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Listen: sometimes it helps to wish your writing well

Mindfulness is about being present in the moment with your writing, but there may be difficult feelings there. It can help to move from rehearsing how badly you feel, to articulating a beneficial wish for everything and everyone around you, including yourself. And apply it more specifically to your writing practice. 

Maybe you could dial up the positive talk, to yourself and others. How does that feel? What grace could be experienced?

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Succeeding in a Research Higher Degree

Doing a Research Higher Degree (like a PhD) is hard, but lots of people have succeeded and you can too. It’s easier if you understand how it works, this blog gives you the insider view.

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Listen: sometimes it helps to wish your writing well

Mindfulness is about being present in the moment with your writing, but there may be difficult feelings there. It can help to move from rehearsing how badly you feel, to articulating a beneficial wish for everything and everyone around you, including yourself. And apply it more specifically to your writing practice. 

Maybe you could dial up the positive talk, to yourself and others. How does that feel? What grace could be experienced?

Read more

Listen: gratitude for your writing

You will need to write an Acknowledgements section in your thesis, and you can have fun working out who you will thank and how you’ll include acknowledgements in your thesis. But you might also want to make a less formal, less constrained, more honest version. 

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Listen: sometimes you just need to breathe easy

This exercise is all about the counting. It’s just complicated enough that you can’t multitask. The equal breathing means your brain should settle into a state that’s not too sleepy and not too fired up but just-Goldilocks-right for the task. 

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Listen: get charged up to write using your breath

Here is another breathing practice. In this fifth practice, I walk you through the second of three breathing practices. This one is best if you need to feel fired up. It’s hard to read and count and breathe, but it’s easy to breathe if someone else keeps count for you, so let me help.

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Listen: put some wellbeing and writing in your ears and go for a walk

Over on the Whisper Collective Podcast, I’ve just released a series of audio recordings from the new book, Writing Well and Being Well for your PhD and Beyond.

In this first practice, I encourage you to get out of the house. It’s hard to read and walk at the same time, so we made it portable.

Put your headphones on, lace up your shoes, and plan to get away from your desk with a walking practice to help stir up thoughts and get your writing going.

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Writing Well and Being Well for Your PhD and Beyond is published

It’s publication week for Writing Well and Being Well for Your PhD and Beyond: How to Cultivate a Strong and Sustainable Writing Practice for Life. It’s available as a paperback and ebook on all the big book websites, and via the publisher. As with all my books, I’m delighted if you buy a copy but also delighted if you recommend it to your university library so you get to read it and so does everyone else.

I had the best time writing this book, and the pre-readers have given such warm and delightful feedback. My series editor described the book as ‘your best friend’; ‘it’s personable, relatable, oozing with strategies.. It simply is a gift’. The peer reviewers said things like: it’s ‘calming and supportive’, ‘a useful review and re-thinking of the writing process’ that ‘gives permission’ for you to write, containing a ‘sprinkling of humour’ but also ‘addictively practical’.

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Resources

Books

For more insider tips, techniques and insights, check out my books.

Level Up Your Essays

Level Up Your Essays is the essential guide to essay writing for university students. Written by the people who mark your essays, it will show you step-by-step how to write high-quality essays that will get you top marks.

Your PhD Survival Guide

The ‘Insider Guides to Success in Academia’ offers support and practical advice to doctoral students and early-career researchers. These neat pocket guides fill specific and significant gaps in current literature. 

How to Fix Your Academic Writing Trouble

This clear and accessible guide to decoding academic feedback will help you interpret what your lecturer or research supervisor is really trying to tell you about your writing – and show you how to fix it.

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