Table 3. Top five writing program elements reported as beneficial during semi-structured interviews of writing program participants.

Writing program element or characteristic	Psychological need supported	Number (%) of participants reporting (n = 14)	Number (%) of mentions (n = 383 coded segments)	Example quotations
Submitting word counts	Competence	12 (86)	36 (9)	“I think it [submitting word counts] helped. It was very straightforward, I opened the document, looked…word count at the bottom, I typed in that number and it went up, it went down, but, and then we could make comments at the bottom like, you know, I was writing so I added a lot and then, you know, I was editing, I cut out a lot, both are types of progress and the word count would go in the opposite direction.” (Participant 12) “…for me it helped because, 1) …it kept [my three major items] at the forefront of my mind, that these are the things that you’ve prioritized for yourself, get them done. And then 2) I’m also showing people my progress so it’s that accountability factor where they see how far or how little I’ve come, and then if I’m struggling then that’s something we can talk about during the monthly meeting.” (Participant 13)
Dedicated, focused writing time with others	Relatedness	11 (79)	58 (15)	“I think it’s the exclusive environment, like everyone who’s there is there because they’re wanting to write and we’ve all cleared our calendars to do it, is what makes it work. But yet if you were to be put in a little room by yourself it wouldn’t feel the same, it would be more distracting…it’s just, the environment is such that everybody’s here writing, I’m going to write, you know. I don’t know how else to explain it.” (Participant 4) “To have the time protected, so that was a huge deal for us. You know, so nobody bothered anybody because they knew this is sacrosanct, this is like really important to be here doing this.” (Participant 5)
Hearing others’ successes and challenges during monthly meetings	Competence, Relatedness	11 (79)	27 (7)	“Yes, it helped to know that I’m in a similar boat as other people and that some of these people that I even look up to, some of the more senior people in the group, hearing them talk about having similar issues, I guess kind of took some of the pressure off of myself that I’m putting on there, and some of that disappointment in myself.” (Participant 3) “I find it really useful for a multitude of reasons…you knew in a month there was a goal to meet, you have to talk about struggles, hear other people’s wins, which is always exciting, and is also like fuel for motivation.” (Participant 7)
Setting goals for writing sessions between monthly meetings	Competence, Autonomy	10 (71)	34 (9)	“I’m doing it for each of the sessions, just small, small, very small goals and small steps at the time to be able to achieve, that I haven’t been doing actually before, I think this, this is an innovation for me, I really like that, small steps and check to see whether you have achieved that goal at the end.” (Participant 1) “I’m going to work on this specific task for this hour and a half or two, whatever it is, and then you can do that. And so you kind of figure out how to make it a bite-sized piece that you can accomplish in a short amount of time.” (Participant 2)
Reduced distractions while writing alongside others	Relatedness, Autonomy	10 (71)	23 (6)	“Well, to be honest, actually I was a little hesitant to be able to write in between people, in the same room with the people because I always thought that I may get distracted when people move or [click] on the keyboard, but to my surprise it seems like a library environment there, [laughter] so I would consider doing it again in the future. But may I achieve the same level of concentration if I do it by myself? I don’t know that.” (Participant 1) “It’s literally the peer pressure of other people being grownups and being focused that keeps me from spending the whole time being like, oh, is that a red maple tree, you know, [laughter] like is that indigenous here, I’ll look it up, you know.” (Participant 8)