Hi, guys -- I discovered this trick at my first Nano in 2005 and have used it ever since. It's for those of us working on computer, and in MS Word. What I've learned is that possibly because of punctuation, Word's word count is slightly less than the same number of words would be if Word's flourishes were removed. In fact, if I use the same document in text-only form, it ups my word count about 100 words from the original Word doc, depending on the size of your entire document.
So you might want to try this: When you save your Word doc, save it first as you ordinarily would -- to Word. THEN save it again -- this time to Text Only. It will ask you to confirm this (twice), reminding you that formatting changes will not be saved. Go ahead and do it. (You still have your original Word doc that you're working in. This is just creating an extra one.) Then open to wherever you store your Word doc, make sure it's open to ALL FILES, and click on the doc with the same name that has the little notepad (or clipboard) next to it. That's the text-only doc you just created. When it opens, click on Word Count and use that count for your Nano count. (You can check this against your original Word doc, but so far, in 5 Nano's, I've never seen the Word doc with a higher word count than the text-only.)
Whenever I save now, I save to both documents -- and refer to my text-only to update my word count on the Nano website.
A little trick, but every little bit helps!
Enjoy!
Susan
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2005, PERCEPTION (Nano winner)
2006, JUST KIDDING (BEACON STREET GIRLS SERIES) Nano winner
2007, DYING WITH THE STARS (Nano winner)
2008, SHERRIE HOLT & THE MYSTERY AT SIROCCO
58,901 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 10 21
Just be careful to write a little bit over 50k either way. I'm not sure what NaNo's validator uses for word count, but it's always good to write a bit extra just in case it doesn't count your words the same as Word or whatever other program you are using!
That's a great way to feel good and pumped during the writing process though - thanks Susan!
----------2005: Lane's Girl: *winner*
2006: After Ancient: *winner*
2007: Pike's Revenge: *winner*
2008: Phooka Tales *winner*
2009: Apollo and Daphne
www.stickynotestories.com