I had a difficult time finishing my PhD thesis, 20 years ago. At the time, I’d accepted a full-time postdoc position on someone else’s project, promising to finish my thesis before the job started — but I didn’t. So I had to continue rewriting […]
Category: Writing
The other night, as I was scrolling through social media right before bed (never advisable, yet there we go), a question popped up in my mind: What am I even looking for? As soon as I’d asked, there was a candidate answer: I’m looking […]
It’s mid-October, and autumn here in Spain is well under way. Last weekend in the woods we saw tiny mushrooms. My writing programme is running. And I’m beginning to put things in place for November Academic Writing Month. November Academic Writing Month (AcWriMo) is […]
The other day, I was listening to my favourite podcast, Bewildered with Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan. The episode was called ‘Don’t Control Yourself’. And my listening quickly turned into a feast of recognition. Since I’m deeply into the preparations for my 8-week writing […]
Today, I’m restarting this newsletter. What better way to begin than with an note about beginning? Recently, I’ve been exploring the concept of ‘beginning again’ in an area of my life unrelated to writing. Yet, how we approach one thing often reflects how we […]
Yesterday, at the end of the day, I tried to force some writing. It was partly a workday for me, and I felt that I hadn’t yet done ‘enough’ of what counts as proper ‘work’. I quickly got completely engulfed by a feeling of […]
When I was working full-time in academia, thinking or talking about my publication record often made me feel small. I felt that I hadn’t published enough. And also, with a few exceptions, I felt that what I had published wasn’t what I should have […]
One of my clients had a beautiful, near-finished book that wasn’t getting done. Every day he’d have the document open on his laptop. Every day he’d answer emails, read, surf the net and do anything else but write. The more he was under pressure […]
The writer Anne Lamott has warned that perfectionism “will keep you cramped and insane your whole life”. If you’re tempted, the message is, let go of it as soon as possible. In this presentation, I want to touch in with what such a flat […]
It’s easy to lose heart when you are writing for academic publication. This is especially so if you entered your field with all the signs in evidence that you’d be really good at this. A knack for really ‘getting’ the literature and ways of […]