Do you feel like you have enough time for your scholarship right now? Are you worried that you won’t be able to make time for your writing until you’re back in your favorite coffee shop, latte in hand and “concentration” playlist queued up? You don’t have to wait for the stars to be aligned to
Have you ever sat down to work on an academic manuscript and just started writing…and writing… and writing? Not necessarily in one writing session. I’m talking about the academic manuscript that gets ahead of you, that starts with one observation or argument but turns into a piece of writing that’s twice as long as it
In my work as a coach, I spend a lot of time in conversation with scholars planning complex writing projects. Lately, this has meant developing writing plans for books, as nearly 80% of my 1:1 clients are writing one. The meta cognitive work required to successfully plan and execute the writing of a book is
When I first speak with academics who want to do 1:1 coaching with me, they often come to our consultation call with two things: a deadline and a calendar. They ask me a question that sounds something like this: “if I have 8 hours a week for the next 6 months, save two weeks when
Lately, I’ve been thinking about Impostor Syndrome and what it means. We identify Impostor Syndrome as a mindset problem – one of insecurity and self-doubt. It’s a problem that afflicts high-achievers, who are ignoring the evidence of their own success. One way we express our Impostor Syndrome is through perfectionism. As a coach, I work
How do you make sure that you follow through on your plans? One strategy I talk about often is breaking down big goals into their easiest first steps as a way to maintain momentum. In this blog post, based on a video coaching session I recently conducted, I’m going to focus on one specific technique
Sabbaticals. Academics look forward to them more than canceled faculty meetings, payday, and Beyonce tickets – combined. The prospect of so much unstructured time is exciting and overwhelming. Exciting because you finally have time to work on your writing! Overwhelming because there’s a lot of pressure to do all. the. things. during your sabbatical. You
Happy New Year! I’m so excited for 2020. In 2019, Up In Consulting had a year of growth and I learned so much. I worked with clients in a multitude of capacities and identified what I’m best at as well as how to be most helpful to my clients. In this post, I’ll share what
We’re approaching that lovely time of year when academics claim they’re going to take a break but actually intend to work. Sound familiar? If you’re raising your hand, then keep reading. I’m going to explain how you can get work done over break without burning out or ending up disappointed. What’s Urgent? If you
How can you effectively manage your writing time when you don’t have a lot of it? For many writers, short periods of writing time are particularly challenging. Yet, short writing sessions might be your only option. Academic writers romanticize long blocks of uninterrupted writing time. Very few scholars, however, can devote an entire day
With a new semester comes changes to your writing schedule. During the summer, you may have had long blocks of writing time away from faculty meetings, office hours, and course prep. Once the semester starts, you may only have short writing blocks —as short as 15-30 minutes a day— when you’re teaching, so it’s important
The beginning of the semester brings a new opportunity to make a semester writing plan. For academics, late summer can have a New Year’s resolution vibe. But, just like the New Year’s plans that end up in the resolution graveyard, your writing plans can be similarly unattainable. The problem of unattainable goals has two
Clients normally ask me one of two related questions – “am I writing enough” and “am I writing fast enough.” There’s no correct answer to those questions. There are answers, but not good ones. There are, however, good ways to think about your writing practice and your progress. Many writers track their writing because
Some time ago, I posted some Twitter encouragement for writing shitty first drafts. The response was, well, surprising. I didn’t expect it to resonate quite as strongly as it did. I believed everyone had read Anne Lamott and knew the importance of shitty first drafts. But perhaps they believed that shitty first drafts
It’s the beginning of the fall semester for academics in the Northern Hemisphere, which means many of you are setting your semester writing goals. Much of what goes into your schedule will be informed by what you did or didn’t achieve over the summer. Inevitably, you’re berating yourself because you didn’t complete all of your
I taught at a liberal arts college and prepped many courses. I spent hours on course prep. I’d review the reading, read supplementary material, develop handouts, and more. Sometimes this felt very rewarding, but sometimes it didn’t. Over time, I found that there was a very weak correlation between the amount of time I spent
Beginning a new writing project can be simultaneously exciting and disheartening. There is plenty to look forward to – sinking your teeth into a new body of literature, making new discoveries, and entering a different intellectual conversation. There are also so many things you must plan, so much research to conduct, so many outlines and
Much of our self-care is relegated to the weekends. We think of sleeping a bit later, moving a bit slower, maybe even treating ourselves to some small indulgence. But during the week we just rush through the motions as we strive for peak productivity, thinking there is never any time to stop and take
We read for a lot of reasons. Sometimes we read an article because everyone else is reading and citing it. We might read an article or book because what we really wanted wasn’t available at the library (don’t claim you’ve never done it). Hopefully, most of our reading is done because we recognize the
If you look on the homepage of this website, you’ll notice that one of the services I offer is “diversity consulting.” This descriptor is admittedly vague, and has remained under-developed, as I have devoted most of my time to building my editing practice. I’d like for this to change. To be clear, I do
Many of you will be taking the opportunity of the semester break to catch up on your writing. How can you do this in a way that is mindful and productive? After all, you still want your break to be a break – not just a continuation of an overburdened work schedule. You also want
Now that you’re keeping a dissertation diary, you might be wondering what to write in it. The true but unhelpful response is that you can write anything you want! As I discussed in my earlier post, your stream of conscious writing can lead you to a better understanding of your subject matter. If
Finding time to write is not always easy, but sometimes the even more difficult task is committing to writing once that time is found. Do you do your best writing when you’re on deadline? If so, you might be what Gretchen Rubin calls an “obliger.” Rubin is a lawyer turned writer who researches happiness and how
There were many occasions during graduate school where I encountered what I believed to be writer’s block. I would sit for hours, or even days, staring at my computer, pondering what I should write. Even though I had the ideas in my head, I could not get them onto paper.Talking to a friend about
This post is the second in a series called “From Course Paper to Article,” where I explain how to transform your course paper into a manuscript ready to submit to a journal. This series will walk you through the process of selecting a topic, preparing for writing, making the most of the data you collect and
Working with others is not a skill that everyone learns in grad school. For many students, writing is a solitary affair, with the dissertation being a sole-authored document and co-authorships being frowned upon in the early years as a junior faculty member. This of course varies by discipline and the type of research one
Remember, a done dissertation is a good dissertation. Many graduate students are in the home stretch of dissertation writing, and you are probably exhausted. You’ve written one of the longest documents you have ever or will ever write, and while you can see the finish line you know there is so much more to do.
Over the past couple of weeks I have had the opportunity to talk to academic writers about their writing process. This is also a question I ask new clients if I work with them as a developmental consultant. While there is great variation in how writers work, knowing your own process is essential to staying