How to Move Through Your Writing Block

If you have not written for a while, it can be a challenge to get back into writing. If you have been meaning to get back into your writing for a while, but have not actually made any progress, this week’s post is for you.



For many writers who work in academia, the end of the semester means that it is time to submit grades, attend a wide variety of events, wrap up service commitments, and get back to that looming writing project. If you have been working on your writing project all year long, transitioning to the summer should be fairly straightforward. You just keep trudging along. However, if you have not been writing all year or all semester, moving back into writing can be daunting. For this reason, I suggest you not write today, but dedicate today to making a plan for writing.

Make a plan

If you keep telling yourself today is the day you will begin the second chapter of your book or pick up that Revise and Resubmit or begin that article, yet have not actually made any progress, then a simple solution for you might be to make a good plan for moving forward. By a plan, I simply mean that you break your large task down into small chunks and decide where to begin. That way, instead of having on your agenda: “Begin to work on Chapter Two,” you have: “Take notes on Parenti and Gilmore articles and write one paragraph on deindustrialization in the 1980s.”

There are two ways to figure out how to break your large task down into smaller tasks. The first way is to break it down in a list. The second is to draw a mindmap. Both work equally well. The first way works better for linear thinkers, the second for visual thinkers. I will explain both below.

Make a list, check it twice….

Let’s say one of your summer goals is to finish Chapter Five. Here is an example of how you would break down Chapter Five into manageable tasks.

Goal: Finish Chapter Five.

• Write introduction that provides a roadmap to the chapter.
• Finish Mass Incarceration Section
• Use notes from Alexander, Schlosser, and Wacquant to explain Mass Incarceration
• Get data from BJS to show rise in incarceration rates since 1980
• Use Tonry and prison studies work to discuss global context
• Use Alexander and Western to explain racial disparities
•  Complete War on Drugs Section
• Use Parenti and Wilson notes to discuss deindustrialization
• Use Alexander and Parenti to discuss history of war on drugs
• Write up timeline of important legislation ….

The idea behind this sort of listing is that you plan today, and then wake up tomorrow, not with a task that says: “Finish Chapter Five,” but with a manageable task: “Use notes from Alexander, Schlosser, and Wacquant to explain Mass Incarceration.” Once you finish that task, you can check it off and move on to the next.

Mindmapping

Some people think more visually, and it is easier for them to come up with a list of tasks to do through the use of a mind map. Let’s say your task is “Finish Chapter Five.” Write that on the left hand side of a blank piece of paper. Now, draw lines out from the circle that explain the big tasks you need to complete in order to finish the chapter. Next, draw lines from each of those circles that break the tasks down into smaller pieces. Keep doing this until you get to manageable tasks. Here is an example:

If you have not begun planning yet, I strongly recommend that you plan first, and execute later. Use today to plan, and tackle the tasks tomorrow. Once you finish planning today, take a break and give yourself a treat. Relax and prepare for your big writing day tomorrow.

Getting Through Your Writing Resistance: Ten Ways to Write When You Don’t Feel Like It

Don't feel like writing today? If writing is part of your job or your passion, it is important to find ways to move through your writing resistance. Here are ten ideas.

Ten Ways to Write When You Don’t Feel Like It

1. Set the timer for fifteen minutes and promise yourself you will try for at least fifteen minutes.
2. Look at all the writing tasks you have and pick the easiest one.
3. Change location.
4. Unplug the Internet.
5. Turn of the screen and freewrite.
6. Take a walk around the block.
7. Call a friend and tell her you are going to start writing now, and ask her to call you in an hour to see if you did it.
8. Post on Facebook that you are starting to write now and will report back in an hour.
9. Arrange to meet a friend at a coffeeshop and write together.
10. Write longhand instead of on the computer.

How to Be Productive and Achieve Tenure by Writing for Two Hours a Day

You can be extraordinarily productive by writing two hours a day, five days a week. Many writers find my suggestion ludicrous and instead aim to write eight hours a day. Unable to write for eight hours, they berate themselves and spend lots of time thinking how much less productive they are than other writers.

I have tried many different ways of convincing writers that it is so much better to write for two hours a day and move on to other things than to try incessantly to write all day without success. The former leads to feeling accomplished and productive on a daily basis, whereas the latter leads to burnout and less productivity. It may not make sense, but it is true: writing for two hours a day is a much more effective long-term strategy than trying to write for eight.



In this post, I will try again to convince readers (and writers) that this is true, using myself as an example. This past semester, I wrote every day, Monday to Friday, for two hours. I did lots of different things during those two hours, but I mostly drafted new text, revised old drafts, and took notes from books and articles. Between January 1 and May 1, in four months, I drafted a total of about 42,000 words of new text. That is the equivalent of four articles. It took me about 80 working days, so that is an average of about 525 words a day.

The Caveats: Drafting, Revising, Editing, Reading,...

Now, for the caveats. These 42,000 words include writings I have done before and pulled together. Much of my work is based on interviews, so I write up summaries of my interviews after I do them and place those summaries directly into my drafts. So, let’s be conservative and say I drafted the equivalent of three 10,000 word articles this semester. This is a conservative estimate because I also wrote 15 blog posts, revised two articles, and did a 2500 word book review essay that I am not including in the 42,000 word estimate.

The other big caveat is that those 42,000 words need editing. I estimate that it will take me another four months to get those 42,000 words into shape and ready for submission. It often takes me as long to revise an article as it does to write the first draft. So, that’s three articles in eight months. Of course, that writing is based on reading that I did during this semester and have done previously, and includes some earlier data analysis. So, let’s add on another four months for data analysis and reading, although keeping in mind that I also write daily while analyzing data and reading. All told, it seems as if writing two hours a day, five days a week for one year is enough to analyze data the data for three articles, draft those three articles, and revise them for submission to a journal.

Submitting three 10,000 word articles a year certainly fits into my definition of prolific. Of course, articles are rarely accepted on first submission, so let’s put in some time for revise and resubmits. If we suppose you will have two revise and resubmits for each article, that adds on two months for each article before it is accepted at a peer-reviewed journal.

The math: 525 words a day = 3 articles a year for 4 years = 12 articles

If you submit three articles each year for four years, you would have submitted twelve at the end of four years. If you leave two months per article for revision, that adds up to twelve accepted articles in six years – enough for tenure in many top research institutions. It adds up to twelve sole-authored articles in six years by writing two hours a day, five days a week!

The trick is to start writing two hours a day every day from the moment you begin your tenure-track position. The good news is that many people are revising articles on the basis of their dissertation and thus already have data collected and analyzed, and drafts of articles ready to submit, making this process go even more quickly.

If you focus on writing every day, you can’t help but be productive. Trying to write more than humanly possible will lead only to frustration and burnout. The best way to be productive and stress-free is to write every day for two hours a day on a consistent basis.

How to Have a Productive Summer: Three Tips that Work

Most academics I talk to this time of year are looking forward to summer, when classes are over meetings are few and far between and we have lots of time to write. We can finally pay attention to that writing project that has been inching along all semester. Now that summer is here, we can jump in and devote ourselves full-time to writing and research productivity.



The joy with which we start our summers, however, is not always paralleled by a strong sense of satisfaction at the end. Many academics recall summers past when they planned to finish the book, send off the articles, and submit grant proposals where the plans did not materialize. In this post, I explain how you can have a productive summer, and how you can emerge from summer feeling refreshed, accomplished, and ready to take on the new academic year.

Tip #1: Make a Research and Writing Plan

The very first step to a productive summer is to make a plan. And, no, I do not mean that your plan should look like this: “FINISH BOOK!” Instead, a plan must include a lot more detail. Your plan needs to be divided into weeks and broken down into manageable tasks. Most of us have about 12 weeks in the summer. Thus, your plan could look like this:

Week 1:

• Read three articles on due process
• Write section on due process for Chapter One
• Make plan for completion of Chapter One
• Complete at least two tasks on completion plan for Chapter One

As you can see, you do not have to know exactly what needs to be done to complete chapter one to make your plan. Instead, you can include making a completion plan as part of your plan. Once you finish with week 1, you can do the same for Weeks 2 to 12.

The benefits of making a plan are that 1) you develop a better idea as to what you can reasonably accomplish; 2) you set clear benchmarks for yourself and ensure you are making progress; and 3) at the end of the summer, you have a realistic idea as to what you have and have not accomplished.

Tip #2: Develop a reasonable summertime writing schedule

You will not be working 24-hours a day over the summer, no matter how few external obligations you have. In fact, you likely will not even be working consistent 8-hour days. The reality is that academic work is hard and requires an extraordinary amount of mental energy. Most people are unable to devote 8 hours a day, 7 days a week to academic writing, reading, research, and data analysis. People that try to do this quickly burn out.

Each of us has our own internal limits to how long we can reasonably expect ourselves to work. It is difficult to come to terms with our own limits. However, once we do, it can be remarkably liberating. I am the first to admit that I can write for no more than three hours a day on a consistent basis. Not too long ago, I learned that I can either spend all day at the office trying to get that three hours in, or I can simply spend three hours in front of my computer first thing in the morning and get my three hours of writing in.

Once I have done my three hours of writing, I have done the hard work for the day. At that point, I might collect articles I need to read, respond to emails, pay bills, or do any of the other myriad tasks that occupy my day. If it’s the summertime, I stop early to ensure that I make time to enjoy all of the benefits summer offers.

You too must come to terms with your limits and figure out how long you can expect yourself to write, read, and research each day. If you have no idea, one strategy is to track your time for a week or two to see how much writing, research and reading you actually do. Be careful, however, to note that you have at least two kinds of limits: how much work you can expect yourself to do in a short period of time and how much work you can do on a regular basis that is sustainable. You may be able to write for 8 hours a day for one week, but then find yourself unable to produce a coherent sentence the second week. That indicates that you overspent your limits.

Once you figure out your limits you can develop a reasonable schedule. Keep in mind that many people are very productive over the summer working four hours a day, five days a week.

Tip #3: Write every day

The only way you can ensure that you actually have a productive summer, i.e., that you emerge with real progress on your writing projects is to sit down and write. The best way to ensure that you write a lot is to write every day, five days a week.

Thus, when you make your plans and your schedules, make sure that you plan to write every day of the workweek. If you have never tried daily writing before, this is the perfect time to start!
Have a fantastic, productive, relaxing, and refreshing summer!