Day 11: Tracking System

Today I want to handle an important housekeeping issue. I probably should've done this from day one, but I need to implement an improved system to track my progress. So far I've just been keeping tabs on how much I write each day and as long as I meet the goal or at least get close I call it good. At the end of the week I can sum up and see if I hit my goals. Obviously this is pretty weak stuff because it doesn't leave much room for review. I can't go back and see exactly what I worked on in any given week, and that information will be crucial for planning out the future. I'm going to discuss the system I'll be using from now on and how I want to expand it in the future for today's blog post. This one might not be quite as exciting, but it will be just as important!

To start with, I have a spreadsheet prepared that I use to track my daily output. This is basic stuff, I know. Beyond just tracking progress though, I want to improve the spreadsheet so that I can use it to extrapolate and see how much longer I'll be working on story. My plan is to develop a spreadsheet where each scene I want to cover in the novel is listed in order. Then I can update the sheet each day with how much progress I made on any given scene. This will give me a much better picture of how far I've made it into the novel, how far I have to go, and it will give me a way to edit my novel on a wide scale. I can't just move chapters around in a document, but in a list on a spreadsheet? No problem. If I end up struggling with a scene, or I don't know what to write, the ordered spreadsheet will give me the added benefit of being able to jump around and write whatever I feel like without getting too lost in the plot. Now I just need a way to keep track of all these scenes ...

To solve that issue, I think I'm going to keep separate documents for each scene. This comes with it's own host of problems, but I think it will work out better than one huge Google Docs file. It's easy to get lost in the big document, and by now it actually takes a while to open up if I'm working mobile. Patching them all together at the end of the draft may be fun or may be really annoying. We'll see how it goes. Either way, I'm looking forward to the day I get to have a complete draft of my novel. Hopefully by the time it's ready, this blog and some of my short stories will have some other people looking forward to my final draft as well!

I know this post was kinda plain, so tomorrow I'm going to post something much juicier. I've been working on a writing exercise to explore my pacing, something that I (and lots of people) struggle to nail down. So look out for a big post tomorrow! Hopefully you'll find it interesting if not informative.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley