35 Day Novel Tracking Chart

Fo NaNoWrimo, I wanted a bar graph to track my progress.I wanted something I could post on the wall to motivate me, not some database that I could use for billable hours. I had the chart from the No Plot No Problem writer’s kit, but have used it up on several aborted projects. And anyway, it just didn’t seem flexible enough.

So I Opened up Open Office Writer and created a quick couple of tables and frames and twenty minutes later, I had this Quick and Dirty Novel Tracking Chart Done.

Basically, I wanted to do a Novel-in-a-Month program, and use one of the trackers that are available as motivational tools.� Nothing seemed to do what I wanted it to do: They’ve all got that 50K Words in 30 Days aspect that NaNoWriMo made so popular.� Which I never understood: 50K isn’t really novel length and divided over 30 days comes to 1,666 words a day, not a nice round number. So I tried to do some things a little differently.

First, I got rid of the 30 days. A month is nice, but that means I’m starting on a Monday and ending on a Wednesday. Huh?� Let’s go with an even number of weeks. Start on a Saturday, end on a Friday. 5 weeks is 35 days- Close enough for the Book a month crowd?. Or write five days a week for seven work weeks. It works either way (Whatever. Go for it).

Next, we round the words per day up to 2,000. Only 20% more per day, it’s a nice round number, and we get 70,000 words on the chart. Still doable, a lot easier to plan, closer to novel length. I Like it.

My Screen Capture-Fu is Weak. Right Click to Save

In order to fit it on the page with the total word count bar graph, I used five cells across.  Which kind of sucks since I wanted it to be by week.  So, you can’t read this like a regular calendar.  If you can’t read this like a regular calendar, then why start at the upper left? Think of it as counting up to your goal. Work this chart from the bottom up toward your goal.Feel free to put gold stickers anywhere you want.

Finally, Feel Free to Distribute and Improve on this. It’s under an Attribution, Share-Alike license. It was just a quick and Dirty Chart to get me started and I’m happy to share. And Please, If you find it just a little bit useful or make an improvement, link back here and let me know.

Right Click and Save As: here for the ODT

And Here’s the PDF. Right Click and save.