Do you use word count goals?

[serria]

Do you set word goals for yourself - if so, how many words? Do you find word goals distracting, and focus only on getting scenes down? Or do you tend to just write whenever and how much feels natural for you, without thinking about daily goals?

For me, I never used to think about word counts or anything until I became really involved in fanfiction for a particular series. A fanfic writer friend would always talk about word goals, whether her goal for the day, or an ultimate goal for a fic. When I started thinking about it, it became a compulsion to check my word count every couple of sentences of paragraphs. Now, I don't do word counts at all, unless I'm checking how long a particular chapter is when I'm done with it.

I know they can be a useful way to push yourself to write, especially during NaNoWriMo (or similar events), but what do you think? Are they helpful for you?

Comments

[inkdust]

I didn't use word count goals until I was working on a novel rough draft for my senior thesis and realized I was running out of time. I set a goal of a thousand a day at that point, and in retrospect it's amazing to me how often I reached that goal considering everything else I had to do that semester, because I write VERY slowly.

After graduation, my circumstances were less ideal and when I finally quit my job and started writing full time I wanted to set a goal I knew I could meet in my current state of mind, so I went with 500 words, and that worked very well for my first draft. Since writing is my main focus in life right now, I can't just do it when I feel like it, and setting a quantifiable goal makes me stick to it. And like every author seems to say, the more I sit down and crank it out, the easier it generally gets. On slow days I do check it obsessively. It doesn't make it go faster.

But I do divide the story by scenes and work on it by scene. I just don't usually finish a scene in one sitting.

I use overall word count goals to make sure I'm reaching a novel length and gauge at least roughly how far into it I am. My goal for this one was 80k and I actually managed to hit 90k. So far in editing it's come down to 85-86. For scenes I try to keep them at least a thousand words, but that's a totally subjective number.