Word Count Countdown,
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Word Count Countdown,
Last year there was a forum post about starting with more words per day at the beginning of the month and then lowering it little by little till you're down to 1 on the 30th. It helped me a lot last year but I can't find it? Anyone else see it maybe remember a little or know a way I figure it out?
Re: Word Count Countdown,
Here are two:
~185 000 Words~
1: 21985
2: 20024
3: 18192
4: 16485
5: 14893
6: 13410 -
7: 12032
8: 10755
9: 9573
10: 8482
11: 7480
12: 6563
13: 5727
14: 4968
15: 4282
16: 3665
17: 3133
18: 2622
19: 2188
20: 1807
21: 1475
22: 1188
23: 942
24: 733
25: 557
26: 410
27: 290
28: 193
29: 118
30: 1
~50 000 Words~
1: 3393
2: 3241
3: 3090
4: 2939
5: 2788
6: 2637
7: 2486
8: 2335
9: 2131
10: 2043
11: 1882
12: 1730
13: 1579
14: 1428
15: 1277
16: 1126
17: 1975
18: 1824
19: 1673
20: 1522
21: 1371
22: 1220
23: 1069
24: 918
25: 767
26: 616
27: 464
28: 313
29: 162
30: 1
I think 10 people will have posted by now, but I finally worked it out! I hope this helps - it took me 3 calculators and a bucketload of time to work out ~~~~~~ :-{ I'm so tired!
Re: Word Count Countdown,
Im new to this. How do I copy/paste my novel to namowrimo site? Or, Can I e-mail the novel? Also, I cant find my word count on my word processor. I'd appreciate any help. Thank you so much writers. Have a good day!
Re: Word Count Countdown,
@ cherokee summers. There will be a word count button, and as you guessed, you cut and paste your novel and click to get the count. At least that's how it worked last year. The site will also track your progress with a graph that compares where you are to where you should be (assuming 1666/day)
You don't say what word processor you use. On MS Word and Open office writer it's tools > word count. The nano count and your word processor might vary in the word count a little.
Re: Word Count Countdown,
Do you mean this?
I shall write 3346 words on day one.
3216 on day 2.
3101 day 3.
2986 for day 4.
2872 on day 5.
2757 day 6.
2642 day 7.
2527 day 8.
day 9 2412.
day 10 2298.
day 11 2183.
day 12 2068.
day 13 1953.
1838 on day 14.
1724 for day 15 which is also the halfway point!
day 16 1609.
day 17 1494.
day 18 1379.
1264 day 19.
day 20 1150.
1035 on day 21.
920 on day 22.
805 on day 23.
690 for day 24.
576 day 25.
day 26 461.
346 on day 27.
day 28 231.
day 29 116.
and for the laaast day! ONE WORD!
I got it off of http://stealmedead.blogspot.com/2011/10/15-days-of-nano.html#more
It's a little messy though since it is exactly as it appeared.
Re: Word Count Countdown,
anotherauthor,
wow thanx, I like your better by day 14 I'd be writing less the 1667 my friends would be working towards :D
Re: Word Count Countdown,
i found the original with commentary ;D
Week One
Day 1: 3346 (It's day one! Hell yeah, go for it!)
Day 2: 3216
Day 3: 3101
Day 4: 2986
Day 5: 2872
Day 6: 2757
Day 7: 2642
Week Two
Day 8: 2527 (This is the hard part. Week one is out of the way, but you've still got some painful quotas left. Just do it!)
Day 9: 2412
Day 10: 2298
Day 11: 2183
Day 12: 2068
Day 13: 1953 (Almost there...)
Day 14: 1838 (Almost there......)
Week Three
Day 15: 1724 (Halfway point! After this, you'll be writing less every day than everyone else!)
Day 16: 1609
Day 17: 1494
Day 18: 1379
Day 19: 1264
Day 20: 1150
Day 21: 1035 (Less than a thousand words a day after this!)
Week Four
Day 22: 920
Day 23: 805
Day 24: 690
Day 25: 576 (That's a single good Word War! Feel free to laugh at the people with over three times this quota today!)
Day 26: 461
Day 27: 346
Day 28: 231
Week Five
Day 29: 116
Day 30: 1 (Aww yeah! One word left! Make it a good one!)
Re: Word Count Countdown,
A few people have already posted the same calendar, but I have the image form xD A friend of mine found it and saved it and sent it to me, so I've had it saved in my Nano folder since.
http://i51.tinypic.com/1zfr2he.jpg
Of course, it's a calendar for 2010, but still >.>
Re: Word Count Countdown,
I can deal with the calendar being off more than I can deal with "congraDulations!" Guess I'll have to make my own :-D
Re: Word Count Countdown,
What's the one for 100K?
Re: Word Count Countdown,
Just double each of them and write 2 words on the 30th :D
Re: Word Count Countdown,
Thank you for this! I will definitely be using this method this month so I can get ahead and ease the pressure a bit :D
Re: Word Count Countdown,
I just worked out that if I were to write 5000 words on each of the weekend days in November, I'd only have to write 455 words per day during the weekend to reach the target! Score!
Re: Word Count Countdown,
I'm gonna give this a shot! Its probably good to get a lot out of the way when you're still really excited for it...
Re: Word Count Countdown,
True- true!
Re: Word Count Countdown,
oh this is awesome! *emails me this link to remember it*
Re: Word Count Countdown,
Does anyone know where there is a formula for this so I can adjust the Total word count? I'm horrible at math, so I need to just plug things in :-)
Re: Word Count Countdown,
I posted this in another thread here: http://nanowrimo.org/en/forum_comments/246171
Copied in its entirety:
Okay, so I pulled this out of nowhere, but here's how I figured it.
I'm assuming that this would be a straight line, not a logarithmic function, because I think it works out. BUT ANYWAY:
If we assume the formula is a definite integral of some (straightline function) with an unknown coefficient with a range of 30-1 (which through me off for like ten minutes, because we wan thte greatest wordcount on day one, not day thirty, so the math is sort of backwards for this, in a cartesian plane sense.)
THEN, you look at the "solved" definite integral. It will be like [{unknown coefficient)*(30^2)-(unknown coefficient)*(1^2)]
Anyway, the easiest thing to do is take your word goal and divide it by 30^2; which in the case of 50,000 you get 55.56 ish. As you can see, that gives you the unknown coefficent of the integrated equation: 55.56x^2.
So all you have to do is derive it back, which gives you 111.11 ish as your coefficient. SInce I did this backwards and can't figure out a decent way to flip it, then you just go with how many days of writing you have left as your x.
111.11x
So for the first day, you should write 111.11*30 words, or 3333 ish words. THis isn't perfect, especially since it looks like I get a total of 51666 words. Maybe using 29 instead of thirty? IDK, someone else could prolly tweak this. Or I'll be back in an hour. :)
Re: Word Count Countdown,
Oh, you wanted a formula. Try z=(word count goal)/450 it won't be perfect, but I can't figure out why, so, for now it's what I've got.
When you've solved for z, you just multiply by the number of days left in the challenge, so... for day one, you'd do z*30 and so on, so then you'd have 0 words to write on the 30th.\
Instructions for how to put this in an excel sheet copied from here: http://nanowrimo.org/en/forum_comments/246407
SO!!! To make your own daily excel table!
Make column A = days! So type in 1 in row one, 2 in row two, and 3 in row three.... (at this point, you can just box the three cells, hover over the corner until it is a solid black plus sign, then click and drag down, it will repeat the pattern.)
Next, in column B, type "=108*(31-A1)" then, just hover over the bottom corner of that cell until you see the black plus sign, and then click and drag down. The formula should show you how many words you need on a given day.
(note, I'm using 108 as my z-value. you'd use whatever value you got using my previous formula. It's still annoyingly off but I can't figure out why.)
Re: Word Count Countdown,
Good Lord, my head just imploded. Guess I'll stick to the the 50k :-)
I made a calendar for this year with the numbers from Anotherauthor's post. The blog post is about Nanowrimo in general and using this method. The calendar (very no-frills) can be found at the bottom of the page.
http://lemonbar77.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/another-way-to-50k/
Re: Word Count Countdown,
I made a couple of examples for other sliding scales too, in this thread: http://nanowrimo.org/en/forum_comments/246407 And IDK if I offered it in here, but seriously, if you want me to figure it out for a different word count, I'd be more than happy too.
I'm also considering making a nanowrimo OneNote template that would have a wordcount progress page in it, and will be putting these in there, of course. Because I am a nerd.
And an engineer.
For those who wonder how to get pretty close to the ideal? I think it's if you use 30.468 ish as your upper limit of integration. That's as close as I can get without going into annoying numbers of decimal places. IDK why this works and 30 doesn't, but think it might have to do with calculus zeros not being null values like real world zeroes are.
Re: Word Count Countdown,
the weird 30.468 number translates to my formula as
z=(your word goal)/464.145
daily goal=z*(days left in challenge)
Re: Word Count Countdown,
So I've been trying to figure this out, but let's just say there's a reason I'm an English major. I want this for 75k, easy enough, but I also only plan to write 26 out of the 30 days (I like to give myself one day off a week, and I'm very religious, so I don't write on Sundays).
Any tips on how to calculate this? I can get the numbers for 75k in 30 days (just multiply by 1.5, round half of the non-whole numbers up, the other half down. Is there a word for non-whole numbers? I feel like an idiot lol), but for the life of me I can't figure out how to reduce the number of days without making it go all wonky. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Re: Word Count Countdown,
That calendar on the site is great. The only thing I would add is a second number on each day that shows the "total to date"
Re: Word Count Countdown,
Luckily I have a boss, aka Dad, who is very understanding when my mind fixates on a problem other than work so long as, you know, my actual work gets done. Luckily, too, the man was a damn good accountant in a former life so when I finally explained what I was trying to do his first question was "What's the percentage you're trying to decrease by?" Of course my answer was, "No clue." This of course led to me realizing I needed to know that first before I could create the formula.
Now all I can think is that whomever originally came up with this either just plugged in random decreasing numbers until they reached 50,000 or they used Calculus or some other advanced math. I wouldn't know since I dropped out of Calc after the first day of class in college because everything the prof wrote on the board was gibberish to me. I'm heartened only by the fact that my cousin lasted exactly two more classes before he too dropped out. All that said I discovered that whomever came up with these numbers used some sort of increasing percentage and rounding(it's the only reason to explain going from 4% to 3.7% then back to 4.1%).
So I don't have a simple formula for this but I can tell you how to do it using Excel or any other spreadsheet program in 4 columns if you want to be able to change the final word count. Well 4 to start but it can be dropped to 3 after you get the percentages. Or you can NaNoMail me and I'll send you the spreadsheet I have made up.
In column A paste the count list that's already been posted to the thread, ie 3346, 3216, etc.
In column B starting on line 2, or whichever line is one below the line with 3346, enter this formula: =sum(A1/A2) To paste the same formula in lines 3 to 30 select cell B2 then hover the cursor over the bottom right corner of the cell and it'll turn into a plus sign. Click and then drag until you have lines 3 to 30 selected and let go. It will paste the formula in each cell. You'll notice it should automatically adjust the line number as you go. ie =sum(A1/A2) =sum(A2/A3) =sum(A3/A4) etc. This will give you the increasing percentage.
In column C, again starting on line 2, you'll paste in =sum(C1/B2). Initially this will give you a column of zeroes. Type in 3346 in line 1 and you'll get an exact duplicate of column A. If you change the number in line 1 you'll end up with a lot of numbers with decimals. Since no one likes to end on a partial word, LOL, you need to tell your spreadsheet to round up the numbers. I tried doing this in one formula but either it can't be done or I just can't figure it out because Excel kept badly fixing the formula or telling me I'd created a circular formula and I really needed to fix that. So instead I setup column D with a third formula.
So column D you want to enter in this formula: =ROUNDUP(C2,0) You can start on line 1 for this formula. Then on line 31 enter this formula =sum(D1:D30) This totals up the column for you. At this point it's either going to be a column of zeroes or if you'd typed 3346 in cell C1 it will once again give you an exact duplicate of column A.
Now by changing the number in cell C1 and looking at the results in D31 you can keep playing with it until you get your desired word count and the only number you really need to change is the starting number. Some had asked about 185k and the starting number would be 12,380 words on the first day for a total of 185,011 words with 4 words written on the last day. Obviously to get exactly 185k with only 1 word on the last day you'd need to start futzing with the percentages or you could just write 418 words on Day 29 and 1 on Day 30 to get the total. I didn't feel like messing with the percentages myself.
If you want to get rid of column A, the original word countdown, you need to turn column B into fixed values. You're options are hand typing each one into a separate column then copy/paste them back to column B *or* select lines 2 to 30, click Copy then click the little down arrow next to Paste. Select Values and it delete the formulas in each cell replacing them with the formula result. You can now delete column A if you want.
And there you go!
Beth
Re: Word Count Countdown,
Wow. This is really cool. I love how you kind of reinvented incremental calculus while professing to know nothing of the subject. I'm going to see if using percentages helps me figure out my ideal limits of integration when I get home, using your method.
Thanks for your patience/post!!
Re: Word Count Countdown,
LOL Go figure. Seriously, in high school I failed Algebra and had to go to summer school, loved physics cause it was just dropping numbers into already created formulas, then didn't take a math class for two years until my sophmore year in college when I almost became a computer science major. Calculus and my deep deep loathing of C++ programming ensured that I dropped that like a hot potato and became an English Lit major instead. The scary part is my primary job at work is IT and maintaining our website. Weird how life works.
Hope my formulas work for you!
Re: Word Count Countdown,
BookJunkieLI...I studied Comp. Sci and took Calc and Diff Eq.....and never used either in my job....Does it come in handy for some programmers? Sure. But for 90%+ (and certainly for business applications) it's rare.
I wonder home many Comp. Sci. majors we've lost because of that? But it seems like it worked out four you in the end.
Is the L.I. in your name for the Island?
Re: Word Count Countdown,
Yep, LI stand for Long Island tho I was in Vermont this weekend with all the lovely snow and no power, hence the late reply.
It wasn't really the calculus that made me drop Comp Sci as a major so much as the extreme dislike of programming. If it had just been the Calc being an issue I probably would have switched to a different professor, turns out that had the highest dropout rate on campus, and gotten a tutor. If there'd been a major at my school that focused just on hardware I probably would have gone for that. I still love taking apart and rebuilding computers.
Re: Word Count Countdown,
In case you're wondering, an easier way than making another column to make it a whole number, in column C just change the formatting from General to Number, then in that same section (under the Home tab, Number section) there is a button to either decrease or increase the number of decimal places. You can just decrease that until there are no decimals, and it will do the rounding at the same time.
This is a great set of instructions, I was able to follow it without any problems, and I'm definitely not an excel girl. I prefer word ALWAYS! lol
Re: Word Count Countdown,
Cool, thanks! I never knew it would do that and it makes it so much easier.
Re: Word Count Countdown,
*blinks, head pops* damn, I wandered into Math... These things need warning signs!!!
Re: Word Count Countdown,
Oh, this is a great idea! Seeing as I'll probably have more enthusiasm to write at first than later in the month, I put in those numbers into my Google calendar and marked them a nice purplish colour :D However, now I really want to solve this for myself too, 'cause it looks like a fun problem (geekiness FTW).
Re: Word Count Countdown,
A note to some of you who get concerned about the count. Yeah I'm an I.T. guy so I tend to run all the permutations through my head and wonder about the algorithm they use and why Word and Open Office differ.
In my (not so scientific) analysis I noticed that many of the writers had spikes in their word count and that makes sense.
If you can write more on the weekends, then 1,000 or 1100 word each weekday might be fine.
So nano starts Tuesday and at 1,100/day you're at 4,400 on Friday. Crap! It's the first week and I'm 2,200+ words behind!
No, you're not.
Most people have a couple of days a week that are much more productive. If Sat. and Sun you can manage to double the expected 1,667 and crank out 3,334 you'll have 11,068 and be ahead of schedule. You'll appear to fall behind again but you're not.
You're on a long trip for vacation in Florida....Well your car averages 50mph to the airport you don't think "damn, this 5 hour trip to Orlando is going to take 27 hours if I average 50mph" The plane will average 600mph....The weekends are your plane flights.
Re: Word Count Countdown,
For those who want to use something like this, but don't want to do the math, might I suggest using my WrtieTrack tool? You set your goal (so you're not stuck with 50,000), and you can give each day a "weight"--roughly how much you're planning on writing that day. WriteTrack will do the math for you, telling you exactly how much you need to write each day to reach your goal. It also adjusts itself based on how much you've already written (do you really want to do all that math each day, assuming you don't hit your target exactly? I didn't think so!)
An example: say you want to do a linear declining plan (that is, each day is the same amount less than the previous day), writing 75,000 words. Oh, and you want to take Thanksgiving off. Create a new challenge, setting the target to 75,000, and then give each day a new weight, starting with 29 on the 1st, 28 on the 2nd, etc., making sure to set the 24th to 0. The 30th will be 1, of course. And you'll see that you need to write:
Nov. 1st: 5,000
Nov. 2nd: 4,828
Nov. 3rd: 4,656
...
Nov. 28th: 518
Nov. 29th: 345
Nov. 30th: 173
(The targets are rounded, so don't worry that some are 172 away from the previous day while others are 173. It's just a display thing.)
You can use any schedule you want to; you can even take the numbers from one of the plans in this thread and use them as your weights, but with a different total goal, and it'll balance everything for you automatically.
Hope it helps,
-David