Need a Word Count Tracker?

I participated in NaNoWriMo this year, knowing full well that I was not going to make the 50,000 word goal. I write on average, according to the NaNoWriMo word counter, about 843 words a day. At that rate, I knew it would take me two months to write my novel, instead of just one.

But I didn’t mind. I wanted to get started on a story I had been thinking about for a long time, based on a classic novel that has always inspired me. The timing to start was perfect. I enjoyed entering my total word count each day, watching that graph go up up up. At first, my estimated completion date was February 7. Slowly but surely that date backed up to January 11.

The NaNoWriMo word counter helped me be successful in my writing 25,317 words in 30 days.

But alas! NaNoWriMo ended, and so too did my word counter. For a period of a few days I went through some serious withdrawal.

Then I decided I needed to hop back on the word count tracker bus. After trying: Wordly, Pacemaker, WriterStat, WordKeeperAlpha, plus a few more mobile apps; here is the tool I decided on for anyone out there for anyone, who like me, has a serious word count tracker addiction.

WriteTrack

After searching the internet three times over for an acceptable word count tracker, and finding many that required a monthly subscription, I found WriteTrack by David S. Gale.

WriteTrack is free. Yes, I did bold and underline free. So many word trackers on the internet are not free, and they don’t do half the things that WriteTrack does.

It is one of the only word count trackers out there that I could find that adjusts your word count goals as you write. Instead of knowing that I have fallen behind in my daily goal, it shifts based on how much you write over time.

WriteTrack can also track by weight. For example, if you are a weekend warrior and know that you’re going to crank out 3000-5000 words in a weekend, you can set your weekends to a higher weight percentage. This allows you to feel successful, and see an accurate projection of your word totals, even if you are not writing every day.

As you are entering your word counts for the day, you have two options: Single Day or Overall Total. I prefer Overall Total, because sometimes I could technically write 1600 words in a day, but I had to scrap 300 of a previous total due to plot adjustments. Most trackers out there don’t let you do that.

There are also several charts that will track your overall progress, daily performance goals etc. Oh, and wait, did I mention it’s free? Just sayin’.

Overall, it’s the best one I’ve found for what I’m looking for in a word count tracker.

If you still can’t get enough word count trackers, check out 13 free writing meters, progress trackers, and word counters by Tracy Lucas.

So here I am, 33,000 words and counting.

Do you have a word count tracker that works for you?