Word Count versus Chapters

I was going to do a wonderful blog about the greatness that is National Novel Writing Month but that never happened. Then again, I was going to write 100,000 words in November and that didn't happen either. So, influenced by the word count goals that are common in this month, I am instead going to talk about the difference of having a word count goal or having a chapter goal when writing.

Word Count Goals

This goal is often daily, but can also be a weekly, monthly or even a yearly goal.

The point of this goal is to pick a target number of words that the writer wants to have written in the time frame chosen. The common word count goal is to write 1,000 words a day. During the month of November, those participating in nanowrimo have the goal of 50,000 words in that month and that equates to 1667 words per day.

I have often tried to get a certain number of words per month on projects, but I'm beginning to think I should try a different approach.

Chapter Goals

This goal is similar to word counts in timeframe, but the difference is the number of words written doesn't matter. The goal is to write a certain number of chapters in a given project/book.

I am going to try this starting in December.