 |
| Photo credit: MervC on Flickr |
confidently) when I know where I’m going, and I keep a daily and weekly writing goal that I work hard to try to meet.
That being said, it’s likely little surprise to hear that I often keep track of my word count progress.
I’ll admit that it’s a practice I fell out of after using it for a couple WIPs, but after participating in NaNoWriMo last year, I remembered why I’d starting keeping track in the first place—and it wasn’t just to make the analytical side of me happy.
You see, it’s easy to forget what you’ve accomplished when you’re deep in the trenches of a first draft. The elusive words of “The End” seem impossibly far away, and the day after day slog can quickly become exhausting.
Keeping track of your progress, then, serves two purposes:
- It shows you just how much you’ve written. Seeing your progress on paper can be really encouraging when you’re halfway through your WIP and it feels like reaching the end will be impossible. It can serve as a great reminder of how a little each day can add up to something fantastic, and for me, at least, it’s proven to be a great motivator.
- Progress is progress. Writing down your progress every day serves a second purpose too—it encourages you to make daily progress. Even if you only write a few hundred words that day, the numbers prove that even small progress is progress.
During NaNoWriMo you get this really awesome chart thingie that shows your progress on an axis like this, that I completely love. As of yet, I haven’t found something to replicate that (except for doing it by hand in Excel), but you can try a widget like the one below to keep track of your total progress.
From Language is a Virus:
42145 / 75000 words. 56% done!
(NOTE: If anyone knows where to find a NaNoWriMo-like replication of the progress chart, you will make me a very happy writer).
In addition to little bar graphs like the one above, spreadsheets are a fantastic way to not only keep track of your total word progress, but of your daily and weekly progress as well, which I highly recommend. But all in all, the important thing is to just keep track.
Do you record your daily or weekly word count progress? Why or why not?
Twitter-sized bites:
Why one writer believes it's important to keep track of your daily word count progress. (Click to tweet)
Do you record your daily word count progress while writing? Here's why you should. (Click to tweet)
19 comments:
I'm always fascinated by people who keep track of their word count. When I'm working on my first draft, I'm so obsessed, I never think about how far I am from the end. In fact, I'm often truly sad when I reach it. Like "What? That's the last line? The last word?" *Sniff*. I have a totally different problem. Mine is forcing myself to turn those fun 1st drafts into CP-ready manuscripts. Which is how I ended up with 3 WIPs. :-)
Ah yes. The transition from first draft to readable manuscript can be a difficult one. Totally understand that.
I've found that keeping track can be a fun and motivating exercise, which is why I'm doing it again for this WIP. But I can see what you mean about not wanting it to end. First drafting can be quite the experience. :)
In the latest books I've written I've always had a deadline for finishing the first draft, so I learned to keep track of my word count as a way to encourage myself and be sure I'm finishing in time :)
I think I will apply this for the future as well. It gives me some satisfaction to see that bar increasing! ;)
Keeping track serves a few purposes: it helps motivate you, it keeps readers updated on your progress. For me I adhere to daily writing goals. I keep it simple at 1,000 words a day. Using this system I have written three novels. Readers are the ones who are my cheerleaders. When I thought I would never make it through camp NaNo, they motivated me to do it!
One of my favorite features of Scrivener is the ability to set a deadline, then have it automatically calculate how many words a day you need to write in order to reach that deadline. Not only does it save me the trouble of doing math, but I get to watch that number slowly decrease every day as long as I exceed my goal. Like the bar graph, it is satisfying indeed. :)
Daily writing goals are so important, and I agree that having cheerleaders can also be a nice motivation boost. For that reason, I will often announce my progress on Twitter--it feels good to tell people who understand what I mean when I say I've added 2k to the WIP.
Only during NaNoWriMo, haha! I work on so many WIPs, in so many different stages, that keeping count would be a nightmare. That said, I do have one of those bar progress charts on my blog, for two of my WIPs :)
Ah, I could see how keeping track would be confusing if you're working on several WIPs at once. Although I'm sure the bar progress bit makes life easier. :)
Is it only on the Mac version? I haven't been able to find that feature.
I'm not sure? It's under Project >> Show Project Targets. You can then adjust everything under "Options."
Oh. Mine doesn't have that. Maybe in the next update or something :)
I kept track of word count, time of day, minutes spent etc over the course of last year. It makes for a nice blog post when you release the book, and you may even spot some interesting trends about yourself.
The one big league author I know who does this is Brandon Sanderson. He has this progress charts his blog and it is a great way for his fans to know what he is working and how far along he is on it. Someday, when I have enough people interested in my books, I'll put them up too. :)
I hope so! It's a nice feature. :)
Wow! I hadn't thought of recording the time of day, etc. Maybe I'll start doing that. I could record a lot of things that might be interesting to look at...hmm...
Now that I finally finished my book, I took all my stats and made them into graphs. If you want to have a look - http://writebywriting.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/writing-the-natural-victim-by-the-numbers-in-pictures-and-words/
Oh wow! They look great, Peter. Thanks for sharing the link!
I built a whole web-app based off the NaNoWriMo tools, and it does have the same goal graph that they use. It also lets you set up monthly goals, projects and gives some basic breakdowns on how much you're writing per day and how you're doing this month as compared to last month. There are more features coming down the road as I'm always in development. And most important, it's free. If you're interested check it out at http://WordKeeperAlpha.com.
Oh wow! I've been using www.mywriteclub.com lately (which I discovered way after writing this post), but that looks pretty neat! Thanks for sharing!
Interesting that I did almost the same thing, though I followed a different approach on some things. Currently on closed beta, but I'm activacting anyone that wants to try: http://writerstrail.georgemarques.com.br/
Post a Comment