Story Sharing

I think I've noticed something about writing stories. It's happened to me before, and generally turns a healthy story (You can tell it's healthy because it's eating. It eats free time) into one of those word documents that I only look at when I'm thoroughly bored and wanting to hate myself for my previous lack of writing abilities. (The curse of the Jellybeans? What was I thinking?)
What happens is I start running out of ideas for the story, then I get stuck on ideas I already had, then I just lose the will to keep writing it. I might write another story based on the story, but that one generally dies faster than the first one did. But a while back, I figured out how to prevent this.
I have to let other people read my stories. Not just for constructive critisism, though that is appreciated, and not just for suggestions either. I have to let people read it for the sake of having them read it. If I just keep the story to myself, I'm the only one that knows about the characters, I'm the only one that cares about them. And that's not how stories are meant to be. Stories are meant to be shared, the whole point of writing is for someone to read it. So if I keep a story to myself, it dies without fail.
Recently, I've found some confirmation of this theory. I'm writing a story for a contest, you see, and all the people I generally let read my stories are either writing for the contest or judging. Either way, I can't let them read it. They read this blog too, so I can't put it here. Anyway, I've been doing pretty well so far. I'm on page twenty. (out of a twenty five limit. I'd better hurry up and finish.) However, it's been getting harder and harder to keep writing it. It's not that I don't know what I'm going to do, it's just that I can't work up the willpower to do it. I need someone reading it so I can write it. It's kinda annoying...
Anyway, I'd better get back to writing it. It's due tonight... I am SO dead.