daily writing

Free Word Count Tracker for Your Blog or Website

One of the popular features on WordCounter is the goal setter (button right above the text input area). This allows users to set a word count goal which allows them to see their progress toward that goal as they type into the text area. What a lot of people don’t notice is that there is actually a way to embed this counter into a website or blog allowing others to also see how you’re progressing on your word count goals.

To embed the free word count tracker, all you need to do is click on the earth icon to the right of the tracker once you have set a goal. Hovering over this icon, you’ll see the words “Embed this!” Once you click on it, you’ll be given a couple of choices on the appearance of your word count tracker. You can choose the size (small, medium or large) and the color (blue, red, green, yellow, pink, cyan, brown, purple or orange). Once you’ve made these two choices, you simply click on the “save and get code” button. This will give you code that you can then place on your blog or website.

One of the advantages of this word count tracker is you never have to manually input the number of words you have written to update the counter. As you add words to your writing in the text area on WordCounter, the tracker will automatically update. This allows others to know how you’re doing in real time toward your writing goals.

There are a couple of ways you might want to use this. For example, if you write blog articles and you have a daily goal of writing 1000 words a day, you can begin writing each day and people will be able to see where you’re at during the course of the day (and whether you meet your goal). Then you can begin from zero the next morning and continue to repeat day after day.

If you have a longer piece of writing, you can set the goal as much larger. For example, maybe your goal is to write 50,000 words for a single project. You can set up the tracker for this amount and everyone will be able to see how your are progressing toward the longer-term goal.

No matter how you choose to use the word count tracker, it’s a great way to keep you accountable to the writing goals you set for yourself. Stating your writing goals and placing them out there so all can see is a great way to keep yourself honest, and it can be a great motivator to write on a daily basis. If you truly want to get a good amount of writing done daily (or over a longer period of time) using one of these trackers is an excellent way to do so.

I usually have a minimum writing goal of 500 words a day, although I sometimes increase it for certain periods when I need to be extra productive. You can see the tracker I use below.

Just go to the main page to get started.

10 Ways to Write More Each Day

One of the things most writers would like to be able to do is to write more on a daily basis. While the obvious answer to this problem is to spend more time writing, that’s not always an option. If you like to write or you have a book project brewing in the back of your mind, there are some steps you can take other than to spend more time which has the potential of helping you to get more words down on paper each day.

Set goals and stick to them

If you’re writing a book, you should have an outline of your plot and your chapters in advance. How far do you want to get this week? What should your daily progress be? Set a realistic goal and stick to it even when the going gets tough.

Set milestones, and decide how you’ll celebrate them. Turn it into a game or a challenge. If you know how much you’re progressing every day and want to up the ante, ask a little more of yourself. Are you writing 1,000 words a day? Push it to 1,250, it only takes a few minutes longer, but in four days you’ll have gained an extra day’s worth of progress. Researchers say that we can boost our productivity by as much as 25% just by setting goals.

Use your most productive working time

Many of us find that we progress fastest with our writing in the mornings. Your brain’s still half asleep, but somehow it’s still fresher and you get more writing done. Other people like to write after everyone has gone to sleep. Try writing at different times of the day to determine your most productive time of day and plan your writing time around that.

Use down-time to think things through

Use times when you’re not writing to think about what you’re going to do next. Stirring a pot in the kitchen doesn’t occupy your brain, so use the time to think about where you’re going with your writing. Generate ideas as you sip your morning coffee or while you’re driving around town on errands. Even if you don’t record your thoughts, you’ll have a greater sense of purpose when next you sit down to write.

Don’t try to perfect your writing when you’re in an inspired space

Nobody can be inspired all the time, but when inspiration hits, the faster you can get your ideas down, the more you’re going to get out of the moment. You can always go back and correct things later on, but your inspiration won’t last forever. So write. Be fast. Be furious. Be glaringly inaccurate. You can fix all of that when your brain reverts to plodding along.

Use writing prompts

If you’re blogging, journaling or just writing for fun, getting ideas for something to write can take nearly as much time as the writing itself. There are tons of weird, wonderful, interesting or inspiring writing prompts available online. Pick one at random and go crazy. The creative challenges will sharpen up your thinking, and all that writing practice is sure to improve your skill.

Take breaks

Spending hours at a time hammering away at your writing might not be the best way to boost your productivity. Take breaks every 25 minutes or so, even if it’s just getting a glass of water or looking up from your work and doing a few stretching exercises. It’s a scientifically proven fact that people who cut themselves some slack in the form of short breaks are way more productive than the constant plodders.

Don’t dump your workout

Forget the stereotypes of lumbering (and slightly dim) muscle men and ditzy ‘gym bunnies’. Getting exercise improves your circulation and gets extra oxygen into your bloodstream. And that goes to your brain, helping you to think more creatively and effectively. A study on creative thinking showed that people who did exercise, even light exercise, fared better at a task set to measure creative thinking.

Figure out how you waste time

Relaxing is important, but a lot of the unproductive things we do in our free time aren’t really relaxing. We get annoyed with our TV shows, we aimlessly search the net or we engage in less-than-meaningful interactions on social media. Remember, if it relaxes and refreshes you, it’s productive. If it doesn’t, it might be that cutting out that activity will give you more time to boost your writing productivity.

Shut out distractions

Do people ping you on Skype while you’re writing? Do you have your Facebook tab open and peep to see what’s going down every time you hear a notifier? You could be losing hours of productive time just attending to these ‘little’ distractions. When you return to your work, you have to compose your thoughts all over again, and that wastes time too.

Drink lots of water

This might sound like just another of those ho-hum health tips, but it really works. Think about it. Your body consists mainly of water, and your brain has an even higher percentage of water than the rest of your body. If you’re dehydrated, which many of us are as a matter of course, how can you expect your brain to function at its best? Keep a glass of water handy, and keep on sipping!

(Photo courtesy of inthepotter’shands)

50 Creative Writing Ideas and Prompts

When it comes to writing, there are plenty of excuses people use to justify not writing. One of the most common excuses is writer’s block (whether that really exists or not). There’re few things worse than wanting to write but nothing seems to come out. I’ve found over the years that one of the best ways for me to tackle writer’s block is to step away from whatever I happen to be working on at that moment, and just get myself writing again. For me, if I can begin to write anything, then the words begin to flow on the original project where the writer’s block started.

One of the best ways to do this is through creative writing prompts. These appeal to me mainly because they are fresh ideas and I don’t have the inhibition of writing badly since I know I’m the only one who is going to be reading them. The problem is finding new writing ideas to prompt me into writing. With that in mind, and knowing others may also be in a similar situation as I, here are some creative writing ideas to help you beat that writer’s block.

50 Creative Writing Prompts

When it comes to these writing prompts, there are no rules to how you should write. Whether you decide to write a short story, a poem, an essay a haiku or any other form, the main objective is to simply begin writing. Choose ant of the prompts that speaks most to you and let the words begin to flow…

1. Suddenly, I knew…

2. “How long have I got?” she asked.

3. He knew it couldn’t last forever.

4. Suddenly, she began to laugh aloud.

5. Everything had changed, and he knew that he’d have to change too.

6. It had been a terrible year, but at the same time, she wouldn’t have changed a thing because…

7. The old man had looked like an easy victim, but…

8. It was the coldest winter on record, and all the roads were closed.

9. As the storm became fiercer, there was a knock at the door.

10. If my car hadn’t broken down that day, I’d never have…

11. I broke every one of my New Year’s resolutions that day.

12. It was the best summer ever.

13. She could hear the crowd cheering her on.

14. Would you believe that a butterfly could change your life?

15. The traffic policeman scanned the horizon and saw an approaching dust cloud.

16. If only Harry had remembered to close the window.

17. It was the first time I’d ever tried to sail a boat.

18. The world exploded into a rainbow of colors.

19. Sometimes, the wrong thing turns out to be right after all.

20. “You can’t do that!” he exclaimed.

21. I never thought I’d be famous until…

22. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life.

23. Choose a photo and develop your story around the scene.

24. Pick a family anecdote and turn it into an amusing story.

25. Think of a famous person and write a journal entry as if you were that person.

26. Begin with “I used to believe that” and simply write.

27. I never liked a sore loser…

28. The coals were still smoldering long after midnight.

29. She never looked more beautiful than she did at that moment.

30. He fiddled nervously with his phone and wondered about…

31. Everyone was afraid of Mr. Wilkins.

32. Describe a person’s appearance in a way that reveals something about their character.

33. I have never met a cheekier child.

34. Something strange happens every time I hear that song.

35. I had never cooked a meal before…

36. Today, I knew that I needed a complete change.

37. Choose ten clichés or idioms and find creative ways to say the same thing.

38. We didn’t plan to get lost in the woods.

39. The plane was rapidly losing height. He knew he had only one chance.

40. If only I had remembered what my mother always said.

41. It was the most inspiring thing she had ever seen.

42. He never thought he’d end up being a hero.

43. The silence was more powerful than any scream.

44. Aliens? I never believed in them until…

45. They always called him ‘the mad hermit’, but he was saner than any of us.

46. Imagine being caught in an earthquake or a flood. What happens? What would you do?

47. That day, he discovered that magic was real…

48. A desperately poor man finds a priceless artifact. What happens to him as a result?

49. The strangest dream I ever had.

50. Write a witty essay about writers’ block.

Do you have a good creative writing idea or prompt that has helped you in the past? Or have any of the above prompts made you think of new ones that could benefit other writers? Feel free to share any writing prompts you’d like and we’ll add them to this list!

(Image courtesy of Julie Jordan Scott )

Find Your Own Writing Routine

I once had a writer friend whose entire writing routine was comprised of “rules” he’d learned from successful authors. He got up early to write because that’s what the successful authors did. He outlined on index cards because he’d read somewhere that certain successful authors did it that way. He used a certain kind of pen because some author declared it to be lucky. The list went on and on.

The thing was, very few of these routines worked for my friend. He was not an early riser by nature and hated getting up so early. He didn’t like to outline, felt it was stifling, but did it anyway. These things weren’t fun or useful for him, but he kept doing them because he believed that the only way to attain success was to follow what others had already done. He was trying to imitate the success of others rather than finding his own path.

If you look through history, though, (and not just that of writers and writing) you’ll find that the most successful people are usually the ones who did things their own way. Walt Disney, George Lucas, J.K. Rowling, and Steve Jobs are just a few examples of people who said, “Screw it,” to the conventional wisdom and went out and did things their own way. They didn’t follow the rules and rituals of others before them. They did what worked for them.

Doing what works for you is the only way to succeed. You have to work with your strengths, talents, and motivations. Someone else’s motivations and rituals are not yours. Sure, you may be able to derive some value from studying the “greats,” but ultimately you have to find your own path. Anything else just smacks of desperation and a lack of creativity on your part. Worse, readers, agents, and publishers will smell the desperation all over your work because it won’t be unique.

This applies not only to your writing life but also to what you choose to write. Don’t spend time chasing the hottest trends in plots and writing styles. By the time your work is ready for submission, that fad will have rolled on. Write the story you have to tell, even if it’s not hot. Who knows? You might start the next big trend. Don’t be derivative, be yourself.

Sure, there are some rules you have to follow. You have to stick with basic grammar and structure (there are exceptions, but you have to be really exceptional to pull it off). You have to follow basic submission guidelines and rules if you want to be taken seriously. You have to act professional and meet your deadlines. But anything else is up to you to decide.

If you try to do what others have done, you just end up hemming yourself in with a set of rules and regulations that you don’t even need. When your schedule reads, “Get up early, outline on index cards, use a certain pen, and write exactly 1,000 words per day,” there’s no room for “you” to shine through. What happens if the work is going great and you want to write 2,000 words? What happens if you skip the outline? What if you never discover that you’re better off writing between 9 p.m. and midnight? There are enough rules in writing that you must follow. You don’t need to create an even smaller cage by following the rituals of others.

Find your own rituals. Embrace your personal quirks. Learn to love your best rhythm, even if it means writing all day long without a break. (Not advisable, but if it works…) Don’t believe people who tell you something can’t be done just because it’s never been done before. (Someone always has to be first.) Do what makes you the most comfortable. When you are comfortable, you’ll do your best work and it will be uniquely yours. When you’re imitating someone else, you’re doing just that: imitating. And that’s not the way to be successful.

(Photo courtesy of woodleywonderworks)