A couple of months ago, we revived Typetrigger, releasing this new-old app into the world again. It has been wonderful to see old members flutter back and write with us again, as well as seeing new writers who are joining for the first time. I will admit something: I was afraid that Typetrigger might not work for me anymore. It has been a long time since I’ve written this way. I’ve written for work and kept in touch with a few people via email over the years, but my writing practice hasn’t been regular. I was ready to write under a new name so that if I really hated my work here it wouldn’t be too public. Instead, I found that the constraints made it easy to just jump back in. I can’t say I like everything I post a whole lot, but I love trying. Some pieces are personal, things I want to get right. Others are total freeform experiments. Either way, I get the words out.
I’ve enjoyed reading in this community again, too. I love the range of styles and topics addressed by writers here. I love the serialists who get deep into the adventures of a character, and I love the poets. The memoirists. Those who blend and bend the personal and the fictive. I hope to see more writers join and push the range of genres that we see on a regular basis. I have long resisted tags, but recently I started using the tag ‘300’ to mark posts that hit the exact word limit. There is something about writing exactly up to that edge, composing the last line to fit exactly (often skimming for places I could trim a word or two to give me greater possibility in that last few words). It feels like a minor achievement, though not one that always adds to a piece of writing. Maybe I’ll start tagging my final word count whatever it is, just to get a sense of what 227 words, or 129 words looks and feels like.
I’ve also started to experiment with collections, adding pieces of writing that I’d like to revisit to a couple of different anthologies. I want to do this more frequently, so that other members can see which pieces I’ve enjoyed, such as this collection of pieces that mention Typetrigger.
Finally, I’m still just testing out what it looks like to create and write in a group. I am wondering how many of you have started your own groups and whether you have found any favorite ways to use them. We would love to hear from all of you about ideas on how to start and use groups in interesting ways. We will continue to improve this feature as we get a sense of what our members want out of it.
We will be launching our mobile app very soon and can’t wait to share it with everyone. If you have any friends who might enjoy Typetrigger, invite them to join now and they will enjoy a free account for life!