Looking askew and anew at the writing process for tweaks and inspiration.

Eat dessert first. If you reward yourself before you accomplish your task, you create an obligation for yourself.  Whether it’s curling up on the couch with a novel, catching up with a favorite comedy or an old friend, or actually eating dessert, take 20 minutes and enjoy yourself. Satisfy your craving, then it won’t be there to distract you.

Oh , You might just want to be a kid.

By Aadityasardwal via Wikimedia Commons

Ellie Mackin is a third year PhD student in Classics at King’s College London, and is working though Wendy Belcher’s ‘Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks’ while attempting to finish her thesis.

I am months away from submitting my PhD thesis and I, like many others in my position I suppose, am starting to worry about what I will do in my post-doctoral years.  As students we are told to attend conferences, present our work, network and, above all, to publish.  The ‘publish or perish’ mantra is one that has, for better or worse, reached down into the lowest levels of academia (I have taught first year undergraduates who are already worried about publishing to increase their chances of getting funding for postgraduate study, and there are increasing numbers of undergraduate journals appearing all over the UK.)  But, there is very little guidance on exactly how to publish work that you won’t cringe with embarrassment about ten years down the track.  That’s the reason I jumped at the change to review Wendy Laura Belcher’s Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks when Charlotte reached out over Twitter.

By way of introduction, I shall say this: I have submitted three articles for publication.  One was (quite rightly, in hindsight) rejected outright.  One was given a rewrite and resubmit, but I decided to shelve the idea for various reasons.  One was published only a few weeks ago.  I am a third-and-final-year PhD student in Classics in the UK.  I have also recruited a friend, Andy, to work though the book with me, as Belcher suggests it is best to work though the book in a group or partnership.  He has recently submitted, but not yet viva’d, and is also in Classics.  Belcher also suggests that you can go though the workbook in any order you like – depending on what works for you.  For the purpose of these reviews, I’ll be working though the book in the order it’s presented in.

The first think that strikes you about the book is how comforting the introduction is.  Not only is is clear, but Belcher really explains how the book came about, particularly that it is the result of a lot of trial and error.  It shows in the tasks, too, that a lot of experience has gone into the construction of the program.  Andy commented specifically that he liked that Belcher sets out to help ‘those on the margins’ – graduate students and junior faculty – but that it’s proven to be useful to those at all career stages.

Each week is set out with a number of tasks, spread over five days and of varying lengths.  Some of the tasks simply involve reading, some involve some thinking and workbooking.  I assume that later down the line they will involve more writing and less reading.  Week one gives a huge amount of information, and both Andy and I felt that some of it wasn’t relevant for us.  But, I can see how it would be relevant to other people and so it really is a case of just taking on board the things that you need and moving over the other things.  This included, more specifically, in a section about different types of writing challenges that writers face.  If you’re willing to go   through the information then there is a lot of great stuff that is very helpful.  The very first task in the book is about understanding your own feelings about writing, and I won’t lie, I found it a bleak and depressing exercise.  Incredibly helpful, but challenging to face up to my own emotional-writing-baggage.

By the end of the week, though, I’ve picked an article to work on and come to terms with some of my own writing habits.  I’ve identified the obstacles that are relevant to me and I’ve started working on overcoming them.  It’s early days, but I feel confident about getting though this book and having a good, solid piece of work at the end.

Next week we start actually working on the article!

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.

CREATE A SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM. It’s a good idea to reward yourself when you make lots of progress on whatever writing project you’re working on. Even better, though, is to set up a system where other people reward you for making progress. When Jesse was working on his dissertation, he asked his parents and partner to sponsor his writing practice. His partner gave him $1 / page, his Mom gave him $.50 / page, and his Dad gave him $1 / page and another $1 / revised page). They paid in increments as Jesse hit milestones (like a finished chapter), all in the form of Amazon gift cards, which he mostly used to buy research materials. Over the course of his work, Jesse produced over 300 pages of writing, so he netted over $1000. Getting the money was insignificant, though, when compared to what he really got out of my dissertation sponsorship program, which was a finished dissertation.

For more information on becoming a Hackademic , click here !

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.

BE THE BIGGER PERSON. Be receptive to comments and advice on your writing style and content and remember it’s not personal. First, any criticism of your work is just that, criticism of your work, not you. Second, it’s useful. Every bit of feedback you get is information, even if you don’t act on all of it. Try to think about critical comments that seem unduly harsh as badly packaged generosity. It’s better to know as early as possible that your work might be received this way because you can adapt it in advance – depending on whether you agree with their points or not – or steel yourself for possible further criticism. You might also try to think of their input as somehow collaborative. All too often we are urged to see our written work as somehow finished, but really it’s a frozen chunk of an on-going and much more divergent conversation. When someone offers feedback, view your discussion with them as a way of working with them and making the exchange positive for both of you. You might even suggest working on an article together, and learning more about your own work and writing skills through theirs. Or you might go and scream out of an open window and move on because hey, life’s too short!

Maybe this tip can help your hackademic writing as well!

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.

TEACH TO WRITE. We strongly encourage building the interests of your current writing project, where possible, into the syllabi for courses you’re teaching. This doesn’t mean you should teach an entire course to college freshman in the evolution of the North American cave cricket or a senior seminar studying the penmanship in Jane Austen’s grocery lists. On the other hand, you will be more efficient with your project if you create moments of overlap between what you’re writing about and what you’re teaching. Plus, your students will get to benefit from your knowledge and enthusiasm about the project.

Maybe this tip can help your hackademic writing as well!

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.

BUILD A TEAM. Set up writing task forces with friends and colleagues. Establish a procrastination free zone (at the library or a coffee shop) in which you gather every week to write. Have a quick pow wow at the start of the writing session to share your aims for that session, as this will force you to be clearer about your goals in your own mind. Another benefit of doing this is that when your pals tell you their writing agendas, you may well see the gaps in your own. This group can act as a sounding board or proof-reading service for drafts or completed papers. When there’s a few of you, it’s easy to make this a reciprocal relationship and share the workload. We think this can also lessen your workload.

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.

TEACH WRITING. Incorporate writing instruction into every course you teach. Never assume your students – let alone you – know enough about writing. By doing this, you will also create a culture of practice among yourself and your students, in which you can encourage and motivate each other. Jesse often tells his students that he stands to learn a lot more from them than they could ever learn from him. After all, there are 15, 35, or even 150 of them, and only one Jesse. The learning goes both ways, but given the teacher to student ratio, it’s a flood from them and a trickle from us. The other way Charlotte would do is to share her writing.