Mulitple documents?

At the moment I have one long document in Q10, but yesterday I did a chapter at work (on my lunch hour! I swear!) in Google docs, and I haven't added it yet. I may just do each daily chapter in a different doc, since I'm not always near my netbook and individual chapters are easier to cut and paste into the "original" document for a complete word count.

I think that also helps avoid the temptation to scroll through your masterpiece from the beginning, to see how it's holding up. All that holds up, of course, is working on your daily quota!

Those with no dreams can never have any dreams come true.

Anonymous

Winner: 2007 "Goblin Wine"
Winner: 2008 "The Unfamiliar Stars"

Our ML told me what she does, which I think is a great idea so I started doing it too. Each day do a Save As to a new file for that day and start writing--I'm naming my files 01.txt, 02.txt, etc. That way you have a copy of your novel as it was at the end of each day, which you can make a backup copy of and email to yourself. And if you ever decide to go back and change stuff earlier in your novel, you still have a backup of how it was before you changed it.

I work with my chapters as separate text sections (though they are all technically part of the same file in Scrivener).

When I write papers in school (grad school student), I'll separate the different chapters in different files. Much easier to work with something small and manageable than a long and unwieldy document. I wouldn't do it unless I had a sensible way of putting them all together, though.

I've always saved each day's writing separately, and only combine them into one after I've reached 50K, for the purpose of uploading for word count verification.

I also jot down each day's word count to add up and check against the word count for the combined 50K document.

Chet's NaNoWriMo Experience (updated)

I use Open Office software, and I write in one long document. I always have done that, and I've been doing Nano for 7 years. It would be too big a pain in the butt to put it all together at the end when I need to upload the file for my word count.

"The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt it didn't matter." Edward Albee
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I am, but for novel specific reasons. At the start of my novel there are two separate (though very lightly related) storylines. Each takes place on its own continent. Well, I was having trouble deciding where in the story to make the jump back and forth between the two, so in the end I decided to simply write them separately as Western.txt and Eastern.txt, and mash them together come December.

Soon a couple characters will be swapping sides and moving the novel into a sort of "part 2" so I'll probably make another pair of documents to continue the story from that point.

2008: Painted Souls
2009: The Black War

I put each chapter in a new document. I've used open office, rough draft, and currently scrivener. I like having each chapter in their own files so that I can go back to exactly that chapter without going back and hunting for it... or worse... potentially reading what I've already written when looking for something else! :<

Nowadays I usually write in sequence, in one big document. But when I get a good idea for a scene that grabs hold of me and just wont' wait, I go ahead and write it in a new document. I make myself a note to remember to add the word count to my total and return to the original document. When I get to the spot where the lone scene is supposed to do, I do a copy and paste into the original and delete the orbiting document.

For my first few Nano's I wrote totally out of sequence and those manuscripts are still sitting in various stages of editing. Editing books like these is a labor intensive endeavor for me and I usually can't keep at it for very long at one time. So I have adopted this new style. It has worked well for the past couple of years. I may actually get something to a publishable stage some day.

One long scene that I wrote tonight has gone into an orbiting document, just waiting until the last quarter of the book to make the jump back to the original document where it belongs.

Julie

Julie
When you're going through hell, keep going.
Winston Churchill

Last year I only had one document, and that worked perfectly fine, but this time I'm using Ulysses, where one project can consist of multiple documents, so now I'm keeping my chapters in seperate files. It has a nice way of always knowing the total wordcount, though. If it didn't I'd still be going with one document.

I'm using Scrivener (and StoryMill: both have features I like).
I've written long pieces before where each was a completely separate file.
What I like about the fiction writing software is that you can easily re-order scenes.
You can jump back to a previous scene to see where you left off.

I know a premise in NaNoWriMo is don't look back, but I don't cut, I only add.
I title each scene with a descriptive title so that I can quickly find sections when I want to jump back. Last year this was really helpful with minor characters, who I would create for one scene and then completely forget, and then later I wanted them to reappear or else wanted to make sure the next minor character was sufficiently different.

Also, and maybe most importantly, both of these programs let me see my full word count at any time, as well as the word count of the individual scene I'm working on.