|
Post by Siana Blackwood on Feb 9, 2015 1:30:46 GMT
I suspect this is a strange statement coming from the one with all the spreadsheets, but I just thought of it last night and maybe the subject can start off an interesting discussion. Here's what I've been thinking:
1. Wordcount or hours challenge:
"Oh no, I had a bad week 2 so now I need to panic and do heaps of extra work to catch up!" *frantically piles words/hours onto the manuscript* *wins at the last minute*
2. Consistency challenge:
"Welp, missed four days at the start of the month. I lose." *gives up* *starts a handicrafts project instead*
It's probably not the same for everyone, but to me a consistency challenge just feels like a punishment waiting to happen. That probably suits some people just fine (witness the popularity of Write or Die). For me, I'd sooner have a challenge where I'm not out of the game until time is up.
So, thoughts? Do you like consistency challenges? If so, what do you see as the positives? If not, what do you prefer?
|
|
|
Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on Feb 9, 2015 10:32:21 GMT
Frankly, I look more at consistency more as a way of encouraging myself to keep going when the going gets rough than as a punishment for skipping. I don't even look at the percentage. I stopped counting it that way last year. I score it with gold stars, smiley faces, and stickers. In a typical NaNo it doesn't matter whether I skip an entire two weeks and then double time it...whereas with consistency, skipping is fine...but I get a pat on the back the sooner I start up again. Week one of February, I skipped two days because I was/am sick, but the third day I wrote a bit. Silver star for me! I look at it more as a system of imaginary rewards for maintaining BICFOK, where making the effort counts more than how many times I failed. So in my mind, it doesn't matter if I have four lazy days in a month. What matters is that I crawled out of the pit each time. So maybe I got a silver star this week...all it means is next week I aim for a gold star!
It makes a weird kind of sense when I treat it as something that I just can't put in a spreadsheet other than as emoticons. XD
|
|
|
Post by MelCorbett on Feb 15, 2015 2:54:10 GMT
I score it with gold stars, smiley faces, and stickers. In a typical NaNo it doesn't matter whether I skip an entire two weeks and then double time it...whereas with consistency, skipping is fine...but I get a pat on the back the sooner I start up again. I get smiley faces. I think I posted a pic of my board over on Agent's thread. So yeah, I feel happy when I get a long chain of smiley faces, but it's not the end of the world if I don't get one. It just means that it's time to get to work so I can get some more. I do consistency now because, well otherwise, I would never get any kind of writing time. I have to limit myself to like 20 minutes a day because I have to work on many other things too. :-(
|
|
|
Post by Siana Blackwood on Feb 15, 2015 3:32:58 GMT
Neither of those examples are consistency-based challenges - they're just reward schemes. I'm thinking of something like this:
Rules:
2. Set a goal for February. You have three types: consistency (you can skip up to two days a week before it counts against you), word count (all words of fiction), or time (you can skip up to two days a week before it counts against you). You can do one or any combination thereof.
Sign-up:
Random Stevian 2 - 0 / 28 days - Write 20 minutes a day, every day.
---
The way I read it, someone who scores less than 5 / 7 in the first week can't win. Right or wrong?
|
|
|
Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on Feb 18, 2015 8:17:38 GMT
Heh, yeah, it looks like the . Personally, I'm not fond of the original rules either.
Actually, the way I interpreted that was that each person determines what it means for extra skips to 'count against you.' The strict interpretation of all or nothing would indeed dictate that skipping more than two days in the first week would automatically mean you lose. However, the way I interpreted it for myself in the beginning was as a percentage goal. The perfect goal is to write 5+/7 days a week, every week, which would be 100%. My method though was to aim for 80% consistency, so with 20 days at 5% each, that allows four further fudge days. I also allowed myself to earn some small % back by writing for 6 or 7 days in subsequent weeks. So in that way, if someone's shooting for a lower consistency percentage, they can still 'win'...just not with 100% consistency.
That said, I rapidly gave up this method in favor of smiley faces for writing that day at all.
All of THAT said, I don't like the consistency-based challenges either. I feel like...if we have to have a consistency CHALLENGE, we have to actually find a way to...include failure. That's a whole other can of worms though...there's no way to define failure. We tried with '2 skip days' but again, so what if it's 3 skip days? It's the same problem. I just...don't see the meaning of slapping any metrics on that, because they really don't give a proper picture. In a way, it's because the number of days skipped doesn't really matter. Rather, what matters is forging ahead through thick and thin. It really does feel like a punishment then, when the very structure of the challenge implies that one might as well give up after failing early. It defeats the ultimate purpose of consistency, which is to encourage people to keep going even when they feel tired, lazy, or discouraged, and in SPITE of failure.
|
|
|
Post by MelCorbett on Feb 18, 2015 19:39:43 GMT
I like the percentages idea personally. That we reach X percent by X point in time, but if that's the case, then I agree that I'm not such a fan of consistency challenges and prefer the consistency reward schemes as Siana named the smiley faces. :-)
|
|
|
Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on Feb 19, 2015 0:51:37 GMT
Nothing wrong with the consistency challenge idea per se - like word counts, maybe everyone can declare their own consistency goal, rather than having one enforced (all or nothing 5/7).
I feel like for continuous challenges that ultimately aim for the long run, losing shouldn't occur at a single instance of failure. Instead, we could just define tiers - 'all or nothing', 'percentage', 'reward scheme' and let everyone pick. Those who thrive on staking it all can go for the tougher levels, but if they fail, they won't win the tough one, but they can still win at an easier level.
Also, smiley faces may be a 'reward scheme', but I still count it as a valid objective to keep getting smiley faces. Yes, it's possible to lose this - by stopping. It may be more of a maintenance thing than a target thing, though. It's like dribbling a basketball. Rather than counting how many times I bounce the basketball and how many times I drop it, I'm tracking how quickly I pick it up and for how long I can keep the ball in motion. I suppose that sounds like the percentages.
|
|