Review: Writely App

So there’s this new website that has been live for, a couple of months by now I believe, called Writely. It’s a subscription based website that encourages you to write everyday. It has a forum for sharing writing and other discussions, a points system to reward you for writing, and tutorial writings that teach you how to do different types of writing. A few people on the forum said they were very excited for the app to be released and couldn’t wait for it to launch. I hadn’t had that kind of anticipation for it so this will be more of a casual review of it.

I liked the idea of this app when I first signed up to beta it, but its functionality doesn’t live up to what I had hoped. Granted, it is still in beta so it may get better with other people and other feedback. The app isn’t a phone app so it’s hard to use when you don’t have access to a computer, which describes most of my day. It also makes it hard to actually achieve the word count I’d like to for the day because I can’t access the web app everywhere I go.

I think with a few adjustments or with the addition of a phone or desktop app this could be a really useful tool for most people. I also think that with the addition of features like Scribophile has the interactive features of the site could also help a lot of people with editing and such. Before anyone who uses Writely complains that neither of these are the point of Writely; I know. I know that the point of the app is to get as many words written and projects finished as possible. But finishing the project is only half the battle. If you’re actually going to do anything with it, besides have it sit and collect digital dust on a hard drive somewhere, you need to edit it and send it out.

So do I think it’s worth checking out the free trial and maybe using if you have a specific project you want to get accomplished in a certain amount of time? Yes. Do I think it is a program I will pay for over a long period of time? No. I think I will eventually find that it does not benefit me as much as it would need to for the amount that it costs.

Disclaimer 1: I have not been paid for this review. I do not get paid for anything I post.

Disclaimer 2: I do not edit any of my posts. They are all just stream of consciousness kind of things. So if they are worded poorly or if they have typos, that is why. Usually it is because my brain moves faster than my fingers and forms five different versions of the same sentence resulting in a combination of all of them. Sometimes it’s just that I’m tired and/or distracted by the other people who live in my house. The later is the case for this particular post.