Download My Yearly Writing and Editing Word Count Goal Spreadsheet

I completely changed how I keep track of my writing goals this year to something that very specifically fit my needs this year and you can read about that here and here. But before that I had a more general system for keeping track of my writing, editing and various projects that I’ve been using for many years that served me very well. My NaNoWriMo area took an interest in my spreadsheet (and by took an interest I mean they made fun of me for having a writing spreadsheet that Fran said “looks like it’s tracking the stock market”) and several people asked me if I could send them a copy so that they could adapt it to their own needs.

To grab your own copy of my crazy spreadsheet (keep in mind this is the older more general system and not the crazy one I’m using this year), just click here and then go to File > Download As. It was created in Google Drive, however, so, if you have a Google Account you’re better off not downloading it and, instead, logging into your Google Drive account (if you have any Google or YouTube Account, you have a Google Drive account so just use that login) and then selecting File > Make a copy. This will put an editable copy in your Google Drive account that you can customize to your needs. Most of the charts and fancy stuff will only work in Google Drive and not if you download it.

How does it work? You just input your daily word count for each project you’re working on and keep tracking of editing by time and it all totals into whatever word count goal you set for the year. Then there are tons of little things that auto-calculate based on your current count giving you a ton of stats to see how your writing year is progressing. There’s also charts and other things to give you a picture of everything you have going on.

This is designed for people, such as myself, with a bunch of projects going on at once. If you’re only working on one or two novels, it’s probably a bit too much for you.

Now, I need to give you a little disclaimer. I was tinkering with this spreadsheet at the end of last year trying to create what ultimately became my new writing system and, in the process, broke some stuff. Parts of the spreadsheet may not work. Normally, I wouldn’t share something that is broken but I really think everyone who downloads it will be immediately modifying it to fit their own needs anyway so it didn’t seem worth my time to go back and fix things you’d probably be changing. If anything is broken beyond repair and you can’t figure out how to use it, let me know below and I’ll see if I can help out.

Any questions? Leave em below!