If you've been subscribed to our emails, you might have noticed how busy we've been. We're always listening to your feedback, your feature requests, and the little frustrations that can get in the way of doing the thing you actually came here to do: write.

In response to all of that listening, we've rebuilt Novlr from the ground up and are really excited to share what we've been working on. Here are some of the most important changes you'll see after you upgrade.

A writing studio built around you

The biggest change you'll notice is a redesigned writing studio. We wanted the space where you actually put words on the page to be more useful, feel calmer, more considered, and more yours. Everything you need is close at hand, with nothing superfluous cluttering up your view.

Whether you're a planner who likes everything at your fingertips or a minimalist who just wants a blank page and a blinking cursor, the new writing studio lets you work in a way that fits your writing habits. Your notes are now available while you write, without having to switch tabs and interrupt your flow. That character detail you jotted down three weeks ago? The research link you saved? Or the plot thread you didn't want to forget? It's all there, a glance away, without pulling you out of the story.

You can also access your goals, set and track your writing habit, and create writing sprints for focused writing time whenever you want!

A notebook that goes everywhere with you

One of the biggest changes you'll find is a notebook that lives across all your projects. Until now, your notes have lived inside individual projects, which works well when you're deep in one story but gets messy when you want to save your idea for later use.

The new notebook is a single, searchable space that stores all your notes, whether they're assigned to a specific project or just something you want to save for later. You can also link notes to collections and multiple projects for worldbuilding notes that span a series, character backstories you're still developing, stray ideas you want to keep somewhere safe.

Tag your notes for easy access and filtering, so you can find what you're looking for without scrolling through everything you've ever written down.

The flow widget

This is the one we're most excited about, and we think you will be too.

The new flow widget brings together everything you need to build a writing practice that actually sticks. The flow widget lives in your writing space and gives you a set of tools designed to make that easier by tracking your habits and goals, and setting dedicated writing time or word counts.

Writing sprints let you set a focused burst of time or set a word count target so you can silence the inner editor and just get words down on the page. It's a small nudge, but it works.

Habit tracking lets you set your own writing goals and watch your streak grow. It's a great way to keep you motivated when you can actually see your consistency building over time. And when you're ready to take a second look at what you've written, a proofreading tool is right there in the same widget.

Goal setting has also had a proper overhaul. Rather than a simple daily word count, you can now set more detailed, personalised targets for whatever milestones matter to you. Paired with the customisable habit tracker, it means Novlr is flexible enough to support all your writing goals.

What's live, and what's coming

These features are already being used by our co-owners, and our Starter and Studio subscribers (formerly Plus and Pro). We'll be rolling things out to everyone else gradually so we can make sure everything feels right, and so we can hear from you as you start to use them yourself.

Other features to look out for are

• A customisable writing desk that lets you track what's most important to you

• Typewriter mode to fix your active typing to the middle of the screen

• New app themes

• Improved analytics to show you more of your data, with some added improvements to tracking. (Most notably, your words written statistics will now track anything written in Novlr, even in notes. Because if you wrote it, this should count toward your writing habits, even if it didn't increase your project word count.)

We're really proud of this update, and we hope it makes your time writing with Novlr feel even better. When we're ready for a full release, you'll get a notification in-app to upgrade your account.

Happy writing. ✍️