Cultivating a Sustainable Writing Practice
An 8-week programme for academic writers
Friday 3 October – Tuesday 2 December 2025
It can be surprisingly difficult to carry on with academic writing.
If you’ve found yourself easily stopped or ‘booted out’ of the flow of work you actually love—you are not alone.
- Maybe tight deadlines or rigid formats make it hard to feel spacious enough to connect with your thoughts or your words.
- Or perhaps your project feels fine one day, then out of reach and intimidating the next — making you wonder if you’ve set it up wrong or are doing something wrong.
- Or maybe it feels like there are so many voices and opinions to consider that it’s hard to hear yourself.
Such experiences are painful and can spark worry and frustration, even when you know you’ll eventually find your way back in. They can make writing feel like a real struggle.
This programme teaches you to use the intelligence of your body to support your ongoing writing. By respecting the natural signals of feeling stopped and disconnected, you can paradoxically find a way to reconnect and move forward.
This approach turns long-term writing into a practice of skilful, warm self-accompaniment, inviting the words to come more naturally.
The problem with 'just do it'
In academia, there is this ideal type of the thick-skinned writer: someone who simply gets on with it, no matter what.
If we hold ourselves to being that way, it’s easy to conclude that sensitivity doesn’t serve and needs to be overcome. We tell ourselves: “I just need to do it”. We try to be more disciplined, to push through, or to care less.
It doesn’t feel good.
It also doesn’t work well, because the very same sensitivity that seems to be in the way… also contributes to our work in very important ways.
Your sensitivity has made you the researcher, reader and writer that you are.
There has to be a way to work with rather than against it.
A different way forward
When you practise academic writing as an activity that involves your whole body, including your nervous system, you start to develop a different relationship with it.
You begin to care for yourself as a writer in new ways.
Part of this is about non-judgmental observation of what is present in the moment, be it stuckness, tiredness, aversion, foggy-headedness, or anything else that’s here.
And part of this is about training your capacity to work adaptively, gently directing yourself to where the openings and possibilities are.
This is a lifelong practice, but also one that starts to shift things right away. You may notice that you no longer feel a sense of despair when your writing doesn’t go well. Or that you experience jolts of joyful surprise when, just when you thought making progress was impossible!
A sustainable writing practice...
… is one where we don’t abandon ourselves, override our valid concerns, or constantly feel that we’re doing it wrong.
It’s a practice in which we know and trust ourselves, in which we keep inviting ourselves forward.
The surprising effectiveness of an embodied approach
Most people don’t think about writing as involving their bodies beyond ergonomic desk arrangements and reminders to walk or stretch.
But how you are in your body—how your fingers move over the keyboard, how you breathe, how you sit or stand, how you hold your face—is deeply implicated in the intellectual work of writing. Your physicality sends subtle signals to your brain about your approach to the task.
This gives you opportunities to experiment. You can explore variations in how you physically approach writing and learn from the insights that emerge.
The specific embodied approach we take in this programme works with the somatic map of the Four Elements: Earth, Water, Fire and Air. We use these as archetypal modes to invite nervous system regulation and the cultivation of choice and versatility.
My highest intentions are for you to gain:
new and refined skills for supporting yourself in your academic writing;
real options for reconnecting with your writing and finding forward movement; and
a deeper appreciation for who you are and what you bring as a writer.
I also hope you’ll leave with a good amount of writing you feel happy and pleased about!
What results can I expect?
This programme fosters small but impactful shifts in writing habits.
You will not eliminate instinctive stress reactions to writing, such as feeling the urge to avoid it or feeling overwhelmed by it.
But you will carry yourself differently: with greater appreciation for how you move with your writing, and more trust in your innate creative capacities.
Working with this embodied approach helped previous participants release negative associations with writing and rediscover the joy in it.
It helped some participants find ways to work with emotionally charged content and others to clarify what kind of writing they do and don’t want to do in the future.
Additionally, it has enabled participants to write words that felt alive and meaningful—words they enjoyed reading back.
About Catelijne
This work has very personal origins for me: from the earliest days of my academic career I grew increasingly familiar with writing blocks and struggles: a constant flickering of I can – I can’t in relation to my writing.
Finding it hard to sustain a research career, I found my groove in teaching and nearly gave up writing for publication altogether. But something pulled me back to it. I still knew myself to be a writer. And I knew I wanted a different approach.
My second career as a coach and facilitator opened my eyes to working with the body. I started to translate what I learned from my embodiment teachers to the realm of writing, and this felt like a missing piece falling into place. It has allowed me to keep writing and has helped others reclaim and transform their academic writing practice in ways that have been truly empowering.
This is what I want for you, too.
Programme overview
The programme consists of four weeks of embodied writing training, followed by four weeks dedicated to working towards specific academic writing goals during November Academic Writing Month.
First, you’ll explore and experiment. Then, you’ll apply and integrate what you’ve learned. Throughout, you’ll be working on one or more academic writing projects that are meaningful to you.
- Pre-course materials + 3 October workshop: We'll set up the space of inquiry by exploring what embodied writing is, and how it may be learned as a skill. Introduction to the Four Elements. Articulating intentions and creating the shared environment for this course.
- Month of October: Workshops, writing get-togethers, and emails to support your daily writing. Over four weeks, we'll travel through the somatic map of the Four Elements: Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. Each week, you’ll receive practices to explore the specific qualities and strengths of one of the Elements in your approach to writing. This exploration will spark insights into your personal preferences and patterns as a writer, and will help you find new possibilities to keep reconnecting and moving with your writing. The content is gathered into a reference library that remains accessible to you for four months after the course ends.
- 22 October Design & Q&A session: Beginning preparations for November Academic Month: what do you feel fired up for, what do you want to make a push on? You'll start to design a 'goals, points and rewards' system that feels energizing and inviting to work with.
- Month of November: November Academic Writing Month! You'll work with your 'goals and points' system as you continue to practise accompanying yourself and finding forward movement as the month unfolds. There are still weekly writing get-togethers, alongside weekly check-ins and periodic emails to help you apply and integrate what you learned in October. Throughout the month, we will witness your courageous actions and wise choices—and anything else that surfaces, too.
- 2 December closing session: Meeting and greeting each other on the other side of November Academic Writing Month. Final reflections on the 8-week course and how to keep nurturing your writing practice. Closing together.
How will I know if this embodied approach is for me?
Here are two ways to try it out:
- Look out for the free taster session in early September 2025.
- Get a sense of the Four Elements approach via an older recording: my workshop ‘Carrying on With Your Writing‘ from 2020.
No prior experience with body-based ways of working is required. The Four Elements practices are intuitive for most people because they naturally connect with our experiences and imaginations of movement and physical expression. They are also adaptable: I’ll provide options for differently mobile bodies and different spatial setups.
If you’re unsure about moving in front of others, don’t worry: I recommend turning off your camera during movement and writing practices to take away any performative element. A private space from which to attend will help you feel most comfortable.
Frequently asked questions
How narrow is the definition of 'writing'? Can it encompass also data analysis or literature review?
Costs and key dates
COSTS
Limited to 15 participants.
Early bird fee (register by 14 September 2025): €800
Regular fee: €880
Registration closes on 30 September 2025
Payment Plans
Available on request (select “pay offline” option at checkout)
Note: Does this programme feel right and timely, yet your current financial context makes it impossible to join? Please reach out so we can explore if there’s still a way to make it work for both of us.
KEY DATES for 2025
Workshops
- 3, 10, 17, 24 & 31 October
Fridays from 10:15–11:45 AM CEST
(Recorded)
Writing Get-Togethers
- 7, 14, 21, 28 October & 4, 11, 18, 25 November
Tuesdays from 10:15–11:45 AM CEST
(Not Recorded)
Session for Setting Up November Academic Writing Month
- Wednesday 22 October
From 1:00–2:15 PM CEST
(Recorded)
Closing Session
- Tuesday 2 December from 10:15–11:45 AM CEST
(Recorded)
How to book
Booking via this site will be enabled from August 2025. If you’d like to reserve a spot beforehand, please contact me.
Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions you may have!
Photographs on this page: spider & statue by Yanghong Yu, birds perched by Eduardo Sanchez, monkey by Laura Cross, rock pigeon by Angelo Wagan, open gate by Annie Spratt, portrait by Kylie Sabine.