Sharp Words

If you haven’t signed up for the 70 Days of Sweat challenge, go have a look. It’s kinda like NaNoWriMo, except, not a month, not so intense, and more focussed on quality output. OK, so it’s not like NaNo. And that’s not a bad thing.

Last time around, I made a handy, dandy spreadsheet to track my progress. This round, I’m making that spreadsheet available to anyone who wants to use it. If you don’t mind a teensy bit of shameless self promotion, hop on over to my website and download a copy. If you don’t have Microsoft Excel, go to OpenOffice.org and download their Office suite. It’s Free! The OpenOffice Calc program reads Excel files (and the Writer program is a great word processor).

Or, how I went totally OCD on my 70 Days of Sweat Word Count Tracking Sheet. Observe:

My OCD 70 Days of Sweat Tracking Sheet has the following features:

• Allows tracking of multiple Works in Progress
• Provides word count totals for each WIP by 70 Days of Sweat check-in date.
• Provides Total Word Count as a sum of all WIP word counts for each 70 Days of Sweat check-in date
• Provides total word count for each WIP (see below)
• Provides total word count for 70 Days of Sweat (see below)

  

• Contains snazzy If/Then statements to ensure it only displays totals when new words have been added.
• Color-coded by week in soothing pastel shades.

Concerned coworkers, friends and family have suggested that I might be a little too “into” spreadsheets. Perhaps they’re right. But just wait until you see the PowerPoint show I’m working on… ;oP

Newsflash: Bettie discovers Google Reader. I know, I know. What rock have I been buried under all this time? But, fact is, I was in the habit of reading my blogs the old fashioned way. You know, click the link and hope there’s something new. Then I notice Google Reader listed at the top of my iGoogle page. Usually I’m so distracted by the adorable antics of the Frog and Ladybug theme that I don’t notice the links at the top. I click Google Reader, subscribe to all of my blogs, et voila! I cut my daily net time in half. Cool.

Now, onto the good stuff: My 70 Days of Sweat update:

My total word count for Monday and Tuesday is 2,200 words.

Bright

7,200 / 27,000 (26.7%)

(I admit, I also read The Dream Thief by Shana Abe Tuesday afternoon. Good book, though the ending struck me as too quick, or too…something. Point is, I will NOT do a Not a Review on it. I will NOT try to pinpoint what I didn’t like about the ending of a book that I otherwise liked very much. Who am I kidding. I am such a procrastinator.)