📘 1000 Side Hustle Ideas Home ← Digital Products & Online Courses ← Mobile Apps & Simple Tools
HUSTLE #396 4.10 Mobile Apps & Simple Tools

Daily Writing Prompt and Word Count Tracker for Aspiring Authors

💰 Startup Cost $0
⏰ Time/wk 10-15 hrs
📊 Difficulty ★★★☆☆
🏆 1st Month $ $100-$300
💵 Monthly Range $300-$1,500
⏱ First $ In 1-2 months
Apple App Store, Google Play, Gumroad
Build a minimalist writing app that delivers daily creative writing prompts, tracks daily word counts toward a goal, provides a distraction-free writing mode, and displays a calendar heat map of writing consistency. Thousands of people attempt NaNoWriMo and other writing challenges every year. A focused tool that combines prompts with accountability tracking fills the gap between blank-page intimidation and full novel-writing software.
🚀 First Step
Create a Flutter app with a 'Today's Prompt' screen that shows a randomized creative writing prompt, a text editor for free writing, a word counter, and a save button storing entries with date and word count.
  • Include a calendar heat map (GitHub contribution graph style) showing writing consistency — visual progress tracking is the most effective motivator for daily habits, and authors love seeing their streak
  • Curate prompt categories (Character Development, Dialogue, Setting, Conflict, Opening Lines) so users can target specific writing skills — generic prompts are free everywhere; organized skill-building prompts are worth paying for
  • Time the app launch for October, one month before NaNoWriMo in November — thousands of writers search for tools in the weeks before the challenge begins
🛠 Tools & Resources: Flutter, Android Studio, Xcode, SQLite, Canva (App Store assets)