Mindy Carlson

Here we go! Do you have your October Prep done? You’ve got 2 more days to finish your characters, synopsis, outline, and first and last scenes. You got this!

If you haven’t already, decide what you’re going to use to write. Notebook. Word. Google Docs. Scrivener. Chisel and stone tablets.

I use Scrivener and I love it. Not only does it keep each chapter as a separate document inside a master manuscript, it also has a great planning board, name generator, and word counter.

I completely rely on that word counter to keep me on track with my projects. There’s a progress bar at the top to push me along to my goals of 1000 words per day and another that shows me how close I am to hitting my total word count goals for the book.

However, if you don’t want to pay $60 for Scrivener, but still want a word tracker I have a little present for you.

I made you a word count tracker!

This has a column for you to add your daily word count, then a column that gives your total words written, and then a column (suggested by the incredible Diana Peterfreund) to show how many words you need to write per day to hit your goal.

There’s even a handy line graph to let you see your progress over the 50,000 words in 30 days. Nothing like seeing your progress climb up the chart to motivate you to keep going!

And it’s free! This is an easy little chart to make, and if it motivates you to reach your 50K word goal, than that’s awesome! Go, us!

To get it onto your computer or into your Google Drive, Click on the FILE tab and the scroll down to DOWNLOAD. Then select Excel.

Or you can Make a Copy and save it into your own Google Drive.

I’ll be using it, even though I use Scrivener and have a word tracker there. There’s something about a graph! You want the real way to a girl’s heart? Spreadsheets, baby!

You can also modify your copy to cover other months. Or you can wait for me to add a sheet to my original document for tracking total projects. This is a tool to help you reach your goals. Writers help each other.

I hope you share your progress each day. We can share on Threads or you can comment below this post here or on FaceBook. I’m everywhere, apparently.

You and me? We got this! We can write 50K words in November! We can get that manuscript finished!

Read my short story AITA For Using My Husband’s Hobby to Teach Him a Lesson in the anthology MYOPIC DUPLICITY. Available now on Audiobook or Kindle.