Many writers love setting daily word count goals. It’s not for me, because days can vary so wildly. On one day, I might get a ton of writing done. On another day, I might have to drastically rewrite something, or take my dog in for emergency surgery, like we had to do last week. (He’s making a good recovery!) I like to look at my progress month to month.
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No matter how you feel about word count goals, tracking your progress can be really motivating! I think making your progress public on your blog or website, or sharing it on social media, can be especially inspiring. I talked about mine on the last WIP Wednesday, and some people wanted to know where to get one. Here are four word counters available for free. See if one of them works for you!
For your WordPress.org blog…
This is the one I’ve added to my blog (you can see it near the bottom on the lefthand column on this page.) It’s only an option if you have a blog on WordPress.org, but it’s pretty handy.
For your WordPress.com blog or other website…
This gives you an html code that you can paste onto your website. If you have a WordPress.com blog, for example, you can paste it into a text widget and it’ll look great. Bookmark the page. When you need to update your word count, you can do it on this web page and your word counter, wherever you put it, will update. You don’t need to paste in the code again.
Here’s how it looks!
There are actually a lot of word counters like this out there, but I like this one because you can change the colors however you like.
For your iPhone…
If you track your daily word count on Wordly, it makes a graph that you can send to Facebook or Twitter. And if you are the kind of person to set daily word goals, Wordly will give you prompts, and it will also give you stats. (I for one do not want to know how many words I write per hour, but some people might!) Although I haven’t tried out Wordly myself yet, it looks like it’s worth checking out.
For your computer…
Justin McLachlan has made a pretty sweet spreadsheet with NaNoWriMo in mind, but you can adjust it to any word count goal for the month. It’s color-coded (green means you’re doing great, yellow means you’re doing so-so, and red means you’re behind.) Check it out here, and check out his great blog!
If you have a word tracking method or app that you love, or you want to chat about word count, please share in the comments. Have a great week, and happy writing!
Hey Bryn, how are you? I’m glad your dog is doing fine! I’m bummed I missed some WIP’s, I really need to pull myself together and get back to writing Ihatesummerdepression.
Now to the subject of wordcount, is it vital to decide how much words a book contains, cause I’m not sure wether I end up having 100k or 125k words. Maybe I’m taking a wrong approach, I never payed much attention to wordcount, should I?
Have a lovely day, greetings from a very hot and sunny Germany!
Scarlett! So sorry about the summer depression. Fall is so much better, in my opinion! Fall and winter are my favorites. 🙂
As far as an estimated final word count… I find it helpful, but that might not be the case for everyone. I make a guess based on the genre plus just how the story feels to me. Would you categorize your work as fantasy? (I’ve only read snippets, so I’m not positive.) 100K is a really good, solid length for fantasy, and 125K is on the long side even for that genre for a stand-alone or a first book in a series. BUT, you should only pay attention to it if it helps you!
Scrivener has a nice word count/goal feature that I use. It’s so satisfying to watch the line grow longer, and it changes from dark red, to orange, to yellow, to green as you get closer to your goal.
It does keep me motivated and writing!
Ahh, I didn’t even know that was built in to Scrivener… actually I have an old version, so I don’t know if it’s in there or not. I really do need to give it another try!
Excellent, I’ve been meaning to ask you about this since I saw the word counter on your blog.
I’m not a big counter, but I do count. Only made it halfway to my NaNo goal last year, but I’m the only person in my local group who wrote 29/30 days in the month. That was big for me, and it felt really good. Even though some days I wrote 300 words before falling asleep at the computer, I wrote every day.
Writing every day of a month is huge! And honestly, 25K in a month is fantastic. It sounds like you really made NaNo work for you.
I can’t, for the life of me see the point of word counting unless it’s to meet a deadline. Maybe it’s an age thing with me. Some days, I don’t write anything. I tend to my beans, brussell sprouts, cabbages, carrots, beetroot etc. But all the while, I’m thinking, scheming and planning about my fiction. I write a monthly non-fiction article for an Australian / Irish magazine and I also plan that while happily hoeing. I certainly never consider word counting. I let the words fall where they will. Or, maybe I’ve got the wrong end of the thread … the one I’m using to support the bean stalks. Now, there an idea for a story. Let me see now … A lad called Jack is sent off to market to sell a pig … sounds vaguely familiar?
I doubt very much it’s an age thing, Lawrence — just a style thing! I’m sure it’s not for everyone. Having the counter on my blog motivates me, but everybody’s motivated by different things. ~ Hee hee, I think I read a story like that once before…
For my next project, I’m going to try Jami Gold’s Beat Sheets http://bit.ly/2ceQPMg As I finish a section, I will just fill the box in the spreadsheet in yellow or some color coded system for how far along I think the section is completed. After a good day of writing, I always email myself the manuscript with the title and word count: Cinderella 37,533. It is a great way to have a backup for my writing and I get to see progress over time.
(I can’t wait to read A Knight Restored. That blue line needs to move!)
Maryanne, I love Jami Gold’s beat sheets! I haven’t really used them for tracking, but definitely for plotting. I’m using the Save the Cat one for A Knight Restored. And than you so much for the kind words on that story! There is nothing more motivating than that!
Thanks for sharing. <3
I built a counter similar to Justin's last NaNo. Motivating to see the word count grow.