Help Me Write

A very simple service aimed at bloggers and writers facing the common problem of 'what shall I write next?'.

When: Mar 2013

Help Me Write was a small service for bloggers and writers stuck on what to write next. You put up the things you were thinking of writing and your readers told you which ones they wanted to read, so you wrote those. Nick called it Kickstarter for writing, without the money.

It was Makeshift's second product, launched in March 2013, a couple of months into the company. A later update gave it a new design by Jon Gold and ntlk with a logo by Katie Marcus, and we prototyped a popular page for it, ranked with a Hacker News style algorithm, using Wrangler, another of our tools.

Screenshot 1 of 2, Help Me Write — Screenshot. Design: Jon Gold, ntlk (Natalia Buckley)

Screenshot 2 of 2, Help Me Write — Screenshot. Design: Katie Marcus

Made at Makeshift.

Around the same time

Higher resolutionsWriting · 2013
In conversation: Max Fraser, Stef Lewandowski and Christopher RaeburnSpeaking · 2013
Hackathon and on and onWriting · 2013
East Dulwich ForumProjects · 2013

Earlier in projects: Listerly. Later in projects: Pogoid.

/* No script, no button and no pill: the header sits in the page as the plain bar, every room in the row, and the body keeps its own top padding. */ /* grouped: the same idea, and why this block now names two layouts. Its rooms sit behind the More button, so with no script to open it they have to be a plain second line instead. float needs no equivalent — its bar renders every room already, and its rules below hide .site-more outright. */ :root[data-fx-nav-layout="grouped"] .site-more-button { display: none; } :root[data-fx-nav-layout="grouped"] .site-more .site-more-list { display: flex; position: static; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 0.5rem 1rem; min-width: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background: none; border: 0; box-shadow: none; } :root[data-fx-nav-layout="float"] header.site-header { position: static; width: auto; height: auto; margin: 0 0 2.5rem; padding: 0; flex-wrap: wrap; align-items: baseline; background: none; border: 0; border-radius: 0; box-shadow: none; -webkit-backdrop-filter: none; backdrop-filter: none; } :root[data-fx-nav-layout="float"] body.py-8 { padding-top: 2rem; } :root[data-fx-nav-layout="float"] .site-header .site-nav { flex-wrap: wrap; } :root[data-fx-nav-layout="float"] .site-header .site-nav > a { display: inline; } :root[data-fx-nav-layout="float"] .site-more { display: none; } :root[data-fx-nav-layout="float"] .site-header .site-title, :root[data-fx-nav-layout="float"] .site-header .site-title:has(> span) { max-width: none; opacity: 1; margin-right: 0; visibility: visible; }