Since January, I have written my prospectus, two manuscripts, and statements for my job applications. And I have this book to thank for my progress: Paul Silvia's How to Write a Lot.
This little self-help book is specifically for academic writing, and even more specifically for psychologists (as Silvia is a faculty member at the University of Kansas in Personality Psychology). Silvia manages to take concepts that I "already know" and make them so blatantly clear that I can't get around them anymore. For examples, if you want to write a lot, you have to write often.
I'm waiting for you to pick your jaw up off the floor.... I know this piece of advice doesn't seem to groundbreaking, but for me, it was. Before reading this book, I survived as what Silvia refers to as a "binge writer". I saved up all my writing for big blocks of time where I would crank out a project in one sitting. I even did this in college for my written class assignments! While it was easier as an undergraduate when my blocks of time only needed to be big enough to throw together a five page reaction paper or article critique, now it is becoming more difficult. How am I supposed to find a chunk of time that is big enough to write say, a dissertation? Instead, Silvia suggests setting aside protected "writing time" two or three (or five) times a week. The rules of writing time? Write (doesn't have to be good, just get words on paper), read, edit, do some stats, format, save, delete-- basically, do any type of work on the writing project, keep track of what you did and how long you spent, and feel good about yourself when you're done.
Anyway, I cannot thank Silvia or this wonderful little book enough for changing my life. I now successfully have writing time at least twice a week and have become a much more productive graduate student. I think I'm going to re-read this book once a year to keep the inspiration and motivation fresh.
Til then, I have some more writing to do.
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