Keeping a daily wordcount

[Ihe]

That it is, my friend.

 

[Lumens]

I have actually been considering this, keeping a word count for a while. Not primarily to amass a huge body of work, but to get the old machinery running again after a few years rest. Consistently having a stream of words flowing onto the page without worrying about the quality is a great exercise. I have done it in the past and while it is not always easy to start with, it is the mental equivalent of physical exercise - it gets easier the more you do it. In my experience anyway.

Not sure what target to set for myself yet, it may take a couple of weeks to find out...

 

[apocalypsegal]

I am currently aiming for 2K a day, five days a week. I'm working on finishing a sequel, and I want it out this month. Of course, I was sick for a couple of weeks earlier in April, and thus all the best-laid plans, blah, blah, blah. I make a little calendar and write down the words, or whatever else I was working on (cover, formatting, uploading, etc.).

I gave up plotting and learned to love writing again. I write a clean first draft, edit as I go, and other than a quick typo pass (which hopefully catches any major boo boos), I'm done. But, I've been writing for a significant amount of time -- longer than some of you have been alive, probably -- and this works for me.

 

[night_wrtr]

I do this when I am actually in writing mode. I made an color coded excel sheet to mark if I was over/under, or close and whatnot. 800 words seems to be about right for me if I got at least an hour to write.

I am now working on an outline and I wrote over 1k words of outline yesterday. That seems excessive, but I don't know what to expect. I guess my outline has a great deal of detail.

This makes me curious, because I am in the same boat. I am trying to write out an outline, and expand on a few things for each chapter. My goal is to almost create a writing prompt for each chapter based on a few sentences/bullet points to help me stay focused on what needs to happen, etc. Makes me wonder what is a decent goal when in "outlining mode?" I think you're right @Cory Swanson, that it would depend on the detail.

 

[TWErvin2]

I do not keep one. I have too many other projects (like proofing the current audiobook in production) and, editing, and doing research and book signing events and such.

I know the notion is to write every day, but I set aside time to do writing related work as much as possible. I make writing a priority, but it's not the top priority, so it sometimes gets bumped. I teach and grading and lessons come first, as does family. I am also a member of the village council, so there are times when I am busy with that, and that obligation takes priority.

 

[Liz Bent]

Hi everyone! I keep a word count out of curiosity, but I don't try to stick to a specific number of words per day. I'm bipolar and some days I have ALL THE ENERGY, like one day in February when I wrote 20,000 (good!) words in 11 hours, and other times I am too tired and sick to sit down at my computer or pick up a pen. So my production is going to vary, and I know that. I tell myself, on my "normal' days, that I will sit at my computer for a certain number of hours, even if I do nothing but stare at the screen. Usually after some staring I get going and depending on how long I gave myself and how difficult the scenes are that I am writing, I can be fairly productive.

 

[night_wrtr]

I do this when I am actually in writing mode. I made an color coded excel sheet to mark if I was over/under, or close and whatnot. 800 words seems to be about right for me if I got at least an hour to write.

Quoting myself here because I am about to start writing and have created a excel spreadsheet to keep track of this through the rest of the year. I like to have other stats, like a few charts that help visualize progress/success and so on. So, I thought I would attach a copy if anyone is interested to use it. I have created formulas for just about everything to auto-populate what is needed for the counter and the charts. All you would need to do is update what your daily goal is and then the actual as you move along. I filled in a few days in the future to give you an idea of what it would look like.

It helps me to track it like this, so hopefully some of you might find it useful also!

I uploaded through GoogleDocs, so hopefully the formatting remains intact. If not, let me know. You can download a copy into excel to use.

Wordcount_Tracker_2017

 

[Amelia Faulkner]

I've started trying to use Pacemaker : A Simple Flexible Word Count Planner for Writers and Students - and promptly all work ceased because my back decided to give out on me. No idea whether or not Pacemaker is of any use yet, then

Certainly I find tracking my wordcount invaluable, though. As @Ihe says, it can really help during demotivated days to know that you can do it, even if today is not the day you manage to do it on. You can remind yourself that actually when you're on an upswing words do happen

 

[Lumens]

I have kept a loose count over the last few weeks and come to at least 500-1000 words a week. Not much by most standards, but I'm quite happy with that. For now.

 

[EJDeBrun]

I don't keep a word count per say, but I have daily goals depending on what I'm doing. For the early drafts I went from 350 words a day for Draft 1 to up to 1000 words a day by Draft 3. Now that I am deep into draft 4 (hopefully the last one) my pace has slowed down considerably because I self-edit so much to get the words and phrasing right. I no longer have the luxury to just spit out the same sentence structures and word choices anymore! So I started looking at things in terms of chapters and weeks. I also don't like to obsess with chapter lengths since they should be done when they're done and neither linger nor be too short. So I try to do that and usually do okay trying to meet my goals.

But I personally find trying to hit a word count goal every day useful. Makes it harder for me to slide. Downside is I tend to not take enough breaks and end up hitting the walls.