Feedback Request: What Do You Want in a Word Tracking Calendar?
Posted on December 11, 2013 in Process
(last edited on August 5, 2014 at 5:28 pm)
(last edited on August 5, 2014 at 5:28 pm)
I’ve had several requests for a full year word-tracking calendar based on the National Novel Writing Month Tracking Calendar I made last November.
I started the basic layout yesterday with three months in, but realized that I wasn’t quite sure if it should track 50,000 words for every month. Do people really want to track 50,000 words a month for the entire year? Or maybe it’s just that people want to have their 50K word goal during whatever month makes sense?
There are probably several variations that I will end up making, so this is a good time to get your two cents in! :-)
8 Comments
I think 50.000 is ok – since I can set my own goal and pace myself by having a private alternative goal of filling in an average of X boxes per day.
So I would personally regard the 50.000 words as an unreachable maximum for a month where I plan to write a lot, but I imagine I would go for half or even less during most month (writing academic papers).
Would it be possible to set a variable word count represented by each box or level of boxes? During most months, I have a pretty modest goal – 1,000 (edited) words per week – but I could see the value in ramping up to 50,000 per month if I decide to take part in NaNoWriMo.
I might be able to make it so there’s a box you can write-in how many words each box represents, and eliminate the pacing counts in the summary row at the end. I’m also thinking that I should actually try to code-up something that generates this layout for me, so it is more easily customized.
You can set it for 50k and users can make an appropriate divisor (5, 10, 25) for their own purposes. Also, since Christmas is approaching, I would love a magical sheet where you entered the month and year and it automatically generated the appropriate form.
Or else, make a five week chart with totals at the end of the week and let us write in the days 1-30 or whatever.
I love the little fill in boxes so as long as those are there I’m happy. The word count levels for the boxes work well for me depending on my productivity, even if I’m not doing a NaNo month. Really like the weekly-in spot to keep track of my progress and if I need to ramp it up the next week.
Flexibility would be the best. Look forward to using it.
I manage two writing groups and people have requested 500 and 750 words for their daily goals (directly related to your fantastic spreadsheet last year). There’s a 500 word per day challenge many of them are participating in. While we’re talking three boxes here, you already have it set up properly if you flip the order of your numbers. Start the first box with 250. The next two brings the daily total to 750. Put the cut-off line, then the rest of the pyramid increases to 1500 and finally 2500+ (if my math is correct).
There’s a full-year version you can now download. I may make a version without the word scale next, which would mean you could make the boxes mean any quantity you want.
http://shop.davidseah.com/products/word-tracking-calendar