It will be no surprise to anyone that I hear a lot of writing advice—some good, some less helpful. But some of it is just literally untrue, and yet the myths are so pervasive that people believe they are terrible writers because they are not following that advice.
Tag: academic writing
Is the thing you need to learn from feedback… how to accept praise?
There is an important aspect of feedback that you may be ignoring… and that is accepting positive feedback.
Yet another book? Yes, but the last one for a while, I promise!
Just popping into the blog to say that Level Up your Essays, the new book with Inger and Shaun, is … More
How not to be your own micromanager
A couple of weeks ago, I actually did that thing on a Monday where you look at all your emails, … More
3 breathing exercises before you start writing
Want to feel calm, get fired up, or find a balance? Give yourself 2 minutes and some mind control of your lungs, you can do it!
How do you co-author 3 books in a year and not lose the plot?
In 2019-20 I was writing 3 books with other people (publication ranged from Nov 2019 to March 2021, but this does not reflect the writing or editing period of the books.) The books took between 9 months and 3 years to finish, and all of them overlapped in a great crash.
Should I do it myself? Writing and delegation
What you need to do yourself to prepare a publication? This is one of the big shifts for people moving … More
What matters isn’t your writing software, it’s your file structures (sorry!)
Thanks to Anuja Cabraal who asked this question! It’s about 2,500 words of answer, so this is absolutely a Definitive … More
You don’t have to feel ready to take action
All of this works because we start doing the work. By not delaying the real work through endless reading and procrastination, we start working towards our end goal, in ways that actually contribute to our goals. That is, we start making words on the page that can be added to and refined until you have enough good enough words to submit a passable PhD thesis.
Questioning the super-productivity push – from the productive side
But I’m just submitting my third book manuscript in a year (not to mention a book chapter, two commissioned poems, a book review, some peer reviews, and a short non-fiction piece that I also submitted in the last 12 months). So it’s not that I’m excluded from super-productivity, it’s that I’m benefiting from it and succeeding at it and I’m concerned by it.