#than if i was hiding my wordcount in a program that other people couldn't see

[not-poignant]

What program do you use to keep track of your monthly wordcount? I see yours on Discord all the time and have been wondering. Hope you're doing a little better, I understand the last weeks (months, years) have been rough for you. All the love and support <3

Hi anon,

I don't use a program to keep track of my word count!

There's Discord, and that's it, heh.

So I don't track my wordcount like most people. I don't count all the words I wrote in a day. I only count the wordcounts of finished first draft chapters. So let's say I have a miracle day and I've written 1000 words across 5 unfinished chapters, and 2000 words in a finished chapter, I will only log the 2000 words, even though I wrote 7000 words that day.

This works for me because I have a very strong drive to achieve and complete things, and I additionally write serials for a living, so I can actually use a 'chapter by chapter' way of doing things. It also means I don't have to faff about with counting 100 words here, 2000 words there, 50 words somewhere else, and worrying if I've counted something before or not. It also means my monthly wordcount is always a little lower on paper than irl, because I don't count edited words and I don't count any words I add into chapters to expand them, and during the editing process chapters are more likely to get a little longer than a little shorter.

The other part of this puzzle is that I use a whiteboard to track chapters completed, what chapters they were, the dates they were completed etc. which helps me on a functional level to see what I have for readers. Here's last year's whiteboard:

You can see that I add each monthly total and then keep track of a yearly number too.

I'm currently halfway through 2023's whiteboard.

And that's it! That's how I do it. I don't do daily wordcounts, I don't count anything from uncompleted chapters, I don't count words added into chapters. I only count words from completed first drafts. This is also why my wordcount always jumps by over 2,500 words each time, and often every few days (except at the beginning of the month where I work a lot harder specifically on writing, and the back half of the month is more for editing).

This way has been working for me for like...5 years now? And I can't imagine it changing, honestly. I don't know how people manage otherwise, it would drive me nuts having to depend on programs or software, or having to track everything (which would make me kind of lose track of what I'm meant to be doing). I know some folks do amazing things with spreadsheets etc. but I just do my weird stuff through Discord and a whiteboard. Before Discord I used my Skype status, lol.