled from Visual Studio) the Stopwatch class didn’t behave properly, which broke the program.
Thank you, this is really a very helpful software.
I wonder if it is possible to add character count? (i.e. count characters, not words).
I will look into implementing it in the next version when I resume development.
Hi – using PunishPad a lot and loving it. One little quibble, though: is it possible to add bold, italics, and underlines to the pad?
I just downloaded this a few hours ago…I’m a big fan of write or die, but honestly just didn’t have the ten bucks to spare. I really wanted something that I could use on my computer without being on the internet, (the Great Distraction). This program is working out perfectly for me. I set it to word muncher mode, and I’ve pounded out some pretty good stuff, if I do say so myself. Also, got me through one of the “boring” parts; you know, the ones where you HAVE to write it, so everyone knows what is going on back at the ranch, but you really just want to hurry along to the fight scene at the end. So, thanks for that.