As much as we complain about deadlines, they have an important role in motivating us. When I asked writers what inspired them to keep writing, the top response was deadlines with a huge 75% response.
Most of the writers I know don’t have the luxury of being able to write full time - instead they squeeze in writing time amongst their other work commitments. They don’t have a boss forcing them finish a writing project, they have to set their own deadlines.
Internal and external motivation
75% of writers are inspired by deadlines
Writers are motivated and inspired to write. From a psychological perspective they have an intrinsic motivation to create which comes from enjoyment of the task itself. When I asked them, most writers found it easy to find inspiration, and have ideas for writing projects. It seems that expressing themselves creatively is something they just have to do.
However, many writers struggle to complete their projects. This is where extrinsic motivation comes in, having an external goal or reason. In my survey, it was no surprise that writing competitions were a real motivation.
Working to deadlines
When my old writing group decided to publish an anthology, I dusted down a short story I had written several years ago, gave it a bit of an edit and sent it off. Admittedly I missed the deadline by a day. The whole experience was very motivating, we had a launch party in August and people liked the story - I felt I should do something with it. But what, and when? It didn’t seem worth editing it for its own sake – I had already satisfied my intrinsic motivation to write it.
So like the writers in my survey, I decided to enter it into a competition. Last week I searched a list of competitions and found one with a deadline of Saturday 31 August. I set aside some time on Friday to edit the story, and a day before the competition closed I sent it off.
Rewards
I love that short story - I really enjoyed writing it and liked getting feedback from my writing group and others who read the anthology. Yet it felt brilliant to send it off to the competition, the potential for some external reward was incredibly satisfying. I won’t hear anything until the end of October. Until then I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
If you’d like to find out what competitions are approaching, check out these links:
- The New Writer: http://www.thenewwriter.com/writers-library/competitions/
- Script Angel: http://scriptangel.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/screenwriting-contests-updated-september-2013/
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