Now that NaNoWriMo is almost over (only four days left!) the time comes where people start asking “but what do I do for the rest of the year?”
I have heard it several times over the years. People really like how the NaNo website kept track of their word count for them and gave them statistics about their writing. Especially now, as the website gets updated to offer you more information. Not only your overall word count, as has been the case for many years now, but it also graphs your daily word count and keeps track of what time of day you usually write and from where as well as your average writing speed, though some (including myself) have seen that their algorithm for calculating this is a bit flawed.
Now comes the question, how can I continue to keep track of my writing in this way after NaNoWriMo is over? What can I use to make and keep track of my writing goals for the rest of the year?
Well, I have come to offer you a solution. It’s Pacemaker.Press. I have been using this website outside of the month of November (and also during November because redundancy never hurts) to keep track of my word count and any other goals I might make for myself.
Pacemaker will do the same thing NaNoWrimo’s website does, but it will do it all year round, and you can set your own goals, not only for writing, but also for editing, proofreading, plotting, and even non-writing related tasks like saving money or losing weight. With a free account, you can keep track of two goals simultaneously, and that is all I have ever needed since I try not to have more than two projects in flux at a time.
As an example, I have shown my goal for December. The plan is to write 22,000 words in the month of December and Pacemaker has given me a chart to keep track of both my daily writing goals as well as my overall word count. The neat thing about Pacemaker, though, in comparison to NaNoWriMo’s website is that it gives you more flexibility in how you want to achieve those goals. You can do it in the traditional NaNoWriMo way, where you write the same number of words all month long for an overall total number of words, or you can change it so you’re writing more at the beginning of the month or end of the month or less on weekends. I personally like to randomize it so I never know what I’m going to get that day. And then you can make the chart so that either it will change daily based on what you wrote that day, so you will have a better estimation of what you need to accomplish to keep up to date, or you can have the chart stay stagnant throughout the month so you can compare what you have done with what your goal was. The second option is the one I prefer.
With Pacemaker, you can have it be NaNoWriMo all year round. Or use it for its many other purposes, too. How much money can you save in a year? How much weight can you lose before next summer? Pacemaker is an excellent way to keep track.
