In a previous post for PhD2Published, I mentioned that I would be talking in a symposium at the Society for Research into Higher Education Conference 2012.

I went last Friday (14^th December 2012) and really enjoyed the experience. Professor Pat Thomson started with a really interesting talk about her project with Inger Mewburn (aka The Thesis Whisperer) about analyzing blog spaces for academic purposes, followed by Dr Jeremy Segrott who presented our talk about #acwri. Andy Coverdale spoke next about the use of social media and the way in which it aids the research process for PhD students, and then I concluded the session with discussion of how PhD2Published is an empowering space (for me in particular as Managing Editor) and one outside of institutions that is transforming academic knowledge production.

We seemed to get a good response to our papers from a really engaged audience, which was encouraging and we all commented on the strangeness of meeting face-to-face having ‘known’ each other on Twitter for so long (there is proof in the slightly blurred photo in the Storify below!). The symposium was the first real opportunity to meet up directly as a group and to share our experiences and reflections on social media use as academics.

Below is a Storify of some of the Tweets from the day that we Tweeted directly from the symposium to give an idea of what the papers were about and what we discussed:

750w: So, what can I do for you today Charlotte?

Charlotte: Well, 750words, I’d like your help in writing about how I use 750words as a sort of writing therapist.

750w: Ummmm, a what now? A ‘writing therapist’ do you think you might have lived in the US too long?

Charlotte: Ha ha very funny – and you’ve just alienated all the US members of the PhD2Published community! Besides, regardless of where I live (or whether I say aluminium or aluminium), I know this writing therapy thing works. All I need is a computer, an internet connection and a muddled brain – this last one is easiest to come by.

750w: Go on…

Charlotte: I discovered 750words last year during AcBoWriMo (now AcWriMo). James Smith, a contributor to PhD2Published mentioned it and I tried it out a few times. I really liked several of the features. For a start, there’s the interface. When you write using 750words – which is a web-based writing application – all you have is a white screen. There are no formatting options or spell-check, and all you see as you type is the name 750words (bottom left) and the time and your word count (bottom right). And when I say it’s web-based I mean that you don’t download any software or anything, you just go the website and type, and all your entries are safely stored in a fluffy cloud in the sky – that’s how cloud computing works, right?

750w: Sure! Why not…

So anyway, these two features alone had me very interested. Many writers rave about the benefits of a stripped back aesthetic where all you can do is write and all you can see is writing. But the fact none of this writing is being stored in my own computer, for me at least, adds a beneficial lack of commitment. Not only am I stripped of the task of naming my document and thereby assigning it to some area of my work before it’s fully formed or ready to be categorised, but I can treat it as more of a rough working space. There’s something about not having to directly take responsibility for the work in terms of naming or storing it that is very freeing. And as a result, I’m often a lot more daring in what I try out in 750words. It’s like, I don’t know, taking some kind of a holiday from my own computer and thereby from my normal writing life. It’s very liberating.

750w: Right, so you get a bit drunk and promiscuous with your writing in 750words, is that what you’re saying?

Charlotte: Er, that’s not quite how I’d put it but OK. Although that’s certainly not all that happens. What I find is that it’s also quite a confidence-building tool. If you’ve ever battled with yourself all day for just 300 academically precise words, it’s great to know you can probably bash out 750 rough ones in about 18 minutes (My personal best according to the stats 750words give you. Another interesting feature by the way that brings out just enough competitive instinct to encourage still more writing.)

750w: But a good therapist would do more than boost your confidence, they’d help you work through specific problems. How do I, er, we, do that?

Charlotte: About a month back I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love as part of a summer binge of reading memoirs. If you don’t know the book, it’s about one writer’s attempts to get over her divorce and find new meaning in life by living in Italy (and eating), India (and praying) and Indonesia (and randomly falling in love). Anyway, early on in the book Gilbert describes a moment of utter despair lying sodden in tears on her bathroom floor as she realised her marriage was over. She explains how in feeling so lost and alone she develops a writerly coping technique. Basically, she writes questions in her note book like: ‘what should I do now’ and discovers is that the answers just sort of come to her. At first the Brit in me bristled at this. I was all: ‘Oh yeah, nice one Gilbert, you’ve clearly happened upon the sensibly minded goddess of automatic writing – not the one the Surrealists used to pen-pray to obviously!’ But then I thought about it logically. She wasn’t saying her pen magically started forming the words on the page, she was saying that the answers just came out that way, which is obvious when you think about the fact she’s a writer; of course she’s going to write her way of all this mess.

750w: But what does this have to do with 750words?

Charlotte: I’m getting to that. Jeez, anyone would think we were being timed here or something. Oh, wait, of course we are.

OK then…

Not long after I read Eat Pray Love I found myself struggling with a section of the book I’m writing. After a few hours of writing it first one way, and then another, I realised I was at an impasse – although I resisted crying on the bathroom floor. I tried reading for a bit to sharpen up my thinking. It didn’t work. I tried calling a friend. She didn’t pick up. So I thought, let’s try this Gilbert thing and let’s see if 750words is a good neutral space for summoning up a writing spirit.

I opened the application and just wrote myself a question. Something like: ‘So, what’s the problem then?’ and I set about answering it. Something like: ‘I’m struggling to write a section about how new materialism and media archaeological approaches help us recognise the way the physical qualities of an archive contribute to the knowledge they hold.’ I continued by asking myself: ‘And why are you telling us this?’ And I went on: ‘Because I need to show how art history as a discipline has had a strong relationship with print that has naturalised certain ways of thinking about art – ways that are best conveyed through print. And what I need to do is argue that with the arrival of digital technologies we have new ways of storing information that contribute new ways of thinking about, say, art.’ As I went on, I discovered that by asking myself a set of very simple questions I could pull the essential ideas out of the knot in my head. On top of that, I discovered that some of what I was writing was perfectly usable. More exciting than that, it was pretty darn good. Having been shaped by the very questions I needed to respond to, the passages I was writing were neatly pre-empting the thoughts of an enquiring reader.

750w: So that’s it then, it’s not hippy stuff, you just find 750words an excellent space in which to unpack your thoughts?

Charlotte: Er yes, OK then, if you want to put it that simply! Now stick that in your cloud and, um, fluff it!

Today’s guest post for AcWriMo is by Charlie at Urban Writers’ Retreat. She explains the benefits of setting up a writing retreat for getting some academic writing done and explains what you need to consider to set one up.

When you hear the words ‘writing retreat’, people imagine being holed up for weeks at a time in the deepest countryside. That’s all well and good, but most of us don’t have the time or money to do that, never mind the inclination. Well, how about a one-day writing retreat?

You might think that sounds like a day at the office, but it’s not. Going to a new place for a set time where you’re expected to work on one specific piece of work is an entirely different and more productive animal than a regular working day with all its interruptions, distractions, endless to-do lists and procrastination. There’s something about working in quiet companionship with other writers that just… works, and AcWriMo is the perfect time to get a few colleagues or your writing group together to try it.

So. What should you consider if you want to hold your own writing retreat?

Length

If your fellow writers are busy you might choose to do just an evening or morning of writing. 2 hours is really the minimum amount of time to allow to make it worthwhile, but do factor in time for people to settle in at the start. A day is ideal and 10am – 4pm will work nicely without overwhelming writers.

Your venue

It’s possible to write in cafes and other public places, but if you’re doing more than a couple of hours I’d suggest using somebody’s house or another quiet place where you can stay for a long time without feeling awkward or being disturbed. Ban family members from interrupting if you’re at home. Your venue needs to have enough seats and desk/table spaces that people won’t feel too squashed, chairs and power points and be warm enough. Ideally you’ll want somewhere that is pleasant to spend a few hours in, and you’ll definitely want a kettle – a large dining room would work well. If you’d rather hire a venue or are using part of an academic facility, make sure it has everything you need and that the group agrees to any costs.

Food

Writers can bring their own packed lunches, you can order in sandwiches or if you’re at home you could have something that can be reheated in an oven. People will appreciate fruit, cake or biscuits to snack on.

Set expectations

One of the nicest things about a retreat is working around other writers, but you’re here to work. Create a timetable with quiet work times and breaks so that people can catch up and chat. You can either have regular group breaks or leave people to do their own thing and just break together at lunch. Either way, send out an email beforehand so that people know what to expect. You can also cover food and let them know how much money to bring if you’re providing it (ask if anyone has allergies). Remind people about turning phones off, bringing headphones for music and all of the leads, memory sticks, notebooks and research material they need. Encourage people to complete any research beforehand so that they can use this time just for writing.

Goals

Having run writing retreats for 4 years, I can tell you from experience that setting a goal for your writing retreat makes a huge difference to what you achieve. It doesn’t have to be big and involved, although personally I favour having an overall goal for the day and splitting it into sessions. You can do this within 5 minutes on a scrap of paper. Either get people to do this in advance or have a goal-setting session at the start of the day.

Internet

If at all possible, turn it off. For the whole day. It will feel weird because we’re so used to being able to hop online anytime, but you’ll survive. In fact, your writers will thank you when they see their word counts at the end of the day.

The fear

Going to a writing retreat, particularly for the first time, can be intimidating. People worry that they will get stuck and be left sitting staring at a blank page for 8 hours. You can download a few creative exercises from the internet to have handy in case anyone needs to shift mental gears or just think about something else for a few minutes. You can discuss any problems people are having in breaks. It can also feel a bit awkward at first sitting in a room with a bunch of virtual strangers, so take the time to introduce everyone to everybody at the start. The most powerful thing you can do to take control though, is the goal-setting.

Finding writers

If you aren’t a member of a writing group or an academic department you might need to look further afield to find writing buddies. Ask anyone you know if they know anyone who might be interested, any contacts you’ve made through your academic work. Ask people on Facebook or twitter. Ask fiction writers too or friends doing job applications. You don’t need a huge amount of people to run a retreat, though I’d suggest that if you’re doing it with just 2 or 3 people it will work better if you already know each other – just be strict about keeping work times quiet. You can even do a retreat solo but it requires much more will-power. You’ll need to engage the services of a timer (your phone/computer will have one), may need to use a different space than your normal workplace, and it will be absolutely crucial to set goals and switch off the internet.

The main thing though, is not to let the thought of having to organise some big event intimidate you. In its simplest form a writing retreat can be you and a colleague agreeing to work together on a particular day. You pick a place and time, agree break times and spend 5 minutes setting a goal before turning off your laptop’s wifi. And there you go, one rocket-fuelled day of writing is yours. Easy.

Hybrid Pedagogy’s Jesse Stommel and our very own Charlotte Frost rethink academic life and writing productivity in this on-going series of hints, tips and hacks.

HACK YOUR PRODUCTIVITY. There are all sorts of ways you can be extra efficient with your writing time. Setting specific writing times and sticking to them can be very effective in boosting your output, but here are some other hacks: 1) Write first thing when you get up before you have time to be distracted by email or the newspaper. 2) You can even harness your addictions by writing a certain number of words before allowing yourself coffee or tea; 3) Write last thing at night when everything is done and it’s quiet. 4) Use a writing app that helps filter out distraction. After just a few minutes of use, full-screen mode can feel like you’ve gone to writing heaven, and there are many apps that will even pare your screen down to just words on a page relieving you of all that urgent and endless formatting. 5) Write collaboratively with someone in the same document – even at the same time – halving the writing time and stress. What else do you need to do ?

In her second post, Karen Strickland outlines the benefits of collaborative writing groups that involve a range of International scholars. She finishes by providing some great tips for International writing that we are sure are perfect for #acwrimo! Karen’s full bio can be read here and you can also follow her on Twitter @strictlykaren. 

I am currently participating in a collaborative writing group (CWG) as part of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL). ISSOTL set up nine CWGs in Spring this year, each led by an experienced author. Group members were invited to apply via the conference website and in April we began planning our articles via an online learning space. In October at the conference itself, we had two days group working time where we revised our draft outlines, developed the theoretical underpinning a bit more and peer reviewed other group outlines as well as had our paper outline reviewed. This process is very different to anything I have experienced before as the co-authors were all strangers to me, and all are from countries other than the UK, therefore cultural views and ideas of the paper topic were coming from very different lenses. At times this could be challenging but ultimately it was rewarding as I found myself viewing things more openly and gaining insight into the worlds of others. The two days we spent in Canada together helped immensely with the group gelling together, and overcoming some of the challenges of communicating with strangers asynchronously.

The benefits of this approach, I think are that we shared a passion for the topic of the paper and the international authorship has ensured that the paper truly addresses the issue from an international perspective.  The potential drawbacks maybe that for the shyer or less mouthy participant, views may be overshadowed, however I found the experience to be collegiate with clear differences of opinion and experiences but an understanding that all may coexist without one being right or wrong.

With mutil-authored papers like this one there are a number of considerations such as what platform to work on, achieving a consistent “voice” and negotiating authorship. We had the online space provided by the McMaster University but agreed to use Dropbox to work on the paper as drafting and version control would be easier using a cloud based platform.  One person has been designated “editor” and will review the paper for clarity of expression and blending the writing to ensure it reads as one paper.

As for authorship, I think it is always wise to discuss this early in any grouping or partnership, as who will be first author and thereafter can be a contentious issue. One of the issues that faced us was that the journal we will be submitting to will adopt the American Psychological Association (APA) referencing system. This means that the final two authors will be et al’d. It is worth bearing in mind all such issues when negotiating authorship and considering each individual’s contribution may be the best and fairest way of deciding with a caveat that order may be reviewed once all the drafting is done.

Our paper is not yet complete but what have I gained from the experience so far? Well, this was a very new approach to writing in groups for me and I now have some fellow co-authors internationally who I know have shared interests. Who knows, perhaps we will write again together?

Tips for international writing:

1. Agree on a focus and journal early on
2. Set deadlines
3. Decide on language and spelling. English is most common but American English or English needs to be agreed
4. Negotiate contributions: sectioning the article (may need to be done once you have an outline)
5. Discuss and agree authorship
6. Select an online platform that allows easy access for all contributors
7. Set up a discussion site and agree how often each participant should log in to discussion areas
8. Where possible set aside time for synchronous discussion, either face to face or online via Skype or similar
9. Select an editor who will pull the article together so that it reads as one article and not a disjointed piece of writing

It’s November, it’s #acwrimo, it’s that time of year when we academics are looking for best forms of practice when it comes to our academic writing. Karen Strickland, Senior Lecturer & Senior Teaching Fellow at Edinburgh Napier University reflects on her experiences of face to face and online writing groups for providing support and time for writing. You can view her Linked.in profile here and follow her on Twitter (@strictlykaren).

Do you struggle to write on your own, watch deadlines pass you by and never quite get round to turning that thesis or conference paper into an article? Collaborative writing might be just the approach you need. Collaborative writing groups are a useful approach which can help you develop your experience of writing for publication and help you meet deadlines and targets for writing.

Writing groups offer the potential for shared experience of writing together either on the same article as co-author, or as a buddy experience, working alongside each other to develop unique articles. I have been interested in collaborative writing approaches for some time, as I think they are useful approaches which help to develop capability of newer writers and thus develop capacity. There are a number of ways you can write collaboratively such as co-authoring, writing in groups or signing up to a writing workshop or retreat. In this blog post I will share my experiences of a few of these approaches and suggest ways in which you can create opportunities for group writing. I have split these broadly into face to face and online groups.

Earlier this summer a group of staff from Edinburgh Napier attended a three day residential writing retreat.  The retreat was facilitated by David Baume PhD SFSEDA FHEA who is an independent international higher education researcher, evaluator, consultant, staff and educational developer and writer. The retreat allowed participants time to focus on preparing articles for publication or papers for conference presentation without the usual interruptions of daily working life. The format was a structured, facilitated retreat with opportunities for peer and facilitator support throughout giving a very supportive and collegiate feel to the event. The facilitator used his experience to guide participants in the peer reviewing and publishing process, from choosing the publication outlet to dealing with reviewer’s comments.

The first morning of the retreat, after a little discussion around the focus of our articles we were challenged to go away and write 500 words by lunchtime. We had to come back and report our progress, so the pressure was on from the start! The focus and setting of goals was crucial to the success of the retreat as we worked though the three days, revising and re-drafting our papers. By the end of the three days the participants all completed advanced drafts of their work. Overall this was a very enjoyable and productive experience.

The legacy of this retreat is that we have also continued to meet on a monthly basis on the first Wednesday of the month on the top floor of the library which has a computer room and easy chairs with uninterrupted views of Edinburgh Castle. This helps to provide on-going time for writing and the chance to meet up and discuss writing and peer review. Peer support really is the key to this writing group.

The value of face to face groups are that you get the immediacy of the group interaction, however you need to set ground rules, such as, how long to set aside for social chat at the beginning and end of the sessions. The social aspect of the writing group is worth emphasising but care needs to be taken not to let this eat into writing time.

It is not always possible to meet face to face, and it also limits the reach so how about online writing groups?

A colleague of mine at Edinburgh Napier University leads an open online writing course which has been offered over the past two summers for individuals who are interested in writing for technology enhanced learning.  This initiative was called WriteTEL and was led by Dr Keith Smyth. This initiative invited writers to plan, draft and review an article for publication, whilst being supported by a member of the WriteTEL team. A series of online webinars were provided, with guest experts who had considerable expertise to share in how to write for publication and get published.

This approach worked really well for individuals who perhaps had recently completed a project or had an idea for an article and just needed some support and guidance along with way. We also had participants from all over the globe. Time zones are an obvious challenge for synchronous webinars but recording the webinars meant that participants who were unable to log in could catch up whenever it was convenient.

What do these approaches have in common?

Goals for writing are set at the outset, for example:

• Deadlines; short and longer term deadlines with goals along the way
• Opportunities for review by a critical friend
• Peer support and sharing expertise

What can you do?

Find colleagues with similar interests and set up your own local group, you don’t have to meet face to face, why not use a blog or twitter like local #acwrimo?

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rvoegtli/5940070493/

In Clare’s fourth post for PhD2Published she explores how she has tried to recover what she calls ‘the lost art of reading’. In the spirit of AcWriMo (Academic Writing Month) she also makes those all important connections between good reading practice and academic writing.

For fear of sounding like a precocious child, my mother says I read from the time I could physically pick up a book. This means that I have had plenty of years to perfect this fine art and could surely claim to be fairly proficient. After all, it is not only my job to read and engage with scholarly texts, I am (like the rest of humanity) bombarded with words all day from my morning Twitter check to my evening bed book.

However, I recently came to the shocking conclusion that I can’t read or rather have forgotten how to read. This alarming realisation has been a moment of anagnorisis in what has otherwise been a wonderfully restful sabbatical term of conferences and writing. I am not suggesting, of course, that I cannot comprehend sentences (although there are certainly some mornings when this would be true) but rather I have lost the art of sitting with a book and really engaging with it. I am an accomplished skim reader and a consummate finder of useful quotes, but I am not a reader.

If November was AcWriMo then perhaps December should be BoReMo (Book Reading Month), although that acronym sounds a little more ‘street’ than I intended. December could be a four week pre-Christmas training session, a chance to regain my reading abilities. In this, my fourth article for PhD2Published, I wanted to simply share my experiences over the past few months as I have tried to recover the lost art of reading:

1)   Setting challenges: I started in relatively relaxed fashion with E.H. Gombrich’s The Story of Art, a classic readable text with pictures! I then moved on to Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature, both texts that influence my field without being central to it. I began by reading for just an hour of so and then cordoned off a couple of hours. I found that in setting myself reading challenges like this (whether time-based or text-based) I began to enjoy the power of a well-written sentence and the chance to grapple with large ideas.

2)   Reading every word: When my reading crisis first hit, I noted that one of my primary problems was that I was actually physically unable to read every word on a page, unless those words belonged to Elizabeth Gaskell (my love of Victorian literature cannot be abated). I got the general gist of the page (mostly) but didn’t really work through sentences and follow the path the author had so pain-stakingly laid out for me. There are times, of course, when this is unnecessary – perhaps you are looking for a certain idea or cross reference or are only interested in one chapter. But there is pleasure in really getting to grips with the whole argument of a book.

3)   Writing and reading: I’ve tried to develop a new habit of writing notes even for books I am not going to directly quote from. I now have an even more complicated notebook system than previously, and have acquired a book journal which makes me sound like an Edwardian lady but is extremely helpful when you want to remember what you’ve read. It is not a matter of writing quotes, but also jotting down my initial response, intertextual references or (in fear of sounding a little like a book group of one) simply noting how I feel about an idea. I’m also carving out time to go back over these scribbles, prompting my brain to remember what I’ve read and forcing me to become more active.

4)   Writing what I read: As AcWriMo has progressed you may well have found yourself once again focusing on the way you write. Through Helen Sword’s magnificent Stylish Academic Writing (Santa should carefully place a copy in every academic’s stocking this Christmas – preferably adorned with useful sticky notes) I have been rethinking the way I write, who I write for and how I might create engaging scholarly work. While reading through my sabbatical book list I’ve become just as interested in the way scholars write as in the themes they might focus on. One of the wonderful things about Gombrich, for example, is that despite being an Oxford academic and accomplished scholar, The Story of Art is as engaging and accessible as it is complex and challenging. Currently I find that the more I read, the better writer I become, challenged by the marvellous prose of many and disappointed by the stodgy syntax of others.

5)   Enjoying reading: This might seem very strange but academia often disables our ability to actually enjoy the written word. We are reviewing a book for a deadline, trawling through new books because we have to keep up with our field, searching for texts that might inspire our students or reading out of obligation. We might even feel somewhat frustrated with the reading process, particularly if we are desperate to get on with writing the next paper, book or thesis. Perhaps we feel guilty for spending hours sitting in a chair reading with a cup of tea (NB this guilt is absolutely justified if you are reading Hello or Fifty Shades of Grey but less so if you are wrestling with Adorno). Unlike writing, reading is far less easy to evaluate. We can formulate aims for the former – word counts or numbers of pages – but it is far more difficult for the latter. For when reading, one page might take us half an hour as we ponder the ideas fully (I certainly found this with Emerson) or we might crash through a book in a morning. So, I’ve been trying to learn to simply enjoy the act of reading, being rigorous about my use of time and guarding it as jealously as I guard my writing time.

As I near the end of my sabbatical, I am determined to continue on with my reading schedule as the pressures of teaching, admin and general university life return. Learning to read has been both a shocking and an illuminating process, akin to those first steps with Enid Blyton, Janet and John and the Malory Towers books. If reading is, at its heart, a quest for knowledge and a vulnerable opening of oneself to new ideas and challenges, then it is a discipline that must be vital to all academics.

Remember AcBoWriMo, last year’s experiment in a month-long writing productivity drive? Well, it’s back, bigger and better than ever – but without the ‘Bo’!

The idea hails from NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) an initiative designed to turn the whole of November into a month-long write-fest for current or would-be novelists. The idea is that you set yourself the task of writing 50 thousand words in November alone and bingo, you’ve got yourself a whole big chunk of novel!  In 2011 I decided academics should give something similar a go and, I can happily report, it went brilliantly!

For AcBoWriMo, I invited people to join me in wearing comfy clothes, drinking a lot of coffee, napping at strange times and seeing how close we could each get to writing 50 thousand words. I admitted at the time that it was an insane target, but that it wasn’t the word count that was the point. Rather, it was a bid to gather people together for mutual support in the, at times, painfully difficult and soul-crushingly lonely task of academic writing. In the last year alone, I’ve watched with awe and excitement as so many academic communities have grown and expanded on social media platforms like Twitter (examples include #phdchat, #ecrbook, #digped, #fycchat with plenty more to be found here). Not to mention that our own AcBoWriMo off-shoot (and collaboration with Jeremy Segrott), the regular live Twitter chat on academic writing, #AcWri, has co-ordinated a huge amount of valuable discussion. Nice work Anna and Jeremy!

So I decided it was worth giving it all another go – with some revisions…

This year’s event will focus on ALL aspects of academic writing, and will encourage participants to set their own (wild) goals. As a result of that, and the strength of the AcWri community, it will be called AcWriMo. Just like Craig David, I copped some flack for the ‘Bo!’ part. Although I never intended to promote the idea that an entire academic book could be written in a month, by calling the event Academic Book Writing Month, it seems I over-emphasised that part. But we still want you to join in on setting yourself some unrealistic targets and fighting alongside us to achieve them.

So, here are the rules for #AcWriMo 2012

1. Set yourself some crazy goals. Try and come up with some outcomes that would really push you beyond anything you ever thought possible. I always said 50,000 words is a bit of a nutty goal for academic writing in one month (it works out at something like 2,500 words a day and that’s just bonkers) but if you’re bonkers, go ahead and set that target. Otherwise, think about how much you are comfortably able to write a day and set yourself the task of regularly exceeding that amount. If you can manage 300 words a day then we want 400, if you can do 1000, then we want 1500 – something like that. Last year, a lot of people preferred setting themselves a time-based goal. They would try to write for so many hours a day or week and often used the Pomodoro technique to count units of productive time. If that’s your thing, go for it! How about sneaking in an extra Pomodoro a day? Or, look at all the writing tasks you’ve got to achieve over the next few months and decide to get a set amount of them done in November. In the US it’s job season, so how about you count your job-letter-writing-time. Or article drafts maybe?

2. Publicly declare your participation and goals. You can do this by adding to the comments of this very blog post, by tweeting using the hashtag #AcWriMo, or by writing on our PhD2Published Facebook page. Being accountable is key to this working for you as a way to push yourself, but if you want to silently take part, at least tell a friend who is likely to hold you to it. [edit: you can now also add your goals to and keep track of your progress with Jenn’s AcWriMo Accountability Spreadsheet – thanks Jenn!]

3. Draft a strategy. This is essential if you’re going to make a success of this. Sitting down to write without preparation is the first step towards being struck down with writer’s block. We’ll be blogging and tweeting lots of ideas to help you, so before you start, work out a strategy for how you’ll tackle your set tasks. For example, establish how much you’ll need to write a day, and on which days you can definitely do this. Offload as much other work as you can, and get in some supplies (we recommend stocking up on decent coffee of course). Think about how you work best and adopt that approach from the start – this means planning everything from comfy clothes to reading sessions.

4. Discuss what you’re doing. OK so being on Twitter and Facebook with us all day isn’t acceptable – you’ve got work to do – but checking-in at certain times is imperative! We want to know how you’re getting on? What is working for you and what isn’t? We want you to tell us all if you need help with something but also to celebrate your successes with us too. And nothing is TMI when it’s AcWriMo because that’s the point: sharing!

5. Don’t slack off. As participant Bettina said of AcBoWriMo, you must ‘write like there’s no December!’ But guess what? If you work super hard now, there’s going to be more December to go round. Remember how December usually creeps up on you and suddenly its Christmas Eve and you’ve failed to buy gifts or take time out for yourself. Well, if you put the work in now, there’ll be so much December you won’t know what to do with it all!

6. Publicly declare your results – and please be honest! As a writing community, we’ll all benefit from sharing in your achievements, but it is also good to see what works and what doesn’t. And if you don’t make your targets, you’ll still be achieving the selfless goal of making the rest of us feel more normal – so it’s a community win/win really.

We’re raring to go, we hope you are too?! 🙂

Hybrid Pedagogy’s Jesse Stommel and our very own Charlotte Frost rethink academic life and writing productivity in this on-going series of hints, tips and hacks.

 GET A HOBBY. It might seem strange for us to suggest that you should take on more projects that might be potentially distracting to your primary professional focus; however, side-projects are necessary as an outlet for preoccupations that gobble up precious mental resources. For example, if you find yourself incessantly thinking about your garden every time you sit down to write, then go work on your garden for an hour and you’ll probably be more productive when you get back to your computer. Or find a hobby that clears your mind and refreshes you in between writing sessions. Sometimes making something and seeing it progress steadily can compensate for the frustrations of editing where it can feel like you¹re taking as many steps back as forwards.

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