Tracking Writing OR Graphs Are Fun!

My path to fiction writing has been a strange one. Sure I wrote short stories, papers, poems, and other such things as a kid, but thinking of writing as useful rather than fun took a bit. It started with writing my own monologues for auditions in high school. An acting teacher had mentioned the idea, and combing through plays to find an already written perfect match seemed so much harder than just making one up.

I probably should have taken the hint and focused on writing then and there, but we all have our own paths, jah?

From there it was playwriting in college, then years of pursuing screenwriting before ending up at fiction. My current project? Taking a story that I loved as a script and turning it into a novel. The good part? I get to include all of the juicy world bits that couldn't be crammed in the mere 112 pages of script. The bad part? Novels are frikkin' LONG.

"What?!?" says our friend Cynical Reader. "Are you saying novels are harder?!?!? Are you saying scripts are easier and thus less valid?!?!?!?"

First, you should really tone down the punctuation, CR. Second, let's just say that since a picture is worth a thousand words, when you go from movie to book someone has to write those thousand words.

Fortunately, my amazing wife (who is also a writer) pointed me in the direction of WriteTrack. (Website located here: http://nano.davidsgale.com)

**Ahem** Seems we need to register and login...
Hold on a second...

WriteTrack is free (awesome!), but generous souls can donate to keep the lights on. And it does exactly what the name implies:

It keeps track of what you write.

Namely your goal, how much you need to have done at this point, and how much you actually have done by this point.

Forget Science and Technology...
...THIS is what Progress looks like!

It works by setting up challenges. For example, I had 35,000 words of an estimated 100,000. I decided I wanted to finished my rough draft by May 1st, so I entered in 65,000 as my goal, and...

Voila! Numbers on a calendar!

Every day you simply enter in how many actual words you wrote, and it redistributes the remaining words across the given time period. Wrote more than you need? Great! That's less you'll have to write later. Wrote less? Then get to work, slacker!

Truth be told, I completely love this thing for the graphic elements that it does automatically. Sure, I could do all the math and keep track on a spread sheet. If I did it would look just like the raw data report you can access.

Hooray. A data table. It's so exciting...

I could even make simple line graphs normally associated with stock prices:

Sell, damn it, SELL!

However like a magpie I also enjoy shiny things, and the ease of entering in a single number every day to get neat looking graphs is a completely wonderful feeling.

Take, for example, the daily performance graph.

Orange is NormalVille.
My blue is in the land of Awesome.

But how does such exceptional performance (if I do say so myself) add up in the long run? Who knows?!?

Oh wait. The total progress graph knows.

The Total Progress Graph knows ALL.

As any writer can attest it is really easy to get a little lost in the middle mire when writing a book/script/poem. I've seen people get lost in the middle of haikus.

You start to feel like each day is disconnected from the next, and at night that little voice in your head starts saying, "What's it matter if you don't write today? It's just one day... You deserve to eat that ice cream. A little ice cream never hurt anyone. Also you shouldn't exercise. And should sleep for, like, 72 hours straight. And every meal should be pizza. Topped with chocolate."

Well I'm gonna lay it out right here, right now: That voice is a punk. And not the cool kind with dye in their hair and metal in their face. That voice is the kind who I can't describe without unintentionally pissing someone off. It's that offensive.

And call me weird, but something about being accountable to those little blue and orange lines makes me shove that punk away and get writing.

Because it's easy to feel down on yourself while writing. But it's a nice kick in the ego pants to produce graphs like this one:

Every day I have exceeded 100%.
That's right: I have defied the laws of math.

That being said, sometimes we can't write for very good, non-punk related reasons. Say we're going on a trip, or have to pull a really long day at work, or the kids are sick.

Fortunately, WriteTrack ALSO has you covered there by allowing you to adjust the weight of each day in percentages.

Having no kids, mine are all at 100%.
That sound you just heard is all of my friends who are parents slapping me.

Now this may not work for everyone. But for some awesome reason it motivated my wife, and it's motivated me.

You know how many words I wrote in February? Me neither. I didn't keep track that well, but I can tell you it wasn't much.

You know how many I've written in the last two weeks? 19,000.

I'm not bragging here (okay, maybe a little), but I've clearly shoved that punk voice away from center stage.

Seriously though, this isn't just about bragging. Not only do I find this tool and all the data fascinating, but I'm also fascinated about how well it works.

It's not like I have anyone to answer to but myself. I'm the only who sees this goal. I don't have an agent or publisher waiting on the deadline. Even the possibility of making money from the book is at best a dim hope in the future at the end of many obstacles, so the threat of not making money off it has no teeth in the slightest.

But the graph becomes tangible. It becomes a very real thing that I see at the end of every day, a moment when I can pause and say to myself, "Well, Self, it seems you have created something quantifiable today."

And I can look back and say, "Ummm... Okay, I really need to stop talking to myself so vividly. But that is an awesome graph."