How it works
What it is for
Most of what you write online goes somewhere. You send it, then you wait to see what happens to it.
Here you just write it down. To someone, to no one, to yourself. That is the whole thing. Nothing counts it and nobody replies.
Once a day, up to five entries are picked at random from the ones people chose to share. Being picked is a nice surprise, not a reason to write. Most of what is written here is never published, and that is how it should be.
Why random, and why five
Because the alternative is a ranking, and a ranking changes what people write.
The moment something decides which entries are best, everyone starts writing for that thing. Random selection cannot be gamed, and gives a first entry the same odds as a thousandth.
Five is small enough to read over a coffee. Fifty would be a feed, and a feed is something you scroll rather than read.
Two entries a day can join the pool, which is what makes the odds equal between people and not just between entries. Otherwise whoever wrote the most would be on this page the most. What you keep privately is never limited.
Where the name came from
Writing something is the first half. Sending it is the second. Some people only ever do the first. The message to a parent, to an ex, to a friend who is gone. It gets written, and then it just sits there.
Here the first half is the whole thing. You wrote it. Nobody has to receive it for that to have counted.
Even the entries that get drawn are only half sent. They go to a stranger, at random, and not to the person they were about. Nobody replies, and you are not told it happened.
What is deliberately missing
No likes, no comments, no reactions, no follower counts, no streaks, no notifications.
You are not told when you have been drawn. If you want to know, you look.
None of this is a feature we have not got round to. Each one would turn writing for yourself into writing for an audience, which is the thing this is meant to avoid.
Common questions
Who can see what I write?
Whoever you decide, per entry, at the moment you write it. Keep it private and it is visible to you and nobody else. Not screened, not read, not shown anywhere. Let it join the pool and it might appear on the public page, under your username.
What happens after I let one join the pool?
Anything you keep private is never looked at by anyone. Something you send to the pool is checked before it goes public, for the obvious things: threats, hate, someone else's private details. Nothing is judged on whether it is any good. Give it a day, then it stays in the running for fourteen days, and each morning five are pulled out at random. Most are never picked. It is a raffle you are meant to forget you entered.
Will I be told if mine is drawn?
No. No email, no badge, no line in your history. If you want to know, you look, like everyone else. Being told would turn writing into refreshing, and refreshing is a worse hobby than writing.
Can I change my mind after I send one in?
You can delete it, at any time, and that removes it everywhere. You cannot move it back to private. It is settled once, by the button you press while you are writing, rather than in a setting somewhere.
Is it anonymous?
As anonymous as the username you pick, so pick one that isn't your name. It is the only thing that ever appears next to a drawn entry. Your email is for signing in and nothing else. Nobody sees it, and it is never attached to a word you write.
Why only five a day, and two per person?
Five fits on a page you will actually finish. A hundred would get scrolled past. Two per person stops one person's long night becoming everyone else's morning, and keeps the odds roughly even.
Do I need an account?
To write, no. To keep anything, yes, because a history has to live somewhere. To publish, yes as well, because the public page needs someone behind what goes on it. Write without an account and the writing still happened, it just leaves with you.
Can I delete everything?
Yes. A single entry from your history, including ones that were drawn, or the whole account, which takes the lot. There is no bin to fish it back out of afterwards, so mean it when you press it.