In the habit of writing

by Keely Blanch
 
Today I had the privilege of attending a Writing seminar by Assoc. Prof. Paul Silvia from the University of Greensboro. He is the author of a handy little book called “How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing”, (which is available through the Uni of Otago Central Library).

Naturally, attending a writing seminar, you hope to come away with some nuggets of information that will magically solve all those writing woes. Of course, no seminar can do that. Writing is hard work, and for a thesis, it is usually dependent on individual effort. As Assoc. Prof. Silvia so aptly described it, writing can be an “enterprise of despair”. Undergraduate writing does not prepare you for thesis writing, and all too often, academic writing is discouraging. We labour over our pieces of writing that we then release (sometimes reluctantly) for critique by supervisors, examiners, and other academics. Is it any wonder then that many of us, postgraduate students and academics alike, procrastinate and seem to avoid the writing process? 

Unfortunately, whether we aim for jobs eventually in academia, or any other workplace using our degrees, we cannot escape writing. And Silvia advises, that as postgrads, now is the time to lock down those writing skills, 'cos if we can't find time now, then it will be even harder when we finally get employed.  So what is the answer? Alas, there is no magic wand. Instead Silvia offers advice. Many writing advisers push the premise that the way to improve your writing is to practice more writing. (It makes sense - have you ever gone back and looked at one of your first year essays? - shudder!) But what Silvia is emphasising is creating good writing habits. To do that, we have to find time to write. 

Finding time.... At the beginning of the thesis we feel we have so much time. After all, we've probably written 3000 words or more, maybe even 5000 words, in one frantic weekend as an undergrad. A whole year (for Masters), or even 3 years (if you're a Doctoral student) to write? No problem. Except.... suddenly you're halfway through your thesis timeline and deadlines are looming. Panic time. 

Or maybe not... You can make writing a daily habit as Silvia advocates - and he's got a fair few publications under his belt so it obviously works. 

Silvia outlines 3 ways of writing:

• There's the Impulsive style - the "if I wait until I feel like writing then I'll write more efficiently" writer. It's a bit of a gamble, Silvia claims. We may get the odd enthusiastic moment and get some writing done, but we can't write everything we want to this way. And remember, writing is hard - you're not that likely to have that many fits of giddy enthusiasm.

• Or there's willpower to get us through - you know you've got to write, but it's going slow, and now there are deadlines. Maybe your supervisor is asking for that chapter you've been promising them for the last two months. This is where we fall back on our undergrad habits. We block out a weekend etc, gather the coffee and junk food supplies, lock ourselves away and binge-write intensely until we emerge victorious, piece of writing in hand and desperately needing a shower, as well as nutritional food. So yes, this method works, but it is stressful for you, as well as your family, friends and flatmates. Sadly, there's only so long this strategy can work for you, especially as you get older. 

• Finally there's the slow and steady approach, where writing is a habit. Using this approach (which Silvia advocates), the idea is to schedule a regular time to write every weekday. This is the way professional writers approach writing (as an aside, I do remember reading years ago that Stephen King writes at the same time every day). With planned, scheduled periods of writing, the stress of writing is removed. Better still, if you plan your writing for the morning, then it doesn't matter what happens the rest of the day, because you've done your writing. 

Silvia's point is that you should treat your writing the same way you treated your undergrad classes. No matter how you feel about it, the idea is you turn up at the same time, same place each weekday. On the good side, if you schedule writing time each weekday, then you are also scheduling non-writing time, including weekends off. Silvia advocates that when the time is up, you stop. That way the habit remains sustainable.

By User Gflores on en.wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Some important points:

• Prioritise!

• When you are writing you need to strip away all distractions, including the internet. If necessary, take advantage of various apps or browser plug-ins to help you e.g. Rescue Time, or check out the lists here and here for more options to improve productivity. You need to structure your environment to control your behaviour and avoid temptation - why test your willpower more than you need to?

• As writing becomes a habit, it becomes less painful

• Defending the time can be tricky. Other people may not think you really mean it, but you really need to honour at least 80% of your scheduled times to make it work. If necessary, lie and say you have another meeting. Your writing is important.

• Try tracking your writing. (Be honest!) Silvia suggests using exercise tracking apps, SPSS, Excel, or even old school paper calendar with stickers. A simple check to indicate you met your writing scheduled time, or not. Maybe you want to track your cumulative words - tracking your word output per week can be inspiring and lift output.  Tracking your writing helps give a sense of progress so do whatever works for you. 

Group approaches: 

• writing groups - get together to write and talk about writing progress. Checking-in is a good way to keep motivation and momentum going. This approach doesn't work for everybody - follow your intuition.

• Goals group - short and sweet meeting over coffee to list your goals for the coming week and 'fess up on the last week's achievements. Why you didn't accomplish your goal is not important. The aim is to be accountable and to keep goals concrete: "I'm going to think about this paper..." or "going to get started..." never happen. 

• Rewards groups - everybody puts in $1 or $2 per week to the rewards pot. Meet each week and those who finished a piece of writing share the pot. It leverages human greed, short term goals and rewards. But importantly, it works!

• Writing buddies/ Desperation dyads - but writing, not chatting! Get together and hate the process together. This approach works for some people because there is the pressure of not being caught at a 'not-writing' moment by the other person.
 
• Feedback groups - less successful - this is what your supervisor is for!

And remember, writing isn't just about banging away at the keyboard. The writing process includes all the reading, thinking, mind-mapping, making notes, etc. that contribute to moving the writing process forward.

If you want to see more of Paul Silvia's work, you can check out Youtube for some videos



A special thank you to Assoc. Prof Paul Silvia who kindly gave me permission to write up my notes of his seminar for this blog post. For those at Otago Uni, Paul Silvia will be conducting a second seminar on July 28th, where he will be following up points raised by the postgrads present at this first seminar. Contact GRS for details.