Write a Novel in a Month

Last year I wrote a novel. To motivate myself to finish another novel, I organized a group of writers to write in the international write a novel in a month competition. The competition is for thirty days and the writers each have to write a fifty thousand word novel. A first draft of a novel. I was expecting two or three out of the fifteen writers to finish the competition but I have more than fifty percent finishing their first draft. That is incredible. I am a bit shocked but also extremely happy that I have been able to motivate them to write. How did I do it? No clue but I will be sending them a survey form on Friday to find out what motivated them to write 50k words.

This is what I did and hopefully this stuff was motivating:

1. I told them that I would put their books in my book stand at the Book Messe next year.

2. I sent them an email everyday telling them something and giving them some obscure words to use.

3 I created a yahoo group for them to use where they could send emails to the group and also post information that might be useful.

4. I kept track of their daily word count so they could see how they were doing.

5. I scheduled a meeting once a week where they could come talk to me and to the other writers.

That is it and it seemed to work. Now lets see if what they wrote is something we can work with...


I wonder if this kind of strategy will work with employees. Can you motivate employees to do something that seems impossible and where there is no end reward other than having finished the project.

My writers get a book at the book messe. It means nothing to me really.. I have the space and it is just a few more books on the shelf but to them it means everything doesn't it. The promise, the excitement, the opportunity.

It means nothing to me, it costs me nothing but it means everything to the writer. So, if you have an employee find out what is important to them, use it as a carrot to get them to finish their work. It probably will mean nothing to you and mean everything to them.

Everyone has a different motivation for getting things done. Lets find out what motivated these 8 writers to finish their first drafts. Maybe some of that information will be useful to my future employees.