50,000 words in November: how many words a day?

Words a day for common goals

The arithmetic is simple division, rounded up so the last day doesn’t leave you a word short: the goal divided by the number of days you’ll write. Everything else on this page is about what happens when real life gets in the way of the division.

Fifty thousand words is a short novel by the Nebula, Hugo and Bram Stoker definitions, which all start the novel at 40,000 words (the story length checker has the details), so a November draft of that length is a real book, if a lean one. If your book will be longer, November can hold its first 50,000 words.

The November challenge and where it came from

The 50,000-words-in-November challenge grew out of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, which Chris Baty launched in 1999 as an online community built around writing a 50,000-word draft in the month. It later became a nonprofit organisation. On 31 March 2025 the nonprofit announced that it would begin shutting down, after what it described as six years of struggling to sustain itself financially.

The challenge itself never needed an organisation: a goal, a deadline and a way to keep count are enough, and that is what this page gives you. It isn’t connected with NaNoWriMo or anyone else, and it works just as well for a 30,000-word novella in January or a revision sprint before a contest deadline.

How the pacer works

• Words a day from today is the words still to write divided by the writing days left, counting today and leaving out any day you’ve marked off.
• Ahead or behind compares your total with the plan’s running total to the end of yesterday, or to the end of today once you’ve logged today’s words, so you aren’t “behind” at breakfast.
• Finish date carries on at your average so far: your words divided by the writing days that have passed. It may fall after the deadline; that is useful to know on day 10, not day 29.
• Streak counts writing days in a row with words logged, ending today or yesterday. Days off neither break nor extend it.
• Days off are taken out of the plan, and their share is spread over the other days from the start. If you mark every day off, the pacer plans as if none were.

Today’s figures come from your device’s date, so they appear a moment after the page loads. Your log is kept in this browser’s storage, on this device only; nothing is sent anywhere.

Worked examples

Ahead. It’s 5 November and you wrote 2,000 words on each of the first four days: 8,000 words. The plan wanted 6,667 by the end of 4 November, so you’re 1,333 ahead, and 42,000 words over the 26 days left, including today, is 1,616 a day. Keep up 2,000 a day and you finish on 25 November.

Behind, with gaps. It’s 8 November and you have 3,900 words, with nothing logged on the 3rd, 6th or 7th. The plan wanted 11,667 by now, so you’re 7,767 behind, and 46,100 words over 23 days is 2,005 a day. The pacer also tells you, gently, that at your average of 557 a day you’d finish well after the deadline. Better to know now.

A day off. Mark Thursday 26 November off for US Thanksgiving and the plan becomes 1,725 a day over the other 29 days. Do it at the start and the extra 58 words a day are hardly noticed; leave it until the week itself and the same day costs more.

Planning round the holidays

US Thanksgiving falls on Thursday 26 November 2026, the fourth Thursday of the month as federal law sets it. If you’ll be travelling, cooking or hosting, mark the day off now, and perhaps the day after too. Past November, the same pacer works for a December push to finish a draft before Christmas, or a fresh goal starting on 1 January 2027: change the dates and the goal, and the log follows.

Common mistakes

• Getting the dates wrong by one. 1 to 30 November is 30 days, both ends included. The pacer counts that way too.
• Not logging zero days. A missed day you don’t log still counts against the plan, but the streak and missed-day figures can only see days you enter. Type 0 to be honest with yourself.
• Counting deleted words. Decide at the start whether you count words written or words kept, and stick to it, or the log stops meaning anything.
• Racing someone else’s graph. A pace you can keep beats a pace you can’t. When the ideas run dry, a prompt from Fresh Fable can get you moving again.