Start Writing and Don’t Stop

Do you have a writing project that you can’t seem to get moving on? Is there an article you need to finish, a short essay you need to begin, or page proofs you must attend to?

We all have different relationships with our writing, and most people have at least one kind of writing they find harder than other kinds. In this post, I will discuss one strategy that will help you to finish that very project that seems interminable.

The strategy I suggest is to find 20 to 30 minutes a day each weekday to dedicate to the project. When the time comes to work on it, turn off all distractions. Turn off your phone. Cut off the Internet. Put all of your reading material away. Open the document and work on it for 20 to 30 minutes.

Do not stop before 20 minutes are up for any reason. Well, anything that is not a real emergency, like a fire alarm. If, while writing, you realize you need a reference, or need to double-check a piece of information, or need to go back to your data, do not stop to check anything. Instead, make a note to yourself about that and find something else to do in the document that does not require fact-checking.

If you get stuck on a word choice, put down both words. You can make stylistic and grammatical changes later. There is no need to stop to check the thesaurus.

Don’t stop to check your data or to fix your tables. Just keep going and make a note to yourself.

Don’t stop for anything. It is only 20 to 30 minutes, and nearly all phone calls, emails, visitors, and even bathroom breaks can wait.

If you dedicate just 20 to 30 minutes to your writing project, you will be surprised to see how quickly you are able to move it along.

When you are nearly done, or when you find yourself with more time and less resistance, you may be able to take a longer writing session to tie things up. You can also use longer writing sessions to go back and check your references, make word choice changes, and fix your tables.

Concentrated, short writing sessions are often the best time to produce new prose, as this process takes lots of mental energy. By working on your project every day, with whatever time you have available, the ideas around the project will percolate in the back of your mind throughout the day, making it easier to get back in the saddle and begin to write again when the time comes.

Ready, Set, Write!

Forced Creativity? Why Daily Writing Works

Are you waiting for that strike of inspiration for you to write? Do you keep reading and thinking, hoping that the muse will visit you, and when she does, that you will produce pages and pages of prose? Or, do you wait until the weekend to write, with the idea that you will have long blocks of uninterrupted time? If any of those questions resonate with you, you are not alone. Many writers think that they write best when they are inspired.

The truth is that inspiration is most likely to come when you sit down and begin to write.



A study by Robert Boice, reported in his book, Professors as Writers: A Self-Help Guide to Productive Writing, provides concrete evidence for two concepts: 1) writing daily produces more writing and more ideas and 2) writing accountability works.

The Test: Does Writing Accountability Work?

To find out if daily writing and accountability can be effective, Robert Boice conducted a test with 27 faculty members who desired help with improving their writing productivity. He put the 27 faculty into three groups and examined their writing productivity for ten weeks.

The first group was instructed to write only if they had to write, but asked to keep a log of creative ideas for writing. The idea behind this group was that planned abstinence would lead to the production of creative ideas for writing when the time came.

The second group scheduled writing sessions five days a week for ten weeks, but was encouraged to write only when they were in the mood. They also were asked to take the time they had scheduled for writing to log a new creative idea for writing each day. The idea behind this group was that writing only when they were in the mood would be favorable for creativity.

The third group agreed to a strict accountability plan. They scheduled five writing sessions a week for ten weeks, and kept a log of creative ideas for writing. To ensure that they would write every day, the members of this group gave Boice a pre-paid check for $25, made out to a hated organization. If they failed to write in any of their planned sessions, Boice would mail the check. The idea behind this group was that forced writing would require the group to come up with creative ideas for writing.

The Results: Daily Writing and Accountability Work

Boice’s study revealed:

• Abstinent writers produced an average of 0.2 pages per day, and only one idea per week.
• Spontaneous writers produced an average of 0.9 pages per day, and one creative idea every two days.
• Forced writers produced an average of 3.2 pages and one creative idea each day.

These results show that, contrary to what one might think, creativity can be forced. Sitting down and making yourself write every day is a great way to make those creative juices flow.

How to Write Every Day

The lesson here for writers is to not wait until you feel like writing to write – as that might not happen very often – but to schedule your writing every day, and to show up to your writing session.

If you have already tried scheduling your writing and it has not worked, then it is time to think about what accountability mechanisms might work for you.

Here is a list of ideas for accountability:

Free options:

• Find a writing buddy with whom you meet to write. Agree with each other that when you meet, you will share your goal for the day, but then get down to business and write.
• Find a phone buddy and agree to call one another at the beginning and end of your writing times.
• Post your writing goals – for the day and/or the week on Daily Writing Updates – my Facebook group.
• Create an accountability group where four colleagues get together at the beginning or end of the week for an hour. Each person has fifteen minutes to say: What their goals were for the past week, whether or not they accomplished them, and what their goals are for the next week. Most people will not show up week after week to report that they did not write.

Paid Options:

• Gina Hiatt’s Academic Writing Club: The Academic Writing Club is an easily-accessible, interactive and supportive online community of experts and colleagues that provides much that is traditionally missing in the typical academic environment.
• Become a Community Member at Kerry Ann Roquemore's National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity. Community Members receive the weekly Monday Motivator, access to 10 live tele-workshops (one per month) in 2011, access to our private moderated discussion forum, and access to our monthly writing challenges. The annual membership dues for a Community Membership are $120 for graduate students and post-docs, and $240 for faculty members.

I hope that you find the accountability mechanisms that work best for you!

Taking Control

When I explain time management techniques to academics, many respond by pointing out that one of the things they love most about academia is unstructured time, and that they are not willing to give that up. These academics look at my weekly plan and gasp: “Aren’t you giving up your freedom by so closely managing your days?” “What if a colleague stops by to chat when I am supposed to be writing; Do I send her away?!”



My color-coded calendar that marks my writing time in red, my teaching time in orange, and my administrative time in purple leads some people to believe that I have given up my freedom by structuring my days. They see that I have set aside specific times for writing, reading, preparing for class, teaching, and going to meetings and wonder why I would want to structure my unstructured time.

My answer is simple. If you are getting what you want done and enjoying a stress-free, productive life as an academic with lots of unstructured time, then time management is not for you.

If, on the other hand, you find yourself working long days and through the weekends and still never feeling caught up, then time management could be a useful tool.

Time management is not simply about being more productive; it is about deciding in advance how to make the most of our most valuable resource: time. When I plan my week, I include time to take long walks, to exercise, to have lunch with my husband, to pick up my children early from school, and to prepare home-cooked meals for myself and my family. I am convinced that, without time management, I would not find the time to do things that I think are important for my emotional and physical health.

In my current schedule, I have about five hours of teaching and three hours of meetings per week. With the remaining 32 hours of my 40 hour work week completely unstructured, I can decide ahead of time when, where, and what I want to do each day.

For some people, planning each day and week may sound a bit like their time is being too controlled. I like to think that taking control of my time is acceptable so long as I am the one making the executive decisions about how I will spend my time. With time management, you, after all, are the person making the decisions about how you will spend your time.

By deciding in advance, you can make sure you make time for leisure, reading, yoga, long lunches, trips to the dentist, or whatever other social, emotional, and physical needs you may have. You can decide before the week begins if you will spend your mornings reviewing articles, checking email, writing the third chapter of your book, or surfing the internet. You can also decide if you will grade papers this week or next, if you will revise your article on Monday or Tuesday. You can even decide if you will clean your house on Thursday afternoon or hire someone to do it.

I see unstructured time as a great privilege, because it allows me to decide how I will structure my days.

How to write a book proposal for an academic press

So, you want to turn your dissertation into a book? Or, perhaps you want to write your first academic book on an entirely different subject. Unless you are famous and have publishers soliciting manuscripts from you, you likely will have to submit a formal academic book proposal to an academic press to have a hope of publishing a book with such a press.

Many university press websites have guidelines that can help you through this process. UC Press has a good set of guidelines as does Harvard. Be sure to check the websites of the press where you plan to submit to find out if they have specific guidelines.

In this blog post, I provide generic suggestions for what should go in an academic book proposal, and then suggest a method for writing such a proposal.

A book proposal for an academic press has seven basic components:

1. A one-page description of the book. The most important aspect of this one-page description is the argument you will set forth. Here is one example of how to do this:


1. Paragraph 1: Hook – Invite the reader into your proposal with an interesting anecdote or some surprising data,


2. Paragraph 2: State your central argument. Back it up with a few sentences.


3. Paragraph 3: State the contribution to scholarship and place in the literature.


4. Paragraph 4: Provide a brief roadmap to the book.


2. A descriptive table of contents. Dedicate one paragraph to each chapter. Give the title of the chapter and provide a three to four sentence summary of the chapter.


3. A mechanical description of the final manuscript. Here you say that the estimated length of the final manuscript will be anywhere from 70,000 to 150,000 words. More or less may raise eyebrows. You also should specify how many illustrations and/or tables you anticipate.


4. A description of the audience for your book. Tell the editor who you expect to purchase your book. Will it be read only in your field, or also in other disciplines? Will undergraduates be able to understand your book? Or, is it solely directed at faculty and graduate students? Could it be used in undergraduate or graduate courses? If so, explain which ones.


5. Describe the competition. What are the existing books in your field? How will your book stand out from these? Do you use a different methodology or approach? Is yours designed for a different audience? If any of the competing books you mention are quite similar to your own, spend a few sentences explaining how yours is distinct.


6. How far along are you? Do you have a complete manuscript? If you do, say so. If not, say how many chapters you have completed, and provide an expected date of completion. If this is your first academic book, I discourage you from sending a proposal before you are certain you will finish the book within a year. If the publisher requires a complete manuscript, you likely want to be less than six months away from completion before sending the proposal.


7. Who might review your book? You can provide the names and contact information of people who you think might be appropriate readers for your book.

Now that you know what the components are, it should be easier to imagine how you will write such a proposal. I suggest you start with the chapter descriptions, as those should not be terribly difficult to write. Once you have those done, you can begin to work on the introductory first page. When you get stuck, turn to the other, easier parts of the proposal. Describe the audience; list the reviewers; say how far along you are.

Once you get a full draft of your book proposal, set it aside for a week and work on the book, preferably on the Introduction. Pick the proposal back up after a week and see how it reads. Edit it and give it to a friend to read. Once you are comfortable with it, send it out to presses.

You can send your proposal to as many presses as you like. Some presses even allow for multiple submission of the entire manuscript.

Good luck!