Karen Zara, guest blogger at the Writer’s Resource Center, has a lively post on why deadlines may be almost as good as money to spur your writing. Yes, indeed, she makes a compelling argument for how deadlines can determine whether and what you write, and, of course, that (ideally) translates into making money. Click here to read her full post.

Her post resonates with me because I find myself adhering to externally imposed deadlines while forever adjusting my internally imposed deadlines. When someone tells me to jump, I ask “how high?” When I tell myself to jump, I say “later.” Sadly, this is particularly true when it comes to my writing. Recently I completed a two-and-a-half year mentorship for my fiction writing, and I am anxious about whether my production will grind to a halt without a “mail by” date hanging over my head. So my first effort at keeping the momentum going is to enter writing contests.

Writing contests have deadlines. If you miss the deadline, you miss entering the contest and having a chance to win (anything). Whether I actually enter the contest is not the point, however; it’s that I used a real deadline to spur myself to write. That’s one thing I like about contests–they have deadlines so if you snooze, you lose.

So, how do you keep your writing momentum going?