A quick question for writers

[msagara]

I mentioned earlier that I have been using the equivalent of MS Word's wordcount while writing, and that this has not perhaps been very smart. I know that we're all looking at the lengths of our various books, and I was wondering: How do you keep track of wordcount while writing? Because I had an extra 45K words and an extra 25K words when looking at the page runoffs on the two books I did write in Scrivener, and this was ... unfortunate. And I would like not to repeat it if I can*.

If you need to turn in a 100k manuscript--or a manuscript of a specific maximum length--do you check the runoff count as part of your daily writing, do you format it in manuscript format so you write -to- a runoff count?

ETA: * I am aware that there might be a bit of gentle mockery at this point

Comments

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

MSWord will squeeze extra lines on the page depending on whether you set the line spacing for "double" (25 lines) or "exactly 24 points" (27 lines).

And it's my experience so far that I'm not expected to worry about the number of pages. Maybe their expectations are extraordinarily low. :)

Still, I write in manuscript format (or what I use for my manuscripts): Dark Courier, 12 pt, half-inch para indents, exactly 24 points (to save paper, 'natch), so I think it gets pretty close.

Finally, on Word for Mac, the word count appears at the bottom of the window automatically... until I hit 100K, when it disappears. I know when I can't see how many words I've done it's time to wrap wrap wrap it up!