I’ve been experimenting with different personal rewards so I can get my most important writing projects done. Although it should be enough that I love to write. But there are some projects that are just tough to struggle through depending on the subject. People assume that writers just plop the words on paper with ease. Rarely does the meaning writing get on paper that easily. There are emotions of every sort involved, not unlike the common emotions that come from just living life; fear of rejection, fear of success, unexpected anxieties that pop up out of nowhere it seems, that powerfully slow down your creative process.

Real writing isn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination. So I go through a random series of rewards for myself just to encourage the words out of myself. I’m learning that it definitely helps if you really know yourself, faults and all. You must even learn how to outwit yourself. That is if you want to get those precious words down on paper or computer.

The latest rewards or ‘dangling carrots’, are movies. At the beginning of the week I check out three DVDs from the library and rent another from the video store. You see, I really love to watch movies. I’m a hopeless critic too and mysteries are my favorites. If I can figure it out, I’m not pleased. A movie must have me strung along until the very end or I’m an unhappy customer.

So this is what I look forward to in the week after I’ve put in some productive hours of writing. If it’s an especially heart wrenching project, I might even get to watch two in one night. I’ve got to work for it though. I allow myself no easy to obtain rewards. And if the rewards are not producing good work out of me, I have to change the reward. When you work for yourself you have to do what is necessary. This is business for me, no playing around albeit there is occasional fun to be had.