Writing Rewards

I have been thinking about the topic of writing rewards a lot over the past week or so. I was working on my bullet journal spreads and I wanted to list out rewards for various milestones during NaNoWriMo. You know, like reach 10k, buy a latte. Or something. Mainly, I saw other people doing this, so I wanted to hop on the bandwagon.

Thing is, I’ve never really given myself external rewards before. I mean sometimes I’ve said, oh, I’ll totally give myself X, Y and Z if I reach my goals. And then I never follow through. Why not?

First, I think it’s because I’m a bit of a tightwad with money. I don’t want to spend a lot and I’m not really sure what rewards I can give myself for free.

And also, I just have never been able to link external rewards to writing achievements in my head. I either reach my writing goals, or fail spectacularly, based on how enthusiastic I was about the writing at the time. So, what good are external rewards?

But I wanted to give it a try, so I started thinking of all the things I could use as rewards. It was…a surprisingly difficult list to come up with. But I figured I would share it in case any of you are looking for ideas of how you can reward yourselves. So here we go.

1. Buy a fancy coffee – this is actually pretty potent right now since I’ve given up regular coffee consumption. It’s actually the one I’m most looking forward to.
2. Take a day off – this one, um, I suspect I’m not going to be able to take a full day off from writing this month. There’s some chance that I’m becoming a workaholic when it comes to writing. Which would also make this a potent reward, but it kind of fills me with dread. That’s healthy, right? Totally not a problem at all. Nope.

Moving on…

• Buy myself some NaNo merch – this requires more money than the coffee. Plus I would be way more excited if last year’s coffee mug was still available as I liked the look of that one much better. So, I may give this one a pass. But it’s an option.
• Buy myself some new wax melts. – there’s this fruit variety pack from Our Own Candle Company that I’ve had my eye on for a while. Again, more money! Sheesh!
• Binge watch a new show for a night – this is sort of like the day off thing. And it only works if I have a show which I’m interested in bingeing, which sadly at the moment, I don’t
• Buy some new bullet journal stuff – money, money, money, mo-ney, MO-NEY! Points if you know the song.
• Enlist husband for backrub – this is especially good since I’ve had a return of typing pain this week. And just after I’d announced that sitting at my desk had solved the problem!
• For a day, work on the shiny new project that is trying to steal my attention from my NaNo novel – this one is a favorite
• Buy a book –  duh
• Go for a walk at my favorite park – this one is not for NaNo, but for later in Milwordy when the weather is warm again.

So, I can pick from this list. While these are all things that would be enjoyable for sure, I’m still keeping my eye out for others. Preferably others that are completely free. If you have any suggestions, I am all ears. Or…eyes…I guess? Cause that’s how reading comments works. Anyway…

Bonus Writing Prompt: Your character finds a strange note on their front door. What does it say? How does your character react?

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-Robin