Hybrid Pedagogy’s Jesse Stommel and our very own Charlotte Frost rethink academic life and writing productivity in this on-going series of hints, tips and hacks.
LOVE WRITING. A friend of Charlotte’s who finished her PhD a couple years before her once talked about the strange pleasures of the final writing stage. Charlotte thought she was mad when she told her about an unparalleled pleasure derived from delving deep into her thesis and thinking and writing intensely for hours. She spoke of a level of focus that was like nothing she’d experienced before and a connection with her work that was all-consuming and effervescent with ideas. Charlotte figured this was some strange state she’d invented to compensate for the final weeks of PhD work where bodily hygiene and a balanced diet would go out the window. But, later, as her own work reached that same stage, Charlotte discovered her friend was right. Let’s face it, we wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t find some kind of pleasure in thinking and writing, but deadlines and writer’s block often loom large and eclipse those moments of personal-writerly-discovery. Quite the best way to approach writing projects is to embrace the real joys of writing and keep them foremost in your mind throughout all the low points. As with relationships, all too often we tend to share the pain and anguish, but if we talk more about what is good, we’ll soon foster a better attitude to writing.
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