Word Count Formula For 2020 Word Count Writing Goal
Saturday, November 16th, 2019 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabled_librarianContent Warning: Brief and vague mentions of chronic illnesses, pneumonia, and medical treatments and cures
The following is the formula I decided on for figuring out what I want my 2020 writing word count goal to be. This applies only to the word count goal, which I track on my own -- not the annual Get Your Words Out Goal, for which I'll be choosing the Habit Goal of 120 days again next year. I changed the word count goal formula for 2020 drastically from what it's been for the last two years, mostly because I was not approaching anywhere near my goal, which was repeatedly setting me up for failure. The biggest change I made was drastically cutting down on my word count goals for each of the Nanowrimos. If I still come nowhere close to approaching my goal next year, then for 2021, I plan on adding in another month (31 days) worth of off days -- days I can't write on because I'm too sick, exhausted, busy, or other things. Right now, I'm hoping that three months-worth will be enough, especially because I am hopeful that I'll have effective medical treatment or a cure for a health issue that often makes it difficult for me to write. But that might not be realistic. For one thing, my insurance may deny coverage of the treatment, and for another, I may just be sick or busy more often than that. As I type this, I have been sick for two weeks with pneumonia, and now it seems that the antibiotics used to treat the pneumonia may be causing me other problems. Even though it's November, I want to type this up now. For one thing, I'm trying to get my writing, reading, and planning for next year as set up and ready as I can in advance. For another, with all the chronic health problems my fiance and I have and the compromised immune system that is part of that for me, I can't guarantee when I'll be able to type this all up at another time. Finally, I'm more than halfway through the daily journal I wrote the figures I plan for for next year in, and when I'm finished writing in it, it'll go into a trunk that can be a chore to get into sometimes. I want it written down somewhere where it's easier and more universally accessible to review when I have cause to.
Math for 2020 Word Count Writing Goal:
Total 2020 Word Count Goal: 33,100 words (at least) over the course of the year
How I came up with that number:
The following is the formula I decided on for figuring out what I want my 2020 writing word count goal to be. This applies only to the word count goal, which I track on my own -- not the annual Get Your Words Out Goal, for which I'll be choosing the Habit Goal of 120 days again next year. I changed the word count goal formula for 2020 drastically from what it's been for the last two years, mostly because I was not approaching anywhere near my goal, which was repeatedly setting me up for failure. The biggest change I made was drastically cutting down on my word count goals for each of the Nanowrimos. If I still come nowhere close to approaching my goal next year, then for 2021, I plan on adding in another month (31 days) worth of off days -- days I can't write on because I'm too sick, exhausted, busy, or other things. Right now, I'm hoping that three months-worth will be enough, especially because I am hopeful that I'll have effective medical treatment or a cure for a health issue that often makes it difficult for me to write. But that might not be realistic. For one thing, my insurance may deny coverage of the treatment, and for another, I may just be sick or busy more often than that. As I type this, I have been sick for two weeks with pneumonia, and now it seems that the antibiotics used to treat the pneumonia may be causing me other problems. Even though it's November, I want to type this up now. For one thing, I'm trying to get my writing, reading, and planning for next year as set up and ready as I can in advance. For another, with all the chronic health problems my fiance and I have and the compromised immune system that is part of that for me, I can't guarantee when I'll be able to type this all up at another time. Finally, I'm more than halfway through the daily journal I wrote the figures I plan for for next year in, and when I'm finished writing in it, it'll go into a trunk that can be a chore to get into sometimes. I want it written down somewhere where it's easier and more universally accessible to review when I have cause to.
Math for 2020 Word Count Writing Goal:
Total 2020 Word Count Goal: 33,100 words (at least) over the course of the year
How I came up with that number:
- 365 days in the year
- Subtract days for each NaNoWriMo (30 days for April, 31 days for July, and 30 days for November)
- Number of days remaining in the year after that = 274
- Subtract 93 days (31 times 3, to account for three months worth of leeway and off days throughout the year for days when I am sick, especially symptomatic, am too busy to write, or don't have spoons/energy/brain power to write. In an effort to be more gentle with myself, I am using 31 days for each of the three months-worth, as opposed to 30 days for each of them).
- Total number of days after that: 181
- 181 times 100 (for writing 100 words per day, an idea from -- I believe -- "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott) = 18,000 words
- Add 15,000 words (5,000 words for each NaNoWriMo throughout the year, even though November doesn't let you choose your own goal and defaults to 50,000 words. This year -- 2019 -- it did allow you to set up your own projects with a custom number of words, but when I tried to make it a NaNoWriMo project, it wouldn't let me choose the number of words I wanted to do. But at least I was ble to create a custom project, which is better than what I thought it would let me do).
- Equals Word Count Goal of at least 33,100 words written in 2020
