I’m a fairly recent convert to Scrivener. But one thing I really like about this software is that I can give a project a completion date, set a rough word count for the work as a whole and then check in to see how I’m doing day by day. It’s a great way to keep on track and creates a competitive, ‘beat the clock’ impulse which really boosts creativity.
So here’s what you do:
Once you’ve begun your project, set up the document how you like it – if it’s a novel, you may have put in some notes about scenes, characters and background. Once you’ve done all that and got started with the writing, go to the top menu across the screen and choose Show Project Targets, then choose Options. Here you can type in a deadline for completing the work and a projected word count – approximate, of course. The rest is maths – the software calculates how many words you should be writing each day to reach your target.
Once you have completed your writing for the day, have a look at your project targets. Did you write the required number of words? Maybe you wrote a few hundred more. You will be pleased to see that your target word requirement per day is now smaller. Yay! This can be a big incentive to whipping through that first draft.
Happy writing!
Judith McKinnon 