The NaNoWriMo Feature You Never Knew You Wanted

This post originally appeared on Medium.com.

Dabble brings you a special feature dedicated to conquering NaNoWriMo. For the first time in the history of forever, an app is so bold, so courageous, so daring, it faces the momentous task of winning NaNoWriMo alongside you.

When you participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), you are consumed by it—by your novel and your characters—for the entire month of November. Like stumbling upon a good book that keeps you reading into the early morning hours, you are swept away into another world. Only this world is of your own creation. And you spend much more time in it.

Dabble is a fan (and official sponsor) of NaNoWriMo, a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing where the goal is to write 50,000 words in one month. Winning NaNoWriMo (finishing your 50k goal) takes a lot of motivation, discipline, and hard work. Some things make this easier. Things like setting daily goals, tracking your progress, and sharing your progress with others.

This November, Dabble wants to help you conquer your goals and achieve your dreams. Today, Dabble releases NaNoWriMo goal setting and word tracking!

NaNoWriMo Word Tracking in Dabble

Dabble sets your daily goals, tracks your progress through the month, and even auto-submits your daily word count to NaNoWriMo!

Goals Screen and NaNoWriMo Sidebar

Daily Goals

Dabble calculates your daily goal based on the number of words and days you have left. Reach this goal each day and you will reach your 50,000 word goal by the end of the month!
In a perfect world, you can write every day in November. But the world is not perfect. And sometimes you have work, family, or other commitments that take precedence. Dabble allows you to mark the days off you know you can not write. You could even take some days off at the end of the month to account for the unexpected, then put them back on when you miss a day or as you get closer to the end of the month.
You can also pick your own goal if you want to participate but cannot reach 50,000 words with your schedule. If you are an over-achiever and want to do more than 50k words, more power to you!

Tracking and Auto-Submission

Dabble tracks your word count throughout the month. In the sidebar of your chosen NaNoWriMo book, you will see your daily word-count goal and how many words you have left for the day. There is a bar graph which will visually show your progress through the month.

In addition to tracking your words, Dabble automatically updates your word count through a special integration with NaNoWriMo. Now you don’t have to worry about updating your word count! Dabble will do this while you are online, every 30 seconds, same as cloud sync. Clicking the cloud to force a sync will also force the update.

Learn more about Dabble’s NaNoWriMo word tracking on our help site.

Try It Out

Tell us what you think! You can find us on Twitter and Facebook. Follow me here on Medium. Chat with us on the NaNoWriMo forums. And contact us via Dabble’s “Chat with Support” feature.

What is Dabble?

Dabble is a desktop and web app for plotting and writing novels. With a great plotting tool to help you prepare for NaNoWriMo, and super focus features to help you get your words down, it is a great option for putting your unedited soul onto the page for a month. Now, with first class support for tracking your NaNoWriMo goals, and with a free trial through the month of November, why not try it out?