Got a new tool for confining my writing to a certain size. Unfortunately, it isn't by words. It's by characters. But it works well enough.
It's easy enough to make.
Open up a new Word document.
View Toolbars-Control Toolbox
Choose a Text Box and put it on your Word document
Right click on the Text Box and choose Properties
Set EnterKeyBehavior to TRUE
Set MultiLine to TRUE
Sex MaxLength to however many characters you want
I set mine to 3,000 characters, which results in 500-600 words, averaging about half-way.
What happens is that I am typing along, and when I reach 3,000 characters I can't enter any more. This works fine for times when you need to restrict your word count. The rule of thumb seems to be: Take the maximum characters and divide that by 5. The result will be what you can expect as a maximum word count. Not 100%, but pretty good.
While I find this works well for Hero Stories, Evil Editor assignments, and things like that, I isn't nearly so good for book writing.
But it's cool. I've been using it for a couple of days now.
Sailors on the Sea
Sunday, October 25, 2009
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4 comments:
That's very inventive.
Thanks. I got the idea from OneTwoFiver. His thing is better because it actually counts words. If I figure out how to do that I'll modify the thing.
That's a clever thing to do if you want to limit your wordiness. For myself, though, I wouldn't even go there. I jot notes and half-baked ideas and comments on stuff as I go along, and that would kill the word count in no time flat!
Sometimes I jot notes and ideas, but mostly I write from the seat of my pants. I get inspired and keep going. When I think of things ahead I make them ruminate through my head as motivation to keep going.
Doesn't always work. If I get sidetracked off the piece I sometimes lose the future ideas.
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