Year Abroad, Part Three: My First Week

It feels far longer than a week that I've been in Germany. Technically, I have: my parents and I arrived last Wednesday, so it's only really that I've been Germany on my own for a week. But that isn't what I meant. Saying that it's only a week since I said goodbye to my parents just feels wrong. Surely it can't have been so recently?

I've spent my first week alone in Germany working on my book, exploring Tübingen (pictures below!), going for jogs (admittedly only two), having awkward conversations with flatmates I barely know in the kitchen, setting up a German bank account, handing in forms, and Skyping numerous people, numerous times. I definitely feel like I'm settling in; like I'm getting to know my surroundings and life here is a little more normal.

Year Abroad, Part Two: Travel, Arrival and Settling In

So. I'm in Germany. My parents have just left; I'm here to stay now. What a weird thought that is.

Today is Saturday. We set off at perhaps twenty to three on Wednesday afternoon, and reached the Euro Tunnel in plenty of time - only for it to be delayed. After waiting there for a couple of hours, we finally got to France and had soon found our Ibis Budget hotel. It was clean and comfortable enough, but I didn't sleep well. Not because I was nervous, though - I was determinedly not thinking about where we were going. Apparently I just wasn't tired enough once my head hit the pillow, and once I did manage to sleep, I was woken twice during the night.

We set off again at about six AM French time, and I napped (badly) through France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Once in Germany, though, I decided to stay awake despite still being tired: I wanted to see where we were going. At that point, I was quite excited. But the closer we got to Tübingen, the more nervous I got. What if I didn't like it? What if it wasn't a nice town? And did I really want to go away on a year abroad anyway? (The answer to that was no, I didn't.) I just wanted for us to keep on driving, as if we were just going on a trip through Europe, not dropping me off on my year abroad.

Year Abroad, Part One: Preparation

Since I got back from my family holiday in Italy, I haven't been writing as much as I'd have liked. I've been busy. But not in the usual way. My year abroad has come around rather fast and I've suddenly realised there's quite a lot I still have to do to prepare for it.

I'm spending my year abroad studying, in Tübingen, Germany. I leave in two days.

Writeometer: A Word-Count Tracking App

I find that NaNoWriMo gives me a certain motivation to write. Without it, I may write bits here and there, but there's a lot less dedication to my project. I'm never sure whether it's the idea of keeping up with the targets, or the idea that thousands of other people around the world are doing the exact same challenge, or both, that motivates me, but I've found that a smartphone app called Writeometer (I don't know about iOS, but it's free on Android!) has certainly helped motivate me to write more!

Writeometer does a similar thing to the NaNoWriMo website in that it tracks how much you write per day. You have more options when setting up your novel with Writeometer than on NaNoWriMo. For one thing, you're limited neither to one particular month, nor to 50,000 words. You can choose your total target word count, daily target word count, and when you want to finish your project by - or two of the three, and the app will calculate the third for you. There's also an option for continuing with an already started project, so you can input the number of words you've already written, and it'll use that as your starting point.

You can also choose when you would like Writeometer to remind you to write, and this is the main thing that has actually made me write these past few days. It's all well and good having an app to help you reach your writing goals, but you have to actually remember to use it! Without it, Writeometer would've been forgotten and I wouldn't have motivated myself to get past the scene I'd been struggling with.

Writeometer reminds you of your daily writing goal

To update your word count, you have to create a new entry in your writing log. You can choose whether to input how many words you've written since your last update, or to input your new total word count, and let the app work out how many words you've written. The "new log entry" page also lets you input how long you spent writing and add a note, which you could use to keep track of what you wrote when, how you felt about your writing, or something along those lines.

Then the app displays your data for you in nice graphs and charts, and in your project overview, so you can see all your stats and see how you're progressing.

And you can have multiple projects and inspirational writing quotes (provided by the app), too!

You might think this review/walkthrough is coming to a close (it's rather long as it is), but there are still more features that I haven't explored yet, including treats, the timer, and the toolbox. You may have noticed that the "new log entry" page had a "guavas" option, and this relates to the treats feature: when you feel you've written enough, you can assign yourself a guava, which you can redeem for real-life "treats" of your choice, which you can do right there and then. I don't use it, but can certainly see how helpful it could be for others.

The timer gives you 25 minutes to write, and is designed to get you to sit down, ignore all distractions, and get as much done as you can in the time limit. You can choose whether you'll be awarded with a guava at the end of the 25 minutes or not. And I thought all the above would be useful enough, but the toolbox offers even more extras with a word-of-the-day, a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a "word salad" feature designed to inspire.

 Which leaves very little more (bar a word processor) that a writer would ever need!