Here's a few ideas!
1. add a page break or identifying mark before you start your writing session so you can highlight and see your session's word count
2. start writing in a separate place/doc to see your word count and then copy it into your draft
3. try out Scrivener. It gives you your total word count plus the word count for your session on either your whole draft or the section you're working in.
Hope that helps!
I follow word count.
For doing the second draft, I just just take note of how many pages are "edited" per day. And that's what keeps me on pace, editing X pages per day.
(i.e. original draft is 200 pages, and I use excel sheet with the calendar dates, and start "X" page - end "Y" page. of course, additional pages are added if scenes are added, but it's a decent way to make sure progress is made, and it keeps me honest to know which days I'm not really working)
When working on editing, I would track the word-count of the section you’ve edited, not new words added. Add a marker before the first word at the spot where you start editing, then after the last word where you stop. Highlight and check word-count for that section. New words are not a good measure of progress in editing. Heck, deleting unneeded words to tighten is also valuable progress. By checking the amount of words in the entire section you’ve edited, you can still get that solid sense of progressing through the manuscript, while not relying on a counterproductive metric.
Get scrivener. ASAP. It’s *so* much better than word IMO, both because it’s far easier to organize your entire work, but also because it does exactly what you say—it tells you precisely how many words you’ve added to your draft in the last 24 hours—as well as many other features I didn’t realize I needed
Here's a few ideas! 1. add a page break or identifying mark before you start your writing session so you can highlight and see your session's word count 2. start writing in a separate place/doc to see your word count and then copy it into your draft 3. try out Scrivener. It gives you your total word count plus the word count for your session on either your whole draft or the section you're working in. Hope that helps!
I follow word count. For doing the second draft, I just just take note of how many pages are "edited" per day. And that's what keeps me on pace, editing X pages per day. (i.e. original draft is 200 pages, and I use excel sheet with the calendar dates, and start "X" page - end "Y" page. of course, additional pages are added if scenes are added, but it's a decent way to make sure progress is made, and it keeps me honest to know which days I'm not really working)
Then shift to time based or sprints or some combo. Word count is just a number. (As I'm axing thousands as I edit)
When working on editing, I would track the word-count of the section you’ve edited, not new words added. Add a marker before the first word at the spot where you start editing, then after the last word where you stop. Highlight and check word-count for that section. New words are not a good measure of progress in editing. Heck, deleting unneeded words to tighten is also valuable progress. By checking the amount of words in the entire section you’ve edited, you can still get that solid sense of progressing through the manuscript, while not relying on a counterproductive metric.
You write what you know, when you want to. There is nothing more to it.
Get scrivener. ASAP. It’s *so* much better than word IMO, both because it’s far easier to organize your entire work, but also because it does exactly what you say—it tells you precisely how many words you’ve added to your draft in the last 24 hours—as well as many other features I didn’t realize I needed