Write Every Day, April Day #15

[auroracloud]

Voluntary writing question of the day: Do you track words counts or do you have other ways of tracking/measuring your writing progress, besides checking in here? I didn't use to do anything like that, unless I was doing NaNoWriMo and wanted to beat a specific goal. Then for a couple of years at least, I did track my word counts and have yearly goals, inspired my some communities here on DW. But I abandoned it this year, because it didn't feel like a meaningful way for me to follow my progress, especially when I sometimes handwrite a lot (making it hard to get a precise count) and also write in two languages that have very different structures, making the word count comparisons less meaningful. But now that I'm only following my daily writing, I sometimes miss being able to mark in a list when I've had a particularly productive day or something. Ah well, I can probably live with it. But thinking about that made me curious about how you folks approach these things.

I do have some tiny rewards for myself for whenever I reach certain word count milestones with the new version of my novel, but I haven't yet reached any of them. Maybe I should just add more tiny rewards for other things as well! Like for an X number of fanfic words, for published fics, for fics in new fandoms, for getting so-and-so far in a notebook... But I'd have to think of how to come up with enough rewards since I don't have a lot of money these days.

On with the show!

Today's Writing

Though I had actual scheduled programme in the morning, I woke up early enough that I had some time for writing after breakfast. I did more free-writing that turned into more brainstorming for Ambush Project #2 (it needs a snappier pseudonym). And in the evening I finally got started on one of my bingo cards - I wrote 499 words on one of the squares on the April Bingo Card. Pure fluff, but that's what I need now. It still needs at least a few hundred words to be complete, but I was pleased with my progress anyway.


Tally

Day 1: alexcat, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, deifire, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme

Day 2: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, china_shop, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, deifire, elliet, falkner, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme

Day 3: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, falkner, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, silveradept, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme

Day 4: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, lferion, luzula, nafs, sakana17, sanguinity, shadaras, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme

Day 5: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, falkner, lferion, luzula, nafs, sakana17, sanguinity, shadaras, silveradept, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme


Day 6: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, deifire, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme


Day 7: auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, falkner, luzula, nafs, sakana17, sanguinity, shadaras, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme

Day 8: auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme


Day 9: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, falkner, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme


Day 10: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, caprices, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme


Day 11: auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, lferion, luzula, nafs, sakana17, sanguinity, shadaras, silveradept, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, yasaman, ysilme


Day 12: auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, falkner, lferion, luzula, nafs, sakana17, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, yasaman, ysilme

Day 13: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, falkner, lferion, luzula, sakana17, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme

Day 14: auroracloud, badly_knitted, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, lferion, luzula, nafs, sakana17, sanguinity, shadaras, silveradept, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme

Day 15: auroracloud, china_shop

Let me know if I missed you on the tally, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet! You can join in or drop out any time.

Comments

[luzula]

Today's wordcount: 600
Total wordcount on fic: 9,000

[auroracloud]

Yay, excellent!

[badly_knitted]

Didn't get as much done in the garden today, I had laundry to do so I had that to hang out and bring in again. Only getting two really warm days though so I had to take advantage of the good drying weather while it lasted.

April 15th - 817 words, the start of a challenge fic and a bit of editing on something else.

It's been a busy but productive day.

[auroracloud]

Good laundry drying weather is definitely something to be taken advantage of! And it sounds like a productive day indeed. Yay for getting started on the challenge fic!

[badly_knitted]

More good drying weather today, but it turns colder again tomorrow so everything will have to finish drying indoors.

Starting it was easy, but now I don't know where to go with it and I only have a few days left to the deadline...

[deifire]

Just 19 alibi words today. Will try again tomorrow.

I've been tracking word counts, but wondering if there's a better way to do it that would reward work like editing, which is also important.

[auroracloud]

Words are still words, even if there aren't many. And yes, when one day doesn't work out that great, we try again tomorrow. :-)

Yeah, stuff like editing is one of the reasons why tracking word counts doesn't feel like the best solution. My drafts need a lot of editing, and it's just as important as the first-draft writing. When I tracked wordcounts, I'd add any extra words I noticed I had added, but often editing is also about removing or rearranging things, etc. Maybe having separate trackers where you can add words written, or pages edited, or something. But that's not perfect either, because you may return to edit the same pages more than once; and some pages need a lot of editing, some very little.

[anneapocalypse]

I sometimes track word count, because it is nice to have goals, but other times I find it isn't very useful. Like right now, when I'm diving back into a messy WIP with a bunch of half-written chapters, often there isn't a good starting point to just go knock out a thousand words at stretch. So I have to give myself more leeway with that kind of project. Maybe I set goals like "Finish chapter" instead, or just try to make progress. Sometimes it's nice to write down what I did each day, just to see progress even if it's not quantifiable.

[auroracloud]

*waves* Yeah, my current goals are more of the "write this chapter, outline this part of the story" sort at the moment. I'm thinking I should just try creating my own tracker system in my bullet journal, since I've started to use one to manage everything else in my life, too. (Without some sort of helpful system, I'm terrible at managing anything.) Then I could easily set trackers for stuff like "wrote something", "finished chapter," "edited" etc. I'd just have to come up with a good system for what I do track. Because yeah, it can be satisfying to be able to somehow mark down what you've done.

[sylvanwitch]

I like the idea of rewarding yourself for achieving both mini- and not-so-mini-goals. :-)

I use the word tracker Excel sheet provided by the inkingitout comm here on DW, and I do keep daily track because it helps me to see the steady progress, and I also like that I can look back over past years and recognize patterns of writing behavior. (For example, I usually interrupt myself in the early part of the new year with a longer-than-intended fanfiction project, something I didn't recognize as a pattern until I looked back over my spreadsheets.)

Today, I wrote in the morning, before the day's obligations, and that proved very useful because not only did I write 832 words, but then I also spent brief periods of down-time during the day thinking over the direction of the story, etc.

[auroracloud]

Rewards are such useful little things. Sometimes I do things like "I get to eat this piece of chocolate once I've written a hundred words," and it tends to work!

I'm glad those spreadsheets have been useful for you! I could never make those spreadsheets work properly on my MacBook, so I had to create my own, and I'm not exactly a spreadsheet miracle, so my spreadsheets aren't as useful as they could be. Also, last year I just kept forgetting to write down the wordcounts! That's one of the reasons I'm not trying this year. But it would be satisfying to be able to set down something, in addition to these check-ins.

Yay for productive morning writing, and also getting around to thinking over the story at other times in the day. :-)

[shadaras]

I don't track wordcount without a reason. :P As you can tell, even here I'm just like 'yup I wrote!' and at best give a rough amount. I'll do it for NaNo because it asks for a number to see it going up, but... I don't need that, really?

I mostly just notice if I write a whole fic in one sitting or otherwise do a bunch of words in one go.

Anyway, today I wrote a nice amount of words and am finally moving my characters into the drama that I'd originally been aiming for before the food diversion. :)

[auroracloud]

Yeah, I don't really feel like I need an exact word count either, but I do sometimes wish I still had something - other than these check-ins - where to set down what I've done that day. Maybe I should start keeping a writing journal for myself, or set up trackers in my bullet journal. But not tracking at all is a totally fine way to do it! I find many writers get too fixated on word counts and wordcount goals, and that can mean you're writing for the word count rather than what you actually want to write.

Yay for both a nice amount of words and for getting the characters into the drama! Sounds great. :-)

[sierranovembr]

I wrote this evening - 275 words on a new fic.

I am in my second year of tracking daily fic words. I have a spreadsheet set up to plot them, and it can be motivating to watch the little line slope upwards throughout the month/year. For work writing, which I also use for checking in to WED (because it's writing and I do it), I only keep track of goal completion (section/paper done, etc). :)

[auroracloud]

Yay for words and new fics!

Glad you find the tracking motivating! :-)

[sanguinity]

Apr 15: Published a story this morning -- that ficlet that I mentioned in my goals at the beginning of the month, the one that's been languishing for months for want of an ending.

I don't really track word count, no, other than absently noting what the word/page count was, and if that seems high or low for the day, and asking myself how I feel about that. I note the feeling, ask myself if there's any lessons learned that I can apply to a future day, and then either ride the glow (if it was a good feeling), or try to put it aside (if it's a bad one).

[auroracloud]

Excellent! Glad you got your fic posted, especially since it's been waiting for so long!

That sounds like a good way to handle it - looking at what there may be to be learned for future, rather than focusing on word counts. Word counts feel motivating for some people, but if they don't for you, no reason to do that, usually.

[cornerofmadness]

Got 529 words on a comment ficlet. It was a busy day of actual work so not much writing time.

And as you can problem guess from my log ins I keep track of every word, fanfic vs original. It is just a quick and easy way for me to keep myself on track

[auroracloud]

That's very well done for a busy day!

If tracking word counts across your different projects is something that works for you, then it's good to keep doing it. :-)

[cornerofmadness]

thanks

[lferion]

Day 15 - posted yesterday’s piece to AO3, need to comment on the bingo page. Wrote a drabble for a friend’s prompt. Need to find time to give a proper look at the SWG April challenge/encouragement calendar.

[auroracloud]

Yay for posting, and another drabble written! (Sheesh, my computer just tried to autocorrect that to 'dribble'. Not what I wanted to say!!)

[yasaman]

Day 15: did end up dumping most of yesterday's writing, but still ended up with a net of 656 words added today. Which I can say because Scrivener keeps track of my daily writing history and word count. Otherwise I wouldn't really bother to keep such specific track myself.

[auroracloud]

Excellent work, sounds like it was a productive day regardless of what happened to yesterday's words. And as I said, sometimes we need to write those words in order to know what we need to write instead.

Oh, right, Scrivener has something called "Writing history"! I only just noticed thanks to you mentioning that. I'd only made use of the project targets/statistics to see what I wrote that day, when I was tracking them.

[china_shop]

16th: About 438 words.

If I'm giving a word count, it's usually either the number of words in the Word file minus the number that were there when I started that day, or just the number of words in the section I've been working on (if I can remember where I started). It's pretty vague, and I don't keep track separately unless I'm on a roll and the numbers will make me feel good. When it's like pulling teeth, it's enough for me to know that I wrote. :-)

[auroracloud]

Sounds good!

And yeah, it makes sense to just do what works for you - I agree it can be enough to just know that you wrote. When I was tracking word counts, I'd check the Scrivener project target statistics to see what that day's word count was, but that only gives an accurate results if you're only writing new words, not editing, deleting etc.

[ysilme]

About 300 words for me, acutally editing a WIP! :o)

[auroracloud]

Yay editing a WIP, that's great! *gets out pom-poms to cheerlead you*