by Rosanne Bane
Plan on keeping a detailed Product Time log for the rest of your writing career. Refer to the categories listed on page 152 to design your own table, and modify them to fit your needs. (You can copy the PDF of the table I use for Product Time tracking at http://BaneOfYourResistance.com/around-the-writers-block-forms/.)
It Pays to Pay Yourself
Children’s writer Peter Pearson once described himself as a “’fraidy-cat writer who learned to knuckle down and face the blank page” by consistently paying himself for his writing success. Peter puts a gold dollar coin in small wooden chest every day after the day’s writing is done.
“My great-great-grandfather made this sewing box, but I use it as my writing treasure chest. When I look inside, I see everything I’ve ever done and it gives me hope. When things seem impossible, I just crack the lid open, peer in, and think, ‘I’ve done this before. I can do it again.’ There’s nothing like a chest full of gold coins to get the blood going.”
Peter is about to earn his MFA, has completed a novel draft, and is working on picture books. He credits a large part of his success to the three habits and to consistently rewarding himself for showing up.
If you want to write more often and more effectively, putting yourself on the payroll, like Annette D., Peter Pearson and a lot of other writers, is a good first step.
INSIDE THE WRITER’S BRAIN: WHY REWARDS WORK
When a person gets what she/he sees as a reward, the brain secretes two neurotransmitters: dopamine and acetylcholine. Dopamine is the feel-good neurotransmitter that brings pleasure, energy and confidence. Acetylcholine helps the brain pay attention to what has just happened and form a memory of the experience. Dopamine also reinforces memory by strengthening the connections between the neurons that were active when the reward was received. Together dopamine and acetylcholine essentially say, “Pay attention to this; this is an experience worth remembering and repeating.” Because they activate the limbic dopamine system, rewards make learning easier.6
Interestingly, the anterior cingulate, an area of the brain that is key to self-motivation and to modifying behavior to correct errors (which is why some neuroscientists call this the “oh, shit” circuit), lights up like a Christmas tree when a reward is anticipated as well as when it’s received.7
However, in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink demonstrates how the commonsense principle that rewards improve performance applies only for routine, step-by-step tasks (algorithmic tasks). Study after study has shown that for tasks that require creative thinking to find a novel solution (heuristic tasks), rewards actually impair performance. And the bigger the reward, the bigger the impairment.8
Since writing is primarily heuristic, it might seem that we simply should avoid rewards. Indeed a lot of my students and clients have an intuitive understanding about this when they insist, “Writing should be its own reward.” The trouble is that these are the same writers who are struggling with the frustration and confusion of not understanding why they aren’t doing the writing they want and love to do. They have the intrinsic motivation to write, but are blocked by resistance. In these cases, I’ve found that rewards can be thoughtfully employed to reduce resistance, particularly when the focus is on, and the reward is given for, effort rather than outcomes.
So before we leap from the unthinking commonsense assumption that rewards are always good to the misguided conclusion that rewards are always bad, let’s look more closely at when and why rewards have a negative impact on heuristic tasks, and when and why they might have a positive effect on some aspects of our writing.
What Rewards Do to Creativity
Rewards narrow both the depth and breadth of our thinking to, “What do I have to do to get the reward?” which precludes the kind of creative thinking that comes from open-ended questions like, “How about . . .” “Why not . . .” and “What else . . .”
Rewards also reduce or destroy intrinsic motivation, which is essential for creativity. After reviewing three decades of research studies, Edward Deci concluded, “Careful consideration of reward effects reported in 128 experiments lead to the conclusion that tangible rewards tend to have a substantially negative effect on intrinsic motivation.”9
Or as Mark Twain put it, “Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and . . . Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”
Rewards send the message, “I know this isn’t something you’re going to like to do, so I promise to give you something you will like if you do this task.” You might think that when we’re promised a reward for something we want to do anyway, we’d be smart enough to just take the reward and think, “Ha, got you fooled. I enjoyed the task and got the reward.” And in some situations we can do that, but the presence of a reward frequently changes our perception of the task from play to work, just as Mr. Twain predicts.
But it’s important to note that rewards have this negative effect on intrinsic motivation only when they are contingent, that is, when they are some form of, “If you do this, then you get that.” Unexpected rewards that are a celebration after the fact, the “Now that you’ve made this effort, here’s a reward” variety, actually boost future creativity.
Contingent, if-then rewards limit autonomy, one of the three key sources of intrinsic motivation. In one study, Teresa Amabile, one of the world’s leading researchers on creativity, asked twenty-three professional artists to submit ten commissioned works and ten noncommissioned works, selected by the artists at random. Not surprisingly, the artists reported that they had felt more constrained when working on the commissioned pieces. Furthermore, a panel of artists and curators, who were unaware of the purposes of the study, consistently found the commissioned works less creative than the noncommissioned works.10
But Amabile’s study also discovered that when artists saw the commission as enabling them to do something interesting and exciting, or when they thought the commission provided useful information or feedback, artists produced works that the panel of judges considered as creative as the noncommissioned work.
As long as creative people can keep their focus on the creative task instead of the reward, the reward doesn’t have to impair their performance. In The Owner’s Manual for the Brain, Dr. Pierce J. Howard observes, “The highest creativity occurs when we discover the need for a creative response ourselves and choose to contribute independent of any possible external constraints. When external constraints, such as deadlines, rewards or punishers, are imposed on a personally desirable task, creativity can still flourish if we are able to cognitively minimize the constraints. When we are unable to forget about them, creativity suffers.”11
Paradoxically, artists who are least interested in extrinsic rewards and who pursue art for the challenge and joy of creating are more likely to get both the intrinsic satisfaction and the extrinsic rewards of success, recognition and money.12
What we don’t know is what happens when rewards that are usually extrinsic (cash, bonuses, food treats, etc.) are provided to a writer by the writer herself. We can assume that giving yourself a reward wouldn’t decrease your sense of autonomy, although it may limit the depth and breadth of your thinking. As far as I can tell from my investigations, no one has researched the question of whether self-rewards necessarily limit creativity. Until more research is available, I suggest you be wary of rewards offered by authority figures, focus on the intrinsic rewards of writing itself, and find ways to reward yourself for performing routine tasks.
What Rewards Do for Routine Tasks
Rewards do increase the speed and effectiveness of performance in routine tasks with clear solutions. And nothing can reduce intrinsic motivation in a task that doesn’t have any intrinsic interest to begin with.13
No matter how much you love the challenge and thrill of discovery you get when you solve a writing puzzle, there will always be some routine tasks that simply have
to be done. Writing an effective query letter, for example, is creatively challenging, but once you’ve written it, copying and pasting it into an email or shoving it in an envelope is routine. So are keeping track of what pieces you’ve submitted to which editors, updating research notes and financial records, filing, and the other administrivia needed to run an office. Finding ways to reward yourself for tackling these routine tasks will make those tasks, well, more rewarding.
And no matter how much we love writing as a whole, no matter how closely what we’re working on reflects our passion and purpose, each of us prefers some stages of the creative process more than others. Don’t bother looking for rewards for the tasks that are part of the stages that intrigue you and provide their own intrinsic satisfaction. The stages that don’t rock your world are better candidates for rewards.
If you love a particular part of writing and you consistently show up to do that part, don’t mess it up by imposing a reward system on it. But for the stages you struggle with and the parts of the process that make you crinkle your nose, rewards can get you going and keep you moving. If you’re feeling resistant to a part of the writing you usually can’t wait to get started on, explore options for rewarding yourself to break the inertia. If you have difficulty getting yourself to your writing space and getting started, give yourself a small reward just for showing up and another small reward for starting (by opening your notebook, computer file or research, for example).
CHALLENGE: ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL
Rewards are individual. My big reward might be a ho-hum reward or no reward at all for you. Giving a reward that isn’t valued by the person receiving it is a waste of energy and can actually demotivate the receiver. You need to think about what is truly rewarding for you and what rewards you find mildly, moderately and strongly appealing.
Timing is also crucial. To maximize the brain benefit of a reward, it needs to be provided at the same time or immediately after the desired behavior. That way, the dopamine and acetylcholine are associated with the desired behavior. If you delay the reward to think about what to give yourself, you dissipate the effectiveness of the reward.
This is why you need a list of potential rewards in advance. Prepare a list of ten small rewards, ten medium rewards, and ten large rewards. For example, to me a small reward is fifty cents dropped into a metal box that sits on my desk; a medium reward is a single piece of high-quality chocolate; a large reward is jewelry or a nonessential piece of clothing (I gave myself a top-quality rain jacket to wear at agility trials when I completed chapter five) or guilt-free time off to take a trip.
INSIDE THE WRITER’S BRAIN: THE RIGHT KIND OF ATTENTION
Dr. Carol Dweck, psychologist at Stanford University, conducted a study with four hundred New York City fifth graders who were given puzzles and then were either praised for their intelligence by a researcher saying, “You must be smart at this [sic],” or praised for their effort by a researcher saying, “You must have worked really hard.” The students were then given the option of working with easy puzzles, similar to the ones they’d just solved, or a more challenging set of puzzles that they could learn a lot from. Most of the students who were praised for their intelligence chose the easier set of puzzles, while 90 percent of the students praised for their effort chose the more challenging set.14
When Dweck gave these fifth-grade students a third test designed for eighth graders, the ones who were praised for their intelligence were easily discouraged and saw their mistakes as failures. Furthermore, when they took a fourth test at the same difficulty level as the first test, their performance decreased by 20 percent. Their experience of failure on the third test impaired their ability. On the other hand, students who were praised for their effort were engaged in and worked hard on the eighth-grade-level test and actually increased their performance on the final test by 30 percent.
Praising students for their intelligence rewards their performance and focuses their attention on the outcome; praising students for their effort rewards their willingness to try and focuses attention on the process. Students praised for effort have greater intrinsic motivation to challenge themselves to continue to learn and develop. They are better prepared to respond positively to situations where they don’t have all the answers.
Recording what you do for Product Time, Self-care and Process is a way of focusing your attention on the effort you’re making. It can be your way of telling yourself, “I’m really giving this a good effort,” on a daily basis. In fact, saying that out loud is one way to reward yourself. Recording is also a handy antidote for our culture’s focus on results only. So many writers are discouraged when friends and family invariably ask about outcomes: “Have you published anything?” “Did you get a contract yet?” or “Finished that novel yet?” Tracking gives you the information you need to say something like, “I’m doing great. I show up for my writing when I say I will and I’m meeting 75 percent of my Big Audacious Targets.”
Your friends and family don’t ask about outcomes to undermine you; they ask about outcomes because that’s our cultural bias (despite how unhelpful Dweck and other researchers have shown this to be). Every time you respond by talking about your effort, you’re training the people you care about to shift to a perspective that will better support your intrinsic motivation and theirs.
INSIDE THE WRITER’S BRAIN: STROKES, MONKEYS, AND OVEN MITTS
When a person has a stroke, some neurons in the affected area of the brain are killed outright, some are injured. Some of the injured neurons will heal and some of the killed neurons will be replaced. Stroke patients can recover some or nearly all of their former abilities; how much they recover depends on the severity of the stroke, the speed of medical intervention and other factors.
However, as mentioned in chapter two, if a stroke victim gives up trying to use whatever part of the body—hand, arm, leg, etc.—was incapacitated by the stroke, the healing neurons won’t be challenged to do what they used to do. Because neurons are too precious to go unused, they’ll be recruited to perform some other function. So a hand, for example, that was initially incapacitated by a stroke continues to be nonfunctioning, not because of the stroke damage, but because the person stopped using that hand. The muscles atrophy, but more important, the corresponding area of the brain atrophies. Dr. Edward Taub calls this “learned nonuse,” a phenomena he first noted in his research with monkeys.
Taub is perhaps best-known and most highly regarded for developing a profoundly improved treatment for stroke patients. At the Taub Therapy Clinic, patients wear oven mitts and slings to keep the hand or arm not affected by a stroke immobilized so they are forced to use the hand or arm that was affected by the stroke. Patients play games you’d normally see toddlers playing—pushing pegs into holes, picking up pennies or beans—to relearn how to use the affected limb. For hours of daily practice, patients are encouraged to focus on incremental improvements and congratulated for behaviors that approximate the desired end result, a technique behaviorists call “shaping.”15
In previous research with monkeys that had had one arm partially paralyzed, Taub observed that classical conditioning of providing a reward if the monkey used the affected arm didn’t work. Taub’s monkeys made much better progress when he provided a reward “not only for successfully reaching for the food, but for making the first, most modest gesture toward it.”16 In other words, Taub’s monkeys responded to the shaping technique.
WRITER’S APPLICATION: TAKE THE GLOVES OFF AND PUT THE MITTS ON
Deep-seated writing resistance may be a kind of learned nonuse. Writing injuries, like sports injuries, are an unfortunate but frequent part of the game. From the time we entered grade school, we were publicly and privately corrected, rejected, criticized, embarrassed, unappreciated, censored and ignored. Fortunately, we were also praised, celebrated and held up for public approval, or we would have given up writing altogether. Some writers are more r
esilient than others, some writers are luckier than others, but we’ve all been injured in one way or another in the past.
Withdrawing is a natural response to physical or emotional pain, but a temporary withdrawal can become permanent if the writer doesn’t have the opportunity, encouragement and grit to try again. Injured writers, like injured athletes, naturally and unconsciously compensate for the injury—we stop writing dialogue or avoid certain constructions or stop sharing writing with particular audiences. And just as with physical injuries, these compensating moves can interfere with full recovery.
If we are unwilling or unable to accept and celebrate imperfect performance while recovering, we may give up trying that skill or technique. When the neural pathway for a particular writing skill goes unused for too long, that is, when the neurons are not firing together, they no longer wire together. If we stop using a particular ability, we lose that ability.
Perhaps one of the reasons extrinsic rewards impair performance in creative tasks is because they’re used in a classic conditioning approach, where the reward is given only when the behavior is exactly the desired end result. Heuristic tasks are typically more complicated than routine tasks, so it’s not surprising that it takes more time and trials to achieve the desired end result. When we take the focus off the end result and apply a shaping technique, where we give rewards for approximate behavior, we may see that extrinsic rewards can be an effective part of motivating and improving performance in creative tasks.
So how do we put on the oven mitts as writers? How can we shape our behavior to recover atrophied writing skills and gain new ones? The first step is to assess the injury and identify which skills and potentials have atrophied over time. But if, like Aimee the French amnesiac, we’re affected by slight injuries we don’t recall, how do we challenge ourselves to reclaim and regain those skills? And how do we tell the difference between a skill, technique or genre we abandoned because of an injury and those we’re simply not interested in?