A word count goal tracker that never nags

Writer Studio's word count goal tracker sets a daily target per book, a whole-book target, a chapter-size target, and timed sprints — then gets out of the way. Progress lives in a statistics panel and the status bar, checked when you look and silent otherwise: no popups, no reminders, no "you're behind" nudges while you write.

How does the daily word count goal work?

Pick a daily word count goal per book — a preset or your own number — and a progress bar fills as you write, showing how many words remain. It resets each device-local calendar day and applies only to the book you set it on.

Alongside it, a chapter target (set once per book) shows how full the current chapter is against your intended size, useful for knowing when today's chapter is ready. Going over is fine — it shows as over-fill, not an error. Timed sprints add a third option: pick a duration and, optionally, a word target, and a timer runs in the status bar until it ends with a result card — words written, duration, words per hour.

Goal type	Scope	What it shows
Daily goal	Per book	Progress bar toward today's word target
Chapter target	Per book	Fill level of the current chapter
Sprint	One session	Timer, then words / duration / words-per-hour
Book goal	Whole manuscript	Target total word count for the finished book

What actually counts as words written?

Only words you type or paste directly into the editor. Deletions never subtract — rewrite 300 words down to 250 and the tracker still shows 250 written, so a hard revision day doesn't read as a lost one.

What does not count is the honest part: an imported draft, a restored earlier version, and any edit made by the AI assistant change your manuscript's word count but are never credited as words you wrote. Moving existing text — extract-to-scene, cut-and-paste, find-and-replace — isn't new writing either. Notes and synopses are never counted; they aren't the manuscript. This is a small, deliberate rule with a real point: the numbers only move when you're the one adding words, which is one more way the AI assistant can help without writing your book for you.

How do sprints and pace tracking work?

Start a sprint whenever you want a focused burst — set a duration, and optionally a word target — and a ticking timer sits in the status bar while you write. When it ends (or you stop early), you get a result: words written, time elapsed, and your pace in words per hour. There's no penalty for abandoning one.

You don't need a sprint to see your pace, though. A session starts automatically the moment you write your first word and ends after a short pause, with no start or stop button to manage. Open the statistics panel at any time and today's numbers are waiting: words written, current words-per-hour, and session time — the same pace data a sprint gives you, just running quietly in the background of ordinary writing.

What is the author streak, and how is progress shown?

Your streak counts consecutive days with any writing or revising, tracked at the author level across every project on your device — working in one book's structure keeps a streak started in another alive. It shows your current run, your best run, and a day-state: safe (today's minimum is met), at risk (not yet, but the day isn't over), or none (a day passed with nothing written). Because it lives on the device rather than in a project file, the streak doesn't travel if you copy a project folder elsewhere.

The statistics panel also holds a 7-day chart — one bar per day — and per-book totals: total words, active days, and two averages, one over writing days only and one over every calendar day. Quiet milestones for word counts and streaks collect in a section that stays collapsed until you open it; reaching one changes nothing else. All of it is pull, not push — nothing in this feature interrupts you, and no goal ever blocks writing, saving, or export.

Writer Studio is free and works fully offline, so none of this progress data ever needs to leave your machine. Full details, including how the streak ledger and per-book history are stored, are in the writing goals documentation.