Personal Achievement Badges

There are three kinds of badges at NaNoWriMo. Today's topic is personal achievement badges. These are self-awarded and plenty of fun. You can see from my above illustration that I am a "planster" that is a cross between a plotter and a planner. I am also a nano rebel, meaning I believe rules are made to be broken :-) I do not award them to myself all in one day. I portion them out so I can give myself a new badge whenever I want some extra credit. The other two badges are system awarded and we'll cover them tomorrow.

We are ten days into Nano and you might be hitting a bit of a wall so some posts are coming to help with that. Write on!

Editing Word Counts by Day

Sometimes I forget to post my word count! This usually happened when I write early in the day and don’t post because I plan to add some more words later. Then I find myself in the position of posting two days worth of words the next day and a jump in my graph that does not accurately reflect my daily progress. Does it matter? Not really, it is the end total that counts but I like being accurate so here is how to fix that glitch.

Here's what the chart looks like with the skipped day. The accurate word counts were 14963 for November 7 and then 15800 for November 8.

So all I had to do to fix this was click on November 7, fill in 14963, and hit save. Now the daily counts are accurate and the graph has updated as well! Easy peasy!

Buddy Up!

Now that you have selected your nano name, it is time to build your buddy list. Your buddy list consists of fellow NaNo participants whose word count you are following. These are people you will cheer on and who will encourage you right back.  BUT, you need to know a writer's NaNo  name to locate them. When I put in novelone as I did in the example above you can see my profile come up. Yes, I am standing in front of one of the world's best known bookstores Shakespeare and Company in Paris. #writerbliss You may also notice that I am wearing a halo. More on that in a future post :-)


For example, I want to buddy my friend author Kristina McBride. She has published three amazing young adult novels and is participating this year. I checked with her and she uses her author name as her NaNo name. So I filled in her name and this came up.

I recognized her beautiful face right away so I knew which of the 3 results to select. If you search someone and get multiple results you can click on the profiles and figure it out that way. When I click on her name her profile comes up.

Now all I have to do is click on the Add as Buddy link to the right of her name and presto! We are Buddies! 

Choosing Your NaNo Name

When you sign up on the NaNoWriMo site you have to choose a name. At first I thought well, I HAVE a name, why not just use that? I asked the writer friends who were encouraging me to try NaNo who they were on the site and was delighted by the variety and ingenuity of their chosen monikers. Some took the name of one of their characters. Some rearranged the letters in their name to create something new. Some just flat out made something up. Some used their email address. Some used a version of their favorite author’s name. Some used their actual name. Some used initials. Writers are so clever and creative!

After considerable thought I called myself, drumroll please, novelone. I liked the word play. I was working on my first novel and I am a little quirky (well maybe a bit more than a little) so I AM a novel one. Clever, huh? Novel one creating her novel one. I did mention I am writing a series? I liked it so much I have kept it although it is very easy to change your name by simply registering again. You can preserve previous years by just letting them be.

 So have a little fun choosing your NanNo name. Think about how it will look on someone’s buddy list. Think about how you want to be greeted each time you open the page. If you look at the cream box on the top right of the accompanying illustration you can see my Hello novelone! I love it. It reminds me who I am and what this is all about. If you want the site to be where “everybody knows your name” then start buddying people right away. Tomorrow’s post will detail how to do that. It’s easy and fun and you will be creating your very own virtual Cheers writing bar. Admit it, you have that theme song in your head now too. Posts are coming soon about NaNo music!

Love Your Data Charts

Every day when you update your word count a page with this chart on it will pop up. I LOVE this graphic! The average words per day and words written today is a good snap shot of your current pace. The fun part is looking at words remaining, the date you will finish at your current average rate, and when you will finish if you keep that pace. If you have been jackrabbiting because it is early in the month and you are in that first flush of writing power but are worried about sustaining the pace, you can look at the words per day you need to finish on time. In this example because I am a bit ahead, I only need 1,564 words per day to be a winner on the 30th.

Of course if I stay with my personal goal of 2,000 words or more per day I will finish early. I like to post my total on Thanksgiving morning and then spend the day celebrating and relaxing with my family and friends.

Tomorrow we will talk about how to choose a nano name.

Tracking Your Words

The goal is to get to 50,000 words! NaNoWriMo's site provides a quick and easy way to track your count. Once you have registered your novel and sign in, click on My NaNoWriMo  and select dashboard. There you will find a white box (see above) where you can type in your daily total. When you push update, your new word count appears.

The most satisfying part of the day is filling in the new number and then watching the bar graph jump. As you can see, I am just a bit ahead as of the second day. Assuming 1,667 words per day, I would need to have 3,334 to be perfectly on track. As I have 4,670 today, I am a bit ahead so I am above the target line. I know from past years that there will be days where I will not get to 1,667 so having a little cushion feels good to me.

Tomorrow I will show you the second set of stats that appear when you update. If you like to track your words and see exactly where you are and what you need to finish, tomorrow's post will be for you.