Welcome to September!

My prospects for writing a new post this week get dimmer by the second, so I thought I’d just write a quick hello! I hope you all had a great summer, full of productive time spent writing. And if you, like the rest of us, found that you didn’t get quite all you’d hoped for done, I hope that better writing days are in your immediate future. Once the initial excitement dies down, September is a great time to revisit your writing goals and see what you can do to make sure you meet them in the upcoming year. I found this post from The Thesis Whisperer very helpful; in this guest post, Narelle Lemon reflects on her experience participating in AcBoWriMo 2011 (an attempt to write as much as 50,000 words in a single month). The terms in which she discusses her experience can act as a handy prompt for reflection about our own writing preferences and potential stumbling blocks. Would public accountability help you? What sort of writing targets work well for you? Does social media play any role in your writing life? How do you structure the breaks that everyone needs from academic writing? How does the idea of binge writing sound to you? Would more sharing of your writing as you go be helpful to you? How do you manage your writing time, minute by minute and hour by hour? Do you reward yourself for writing? How do you react when life genuinely makes it impossible for you to meet your own goals? Do you wish you had a more robust writing community?

Reflecting on these sorts of questions can help you see a path towards your best writing strategies. There is so much advice out there; while it is generally  thoughtful and well-meaning, much of it will inevitably be wrong for you. I suggest taking some time now—amidst these busy days of September—to think about the writing approach that would be right for you, so you can craft a strong plan to help you meet this year’s writing goals.

Here again—in case anyone missed it over the summer—is the link to the podcast interview that I did with GradHacker at the beginning of the summer. I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk about writing in a different manner than I do when teaching writing or when writing about writing. I hope some of you may find it helpful as you reflect on the writing you need to do this year. I also wanted to mention the recent series of crossover posts between GradHacker and ProfHacker on productivity, which are full of helpful approaches to managing our academic lives.

Finally, if you haven’t seen the Academic Coach Taylor tumblr, you really should. The fact that someone thought to bring together academic writing advice and Friday Night Lights makes me so very happy. Clear Thesis, Strong Analysis, Can’t Lose.

♦

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