Life & fun · February 28, 2026
Tomoshibi – A writing app where your words fade by firelight
I spent ten years trying to write a novel. Every time I sat down, I'd write a sentence, decide it wasn't good enough, and rewrite it. The problem wasn't discipline — it was that I could always see what I'd written and go back to change it. I tried other approaches. Apps that delete your words when you stop typing — they fight fear with fear. That just made me panic. I wanted the opposite: not punishment, but permission. "Tomoshibi" is Japanese for a small light in the dark — just enough to see what's in front of you. You write on a dark screen. Older lines fade, but not when you hit return.…
In plain words
Tomoshibi is a writing app designed to help writers focus on forward momentum rather than constant revision. It displays text on a dark screen where older lines gradually fade as you write new ones, allowing editing only on the current and previous line. The app targets writers who struggle with perfectionism and endless rewriting, offering permission to write imperfectly rather than imposing punishment-based restrictions.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
I spent ten years trying to write a novel. Every time I sat down, I'd write a sentence, decide it wasn't good enough, and rewrite it. The problem wasn't discipline — it was that I could always see what I'd written and go back to change it. I tried other approaches. Apps that delete your words when you stop typing — they fight fear with fear. That just made me panic. I wanted the opposite: not punishment, but permission. "Tomoshibi" is Japanese for a small light in the dark — just enough to see what's in front of you. You write on a dark screen. Older lines fade, but not when you hit return. They fade when you start writing again. If you pause, they wait. You can edit the current line and one line back — enough to fix a typo, not enough to spiral. The one-line-back rule also catches my own practical issue: Japanese IME often fires an accidental newline on kanji confirmation. Everything is saved. There's a separate reader view for going back through what you've written. Tomoshibi is for writing over months, not just one session. When you come back, your last sentence appears as an epigraph — as if it always belonged there. No account, no server, no build step. Your writing stays in your browser's local storage — export anytime as .txt. Vanilla HTML/CSS/ES modules. Try it in your browser. A native Mac app (built with Tauri) with file system integration is coming to the store. I've been writing on it for two months. https://tomoshibi.in-hakumei.com/app/
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