
NaNoWriMo Alternatives – Word Count Tracker Options & Community

I participated in National Novel Writing Month from 2014 all the way through 2020 or so, and I think the challenge of writing 50,000 words in 30 days is a great tool to get people writing and foster community among writers and just overall encourage authors. Toward the end of that run, however, the NaNoWriMo organization began making a lot of decisions based on politics, decisions that I personally found detrimental to the encouragement of community that is central to what NaNoWriMo has to offer–and since then, they’ve only continued to make more and more controversial and outright unhealthy decisions. If you’ve had a deal-breaker experience with NaNoWriMo, or you’re looking for additional resources for a separate word count tracker or more targeted community, here’s a gathering of resources–both those that have been around for a while and now are particularly relevant as well as those that have popped up since NaNoWriMo began to decline.
As a note, I do update this list periodically with new resources! If you have suggestions of your own, feel free to drop them in the comments as well.
Word count tracker: myWriteClub
myWriteClub is a site that allows you to track writing goals, not only in words but also in chapters, scenes, to-do items, pages, percentages, lines, and “other.” It also allows you to archive goals when you’re finished with them, and to un-archive them at will. It doesn’t have any fancy stats attached, so it won’t tell you how many words you average per day or what time of day you write most often or anything like that, but it functions to keep you on track with a writing goal.
It also allows you to follow other authors and comment on their goals to cheer them on, and vice versa. And there’s a word sprint tool which allows you to see real-time progress—both your own and that of those you’re writing against. You can either start your own sprint “room” or join the “global sprint.” The tool has a timer at the top set to the Pomodoro Technique, so it counts down 25 minutes in green and then 5 minutes in blue and then 25 in green, etc., but it doesn’t prevent you from writing during the intended breaks.
Overall, it’s a really handy tool.
Word count tracker: Svenja Gosen’s word tracking calendar
I’ve used these calendars for three years now, and they’re super cool. They’re Excel spreadsheets that are completely set up to calculate average words per day, average words per month, total per month, how many words left to reach a monthly goal, average time spent writing, etc. All you have to do is enter your word count and how long you spent writing. And the artwork is beautiful. So if you’re looking for a word count tracker with more stats than myWriteClub, this might be a good fit. The calendars are sold according to a donation system, so you can shell in for them to keep them going or you can get them for free if you don’t have the money to donate.
Word count tracker: Pacemaker
I think I’ve used this once, but I then forgot about it and now I can’t remember my login. So obviously I can’t speak much to how it works. But Pacemaker looks like it could be a very handy tool. It’s set up not only to handle fiction projects but also academic projects, marketing… even training and saving or spending. It has tons of options and is super flexible, even allowing you to set your own method of reaching the goal—whether you want to write a steady amount each day, put most of the work in the middle, work up from small goals to larger goals… It also allows you to set whether you want weekends (or other specific days or dates) to be different from normal days.
Word count tracker: Project Victor
This is another spreadsheet option that I discovered when participating in Christine Smith’s Fall FicFrenzy event; one of the participants set up this spreadsheet to resemble the word count trackers on the NaNoWriMo site, complete with an easily visible graph of your word count over the course of a month! Plus, this spreadsheet is set up to accommodate an online writing group tracking their word counts together OR a single author using it for offline personal use, so this is a great choice if you want something more collaborative or if you just like the look of it for yourself.
Full Event: FicFrenzy
FicFrenzy, as mentioned above, is an event hosted by Christine Smith. While the primary event runs from the middle of October through the middle of November–shifting the time so that it no longer overlaps with American Thanksgiving–there is also an April-May event and the Discord server set up to accompany the event is active year-round. I’ve personally found FicFrenzy less challenging/effective for accountability than NaNoWriMo once was, but that is more a side-effect of my difficulty with self-imposed goals (as FicFrenzy allows you to set your own goal for the event) than a weakness of the event itself.
Full Event: NoQuWriMo
NoQuWriMo was created as a very similar alternative to NaNoWriMo, with a set goal for the event vs. self-imposed goals and the same time frame (the month of November). It doesn’t have all the same bells and whistles because it’s a much smaller operation, and the community is much smaller and less active, but it is a good option when used in combination with some of the other tools and communities on this list. (There are plans to expand NoQu, as well, as it grows further.)
Full Event: The 100-for-100 Challenge
Is a summer writing challenge more your speed? Go Teen Writers puts on a challenge (almost) every year to write 100 words per day, every day, for 100 consecutive days (with some grace days built in). It comes with a handy-dandy tracking spreadsheet, for those who want to use it, and it’s a great way to stay accountable with other writers over the summer! Check out 2023’s event intro for more on how the 100-for-100 Challenge works!
Community: Kingdom Pen
Kingdom Pen is a Christian blog and community that’s been around for a while. It saw a year or two of down time in the middle, but it’s recently returned and seems to be thriving again. It’s primarily intended for teen writers, and it’s a really fun group of people.
Community: Story Embers
Story Embers is kind of like an all-ages version of Kingdom Pen. It’s also a Christian group, and it focuses more heavily on how best to glorify God through writing. This group is also fantastic, and there are a lot of great conversations on the forums, both deep and meaningful conversations and those that are more just-for-fun.
Edit: Sadly, the Story Embers forum has been taken down. The blog is still excellent, but Story Embers no longer falls under this “community” category.
Community: Scribes & Archers Discord
I have a Discord channel for interacting with you all, my readers, and sharing what I’m working on and hearing about what y’all are working on. I’ll admit I’m not great at getting/keeping conversation going, which is definitely something I need to work on, but we’d love to have you join us and get to know you better!
(Joining the Discord channel also includes perks like access to the resource library and the first chapter of Calligraphy Guild, regular writing sprints, and a full catalogue of my available resources–both free and paid.)
Wherever you stand on NaNoWriMo, I hope this list has been helpful to you. What tools do you use to track writing projects? Are you part of any public writing communities?
Prepping for a fall writing challenge and looking to ensure you’ve covered all your bases? Get my writing challenge prep checklist!
These seem like great resources. :) I was just talking about this to a family member, about how cool it great it would be to have an alternative to it because I hate to see NaNoWriMo heading in the direction that it is, and hate that it’s been heading there for so long now. :/
*nods* None of these have all the bells and whistles that NaNoWriMo does, but I think they’re good replacements for its core features.
I definitely agree it’s disappointing to watch NaNoWriMo’s trajectory. :/
I’ve participated off and on with nanowrimo since 2013. It’s been disappointing to watch the trajectory in the last few years. Last year they inspired me to begin a local, faith-based writer’s group.
Thank you for sharing these resources!
Charity
Me too. A faith-based writing group sounds awesome! I’m glad that something good came out of it. :)
You’re welcome!
Thank you so much for this post. I found it by searching “alternatives to NaNoWriMo”. Another site recommended The King’s Daughters’ Writing Camp, but I think it’s mostly for young female writers. I’m looking for something that has group goal challenges like NaNoWriMo does. What is your favorite site for that? Thanks again for sharing these resources!
I’ve heard of The King’s Daughters Writing Camp; I’ve never participated but I believe a number of the authors I know have been participants at some point. I think you’re right about the demographics. This site didn’t exist when I wrote this list, but a friend of mine started up a full-fledged NaNo alternative called NoQuWriMo which has a very similar group goal setup for November! The site is here: https://ednapellen.wixsite.com/noqu/
It doesn’t have all the same bells and whistles because it’s a much smaller operation, but used in combination with some of the other tools and communities on this list it’s a good option! (There are plans to expand NoQu, as well, as it grows further.)
Thank you for commenting!
Yes! This is just what I was looking for! Thank you so much for replying and letting me know about this group! I just signed up. :-)
Excellent! I’m glad I could help! :)
This looks great! I’m signing up for NoQu.
Awesome! ^-^