Letter 28: July 14, 2008
Apologies for lateness this week: server outage. DJM
Starting as always with notes from my writing life: So on a single day this week I completed two of the big projects I told you about. "Completed" doesn't necessarily mean I don't have rewrites to do in one case, or we don't have to reshape the information into a readable article in the other. Even so, what I have written, I have written.
It's always kinda surprising when you lift a weight like that offa your shoulders and life really does look brighter. It's a relief, and it's a reassurance that the old rules still hold: that perhaps one day reducing the weight will not increase the lightness, but not this day.
And how is it that writing, a thing we love (stay with me, stay with me), and interesting projects that we freely chose, can become such a weight?
Here's one answer. I've been thinking about this answer recently, and re-reading the original research; and here's a new version of an answer I first wrote in 2004.
Edward Deci promised some student volunteers a dollar for every puzzle they solved. A second group were told they would not be paid [for US-educated readers, a second group was told it would not be paid.] Then they were turned loose to solve the puzzles. When time was up, one group wanted to go on playing with the puzzles; the other[s] stopped willingly and sat doing nothing or doing something else.
What Deci found - contrary to what you might have predicted - was that the students who had not been offered money were the ones who were more interested in the activity. “Introducing monetary rewards seems to have made students dependent on these rewards, shifting their view from the puzzle as a satisfying activity in its own right to an activity that is instrumental for obtaining rewards."
Seems strange? Yes, and seems true, too. Once upon a time I decided to try performing stand-up comedy. I made the decision, and I was determined. Cleverly I negotiated with a graduate school teacher to be given three units of academic credit for doing what I was going to do anyway. As soon as he agreed, I lost interest: and five or six years later I still haven’t performed and don't care if I never do.
Is this why some of us would willingly write for fun and for ever, but as soon as we start to write with the hope of wealth and fame, our minds turn it into a j.o.b. and we treat it the same way as we treat the day job? Is this why actors and writers of proven talent, who come out here to Hollywood, have difficulty doing what it takes to succeed - even apparently-simple things like mailing their existing resumes to agents? Is this why people who write for their own delight, and manage to sell the product, find it hard to work on the second book in spite of having guaranteed sales and a waiting approving public?
So that's one answer. There's a lot of research in the same area, and people come up with slightly different theories about how it works, and some people say it isn't real. But it's popular enough to be worth thinking about in your own life:
Something you can try today: think whether this is true of your own writing, or even of real life: that when we expect a reward for writing, it overwhelms and consumes and spits out our original enthusiasm, as a flaming torch drives out darkness.
And if that's true for you, what will you change about your next project to make sure the enthusiasm survives?
David
David Jung McGarva
+1 (818) 707 1871
Write me: david at todayiwrite dot com
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