Maybe I should try this next.  Three weeks ago, I figured out what my deadlines should be for the two novels I’m working on.  One is my next Street Stories suspense novel titled Bend Me, Shape Me.  We want to release that in early 2013. The other project is a novel for hire with a deadline that’s less important, except for the fact that I don’t get paid for it until I finish it.

So I set a weekly page count writing goal for myself and started tracking my daily output on the Bend Me, Shape Me site.  Then I told my friends about it via Facebook and sent them a link, asking them to hold me accountable.  First week went great.  Second week I squeaked by.  Third week starts with a disclaimer.

My motivator seems to be turning into an anti-motivator.  I’m desperate.  Maybe the added threat of humiliation will help.  It shouldn’t be too hard to find an embarrassing picture of me.  Happens all the time.

There’s yet more help out there for those of us with no self-discipline. Aherk is a “goal-oriented self-blackmailing service” (still in beta) that functions under the premise that fear of embarrassment is the best motivator. Seems a fair assumption.

How it works:

1. You define a goal and set yourself a deadline.

2. You upload an embarrassing photograph of yourself to Aherk.

3. Once you reach your deadline, Aherk asks your Facebook friends to vote on whether you’ve achieved your goal. If you haven’t, it shares the pic of you covered in vomit/urinating in public/reading a Jonathan Franzen novel.

One problem: I’m sure I’m not the only person who makes friends almost exclusively with total bastards. Even if your friend had just written the debut novel of the decade in the space of a month, you’d vote to see the photo, wouldn’t you?

Back to the drawing board. I want this self-discipline outsourced by the end of the year, people.

via Melville House Books » Finish your novel the self-blackmail way.