Many first-time academic book authors, but especially parents of young children, struggle with finding time to write their book. I frequently receive questions like these: I’m starting my second year on the TT as the parent of a now one year old. I spent all last year in survival mode between the sleep exhaustion that […]
In this series, I show you how to find time to write your first book during the semester, even as a parent on a heavy teaching load (3-3 or 4-4). In previous posts, I’ve tackled some of the pitfalls of planning your time (you don’t keep yourself, the doer in mind) and why and how
This post is the fourth in a series designed to help first-time academic book authors find time to write their book during the semester. In part 3, I told you how the container routine will help you solve five of the most common struggles first-time book authors face. In this post, I’m going to walk
I work with junior humanities and qualitative social science faculty on tackling their book revisions. Writing an academic book, though, is not just a matter of mastering its content, form, and process. It also involves trying to find time to write it while still adjusting to a new institution, teaching more classes than ever before, and balancing
This post is part 2 of my 10-part series, in which I tackle one of the trickiest problems for first-time academic book authors: finding the time to write your book when the semester gets hectic. Next week, I’ll introduce you to the container routine–a simple planning strategy you can implement now, before the semester’s begun, to
Over the past year, I’ve committed myself to helping junior scholars in humanities and social sciences tackle their first book project. Many book-specific tasks trip these scholars up, especially getting a handle on their project as a whole and breaking it down into manageable chunks. But what first-time book authors struggle with more than anything
In previous posts, I show humanities faculty why and how to monitor negative writing behaviors and how to develop an action plan to develop better habits. But thoughts are just as much a part of your writing as the behaviors you exhibit. Curious about tips to be more productive? Monitoring and replacing just one thought pattern
How many times has this happened to you? You have been working on an article for months, and are just finally getting “on a roll.” Things are clicking in a way that they haven’t before, and you’re excited to get your new thoughts down on paper. You’re chugging along. And then it happens.
Here’s the setup. Researchers (Lowe and Crawford) wanted to test whether intuitions or further reflection proved more accurate. So, they gave students a test consisting only of true/false questions. All students had two passes at the exam. The only difference? Half of the students committed in writing to one answer the first time around before choosing a
You will likely fall into one of two camps. If you’re in the first, you might find yourself frustrated and disappointed about your productivity. You know you can write more (or “be more productive”), but it feels like something is wrong with you. “I don’t know how other people do it!” you tell yourself. Or,