Healthy Competition?

lizshine74by lizshine74

In On writing.

I recently added a 6 AM cycle class to my workout schedule. Wow! Has it shaken up my routine? Oh yeah. Just this one morning of waking up just a little earlier and rushing out the door instead of shuffling about in my bathrobe drinking coffee and playing Scrabble online is making all the difference for me creatively.
At first, I was put off a bit by the instructor who teaches this cycle class. His tendency not to enunciate clearly annoyed me. He’s grown on me though and just like the Russian Anthropology professor I had in college, I’m coming to understand his language. What I like about him is that he uses tons of imagery cues. He takes us on rides through the Sahara, downtown Olympia, up and around snowy mountains. He must love poetry, I think, because how else could he so shamelessly tell us—at the end of our workout today—that we were tulips and that the sweat running down our arms was dew on bright petals.
When I walked in to class this morning, the instructor, Steve, had all the bikes circled and facing the windows where the sun would rise. The music choice throughout the hour long class included such hits as Genesis “Land of Confusion” and Aerosmith and Run DMC singing “Walk this Way”. Can you imagine that? It was awesome. At one point, I laughed out loud. I think it was when Steven Tyler first interjected, screaming, “walk this way”.
Now here I am coming to the point. Steve did something different today. He numbered us of into two groups—1s and 2s—and encouraged throughout the workout some healthy competition between the two groups as we sprinted and climbed. This made me think about writing and all the ways that competition keeps me productive and motivated and all the ways that it cripples my work. So what is it that people mean when they talk about “healthy competition”? Here’s what I think:
1. Competition must help ALL participants. Checking in with your writing mates from time to time to make sure that word count challenges, contests, and other competitive motivators that you are using in your writing practice are working for everyone and are working for YOU. If not, do something differently.
2. Competition is like the gooiest chocolate brownies. A square here and there keeps nurtures us. Too much throws us off balance. We lose sight of the big picture—the one story that compels us to write.
3. It’s all an illusion. Ever seen the Matrix? Competitions designed to get you writing are elaborate hoaxes that participants agree to perpetuate for the mutual benefit of all. What does this mean? Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t throw your hands in the air and bemoan your failure. Mark little strides and small accomplishments and celebrate them. The only person you are really in competition with is yourself. The rest is just a game.
How can you use a little competition to get your pen moving?

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Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

lizshine74

lizshine74

Liz Shine teaches high school English, writes, edits, and coaches other writers from her home in Olympia, WA. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by it all, she simply looks up at Mount Rainier in the distance and gets back to work. If that fails, she heads to the ocean. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press. Her Substack Make Time is her gift to writers, like her, trying to magic time in this crazy, busy world. All of those posts are cross-posted on the blog here. You can see more of her writing at lizshine.com and find her on Instagram {@lizshine.writer} cooking, traveling, and in other ways seeking moments of awe. She has been an active participant in communities of writers since the early 1990s. She’s learned that two things feel truly purpose-driven in life: writing and coaching other writers. In the in between (because one cannot be driving for a purpose every moment), she enjoys looking for wonder and connection. She is a lifelong yoga student, an enthusiastic walker along streets and trails, and an amateur gardener and vegetarian cook. She lives in Olympia, WA. She believes in the power of practice and has been practicing writing since some time in the early 90s when she became an adult in the rain-soaked city of Aberdeen. Writing began with journaling, as a way to understand a confusing, sometimes violent coming-of-age. She writes mostly fiction, some nonfiction, and poetry, and holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers Workshop. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.