With a Little Help from My Friends

This summer my friend Windy and I made a pact. We have this goal to finish the rough draft of our works in progress (one each) together, almost as a writing marathon—or more accurately, a sprint.

Truth: I don’t know if I’ll actually get my draft finished by the end of August.

But. I’ve made LOTS of progress, and am happy. I expect to have a livable draft by the official calendar end of summer (Sept 20th). And even though Windy feels doubtful about her progress, I suspect she’ll finish by then as well.

Here’s how it goes: every night, we meet via Twitter and support each other in our #amwriting attempt. As soon as we get started, others inevitably join us and we have a nice party of support. And because I know that someone else is there, waiting for me, I have extra motivation to show up and get to work.

Whether or not I finish the full draft, I’ve made progress. I’m so much farther along than I was when we started this challenge.

It helps tremendously to have someone working along with me, to have someone expecting something from me. Have you found this to be true as well? Who expects progress from you? (If you answer no one, come play with us on Twitter! We’ll get you going.)