I’d love to claim that writing every day helped me lose a stone. Unfortunately, I’m yet to discover how putting words on the page melts away belly fat (as it’s so wonderfully called in online advertising). Writers can, however, learn from the psychology of weight loss.

Social support and writing

Stephen King advised us to “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.” We need to be alone with our ideas to let them develop. Writing is a solitary pursuit so I was pretty surprised when I checked the usage data on Write-Track and found that the solitary writers, those who had set their profiles to ‘Hidden’, were far less active that either ‘Public’ or ‘Private’ users.

“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.” Stephen King

This got me thinking whether having some form of social support and access to a writing community made people more accountable to the goals they’d set.

Learning from weight loss research

Many weight loss organisations claim that dieters are three times more likely to lose weight if they go ‘social’. This is backed up by academic research that found a group approach, where people have support and share tips and advice, is more effective than going solo. There are two psychological studies of interest:

Join a group: researchers looked at the effectiveness of a group-support weight loss programme (Weight Watchers) compared with those following a self-help model. They found that in the first year the Weight Watchers participants lost more than three times compared to the self-help group (an average of 10 pounds compared to three pounds in the self-help group). By the end of the second year, both groups had regained weight. But while the self-help group returned to their starting weight, those in the group-support model kept off more than six pounds.

Join with friends: this study looked at participants who joined a weight loss programme with friends compared to those who went alone. The ‘social’ dieters had a greater weight loss at both four and 10 months. In fact 95% of those who enrolled with friends completed the programme and 66% maintained their weight loss in full. For those by themselves 76% completed but only 24% maintained their weight loss.

What does this mean for writers?

“I run a writers’ circle, so every couple of weeks a group of us meet and talk - but knowing we’re all writers, the conversation invariably turns to writing.” Survey respondent

I have a hunch that social support can help writers. When doing research into writing habits, I found the most common solution to get people to meet their writing goals was for them to join a writing group.

Having a peer group of like-minded people was seen to motivate writers. Members of a writing group take personal responsibility to write something for each session. They take shared responsibility to read and feedback on each other’s work. They have a ‘social contract’ where they get something in return for their contribution.

Reasons to stay hidden

Since I mentioned the possible link between community and accountability I’ve had responses from several Write-Track users. One published novelist choses to stay hidden – as someone with a significant role in publishing he has good reason to protect himself from unwanted attention. I asked him why he chose that status. He felt that his personal writing process is quite “laboured” and “best done in the privacy of my own Macbook.”

He also felt that discussing his writing is “usually a mistake for me as the idea becomes somehow spoiled. There is also the risk that people will make comments or suggestions.” He’s following Stephen King’s advice to write with the door closed. So perhaps going social only works at certain stages of writing?

When we start writing, or begin a new project, our ideas are fragile and need to be protected while we nurture and strengthen them. We are also very vulnerable – there’s something specifically scary about reading my work out loud – badly given feedback can damage our confidence and destroy something that’s precious to us.

Public, private or hidden?

I don’t yet have the answer to whether it is best to be completely open or hide from view. When designing Write-Track I felt that writers should be able to choose – users can set their profile, goals and notes to either public, private or hidden.

As I’m testing the website myself I have three profiles each set to one of the privacy options. I am most active on my public profile – obviously it’s my website and important that I’m seen, but I also feel accountable to the other users. I have, however, set some of my dreams and goals as private. That way you’ll never know of my secret desire to write a bonkbuster. Oops!

Write like a dieter

So, let’s get back to weight loss. As someone whose New Year resolutions feature finishing my novel and losing ten pounds in weight I’m pretty familiar with the tactics to achieve both. And as those resolutions appear year after year, I admit I’ve still got a lot to learn.

Here are my top tenuous tips for writing like a dieter:

• Go social – the research shows this really works. Join a writing group, go to a class or find a writing buddy.
• Set an overall goal – dieters have a target weight and weigh themselves to measure their progress towards it. Set an overall writing goal and ‘weigh’ yourself against it.
• Break down the steps to your goal – numbers are your friend - dieters count calories, writers count words. Set word count steps to achieve your overall goal.
• Keep a diary – I am addicted to My Fitness Pal app where I log my food and exercise every day, it takes seconds, gives me a chance to analyse patterns and means I never need diet – I eat mindfully each day. Trollope and Hemingway logged their writing each day.
• Develop a habit – doing something each day creates good habits, whether it’s avoiding the biscuit tin at elevenses or writing morning pages.