One [non-fiction] craft post to rule them all?
June 7, 2022 2:47 AM Subscribe
I am doing #1000wordsofsummer! I love seeing everyone's word counts and hearing about story and character and memoir successes. But I am an academic / CNF writer, and it's a lot of research, and it's so SLOW by comparison. Yesterday was ROUGH. So: seeking writing advice, especially for researched non-fiction.
I am a tiiireeeed academic who is now on the hook for other sparkly and exciting magazine articles, which are considerably less sparkly now that the pitches are accepted and I need to write them. And my book, which I loosely promised to deliver to an interested press this summer. I recognize that these are all seriously great problems to have, but I need a lil push.
So I would love any and all (academic or non-fiction) writing advice or writing wisdom! Anything: from productivity stuff (sticker chart!!) to omg-so-tired-but-there's-a-deadline hacks to the inspirational quotes you've got pinned to your computer monitor to the writing craft books you rec to your own students to previous AskMes that might help (if it's about a dissertation, I have read it, haha).
Anything about how to do research, how to write sentences, how to put my butt in a chair that will help me as I push push push through "summer of writing 22" (tm).
Hopefully this isn't too chatty, I figure I can't be the only one interested in all these resources. Thank you all in advance.
I am a tiiireeeed academic who is now on the hook for other sparkly and exciting magazine articles, which are considerably less sparkly now that the pitches are accepted and I need to write them. And my book, which I loosely promised to deliver to an interested press this summer. I recognize that these are all seriously great problems to have, but I need a lil push.
So I would love any and all (academic or non-fiction) writing advice or writing wisdom! Anything: from productivity stuff (sticker chart!!) to omg-so-tired-but-there's-a-deadline hacks to the inspirational quotes you've got pinned to your computer monitor to the writing craft books you rec to your own students to previous AskMes that might help (if it's about a dissertation, I have read it, haha).
Anything about how to do research, how to write sentences, how to put my butt in a chair that will help me as I push push push through "summer of writing 22" (tm).
Hopefully this isn't too chatty, I figure I can't be the only one interested in all these resources. Thank you all in advance.
Books: Maybe How to Argue by Alastair Bonnet, or Your Research Project: How to Manage it by Andy Hunt? The second half of Demystifying Academic Writing by Zhihui Fang?
My own "writing hack" such as it is- I stick any ideas I already have as a list or bullet points into a document without thinking much at all (I'd certainly paste the pitch you'd done for an article in at the top). That way the next time I open it, I'm editing, not starting from scratch. Also shuffling the list items around can sometimes create the logical flow for me, and show where I'm missing a connecting section.
I'd also go and talk to your librarian about finding some more sources, partly because they will be helpful and partly because talking about your topic to someone interested might make it feel sparkly again.
posted by Shark Hat at 5:10 AM on June 7, 2022
My own "writing hack" such as it is- I stick any ideas I already have as a list or bullet points into a document without thinking much at all (I'd certainly paste the pitch you'd done for an article in at the top). That way the next time I open it, I'm editing, not starting from scratch. Also shuffling the list items around can sometimes create the logical flow for me, and show where I'm missing a connecting section.
I'd also go and talk to your librarian about finding some more sources, partly because they will be helpful and partly because talking about your topic to someone interested might make it feel sparkly again.
posted by Shark Hat at 5:10 AM on June 7, 2022
I am also an academic who writes magazine articles and non-academic books. What works for me might not work for you. But here's what works for me:
1. Word count, not time count. I have to do a certain number of words per day; if it's fast, great, if it's slow, too bad.
2. Get something down on paper even if it stinks. Most of writing is editing so get yourself as quickly as possible to the point where you're ready to edit.
3. Both rules 1 and 2 can be thrown aside if you find some really interesting rabbit hole to go down as you research your article. No amount of general writing advice is as good as the authentic excitement you can put on the page about something you just learned and can't wait to tell everyone.
posted by escabeche at 7:03 AM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
1. Word count, not time count. I have to do a certain number of words per day; if it's fast, great, if it's slow, too bad.
2. Get something down on paper even if it stinks. Most of writing is editing so get yourself as quickly as possible to the point where you're ready to edit.
3. Both rules 1 and 2 can be thrown aside if you find some really interesting rabbit hole to go down as you research your article. No amount of general writing advice is as good as the authentic excitement you can put on the page about something you just learned and can't wait to tell everyone.
posted by escabeche at 7:03 AM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
I see that #1000wordsofsummer is a commitment to write 1000 words a day for two weeks and the current round goes till June 17th. Are you planning on trying to do it again after June 17th or take a break from it then?
Written? Kitten! gives you a new fresh cute photo of a kitten, puppy, or bunny every time you write 100 more words.
I write a lot more when I have a regular remote coworker on a videocall - we meet, catch up for a few minutes, then silently work, our digital presence peer-pressuring each other to stay on task. I am currently working on a book. I'm not ready to commit to 1,000 words per day but I do have a lot of flexibility to get on one-hour remote coworking calls between now and the 17th - MeMail me if you're interested in trying one!
posted by brainwane at 10:07 AM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
Written? Kitten! gives you a new fresh cute photo of a kitten, puppy, or bunny every time you write 100 more words.
I write a lot more when I have a regular remote coworker on a videocall - we meet, catch up for a few minutes, then silently work, our digital presence peer-pressuring each other to stay on task. I am currently working on a book. I'm not ready to commit to 1,000 words per day but I do have a lot of flexibility to get on one-hour remote coworking calls between now and the 17th - MeMail me if you're interested in trying one!
posted by brainwane at 10:07 AM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
I write fiction but am an extremely slow writer. You know that story about how Flaubert spent hours searching for just the right adjective to describe Emma Bovary's wrist? Flaubert, c'est moi.
The only thing that works for me is pomodoro. There are many apps and websites, but the basic principle is (1) write for 25 min; (2) take a break for 5 min; (3) after 4 cycles, take a longer break.
posted by basalganglia at 11:06 AM on June 7, 2022
The only thing that works for me is pomodoro. There are many apps and websites, but the basic principle is (1) write for 25 min; (2) take a break for 5 min; (3) after 4 cycles, take a longer break.
posted by basalganglia at 11:06 AM on June 7, 2022
I am also an overworked academic who is trying to write non-fiction for wider audiences. I love @brainwane's idea of remote co-working videocalls -- never tried it but would love to!
I've found Paul J. Silvia's How to write a lot (2007) helpful and practical, and you might too.
I have a digital version of @FencingGal's quote set up, using TiddlyWiki to give me a randomised selection of inspirational writing quotes (and any other reminders, nice artworks, etc) every day. Some quotes in my rotation:
"When I wake early I say to myself, Fight, fight. If I could catch the feeling, I would; the feeling of the singing of the real world, as one is driven by loneliness and silence from the habitable world... Anything is possible." -- Virginia Woolf
"The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful, to get a surge of inner life or inner supply or unexpected sense of empowerment, to be afloat, to be out of yourself." -- Seamus Heaney
"Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing; it’s about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration that it creates." -- Mordecai Richler
"Writing is facing your deepest fears and all your failures, including how hard it is to write a lot of the time and how much you loathe what you’ve just written and that you’re the person who just committed those flawed sentences (many a writer, and God, I know I’m one, has worried about dying before the really crappy version is revised so that posterity will never know how awful it was). When it totally sucks, pause, look out the window (there should always be a window) and say, I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing." -- Rebecca Solnit
"Now I am 79. I’ve written many hundreds of essays, 10 times that number of misbegotten drafts both early and late, and I begin to understand that failure is its own reward. It is in the effort to close the distance between the work imagined and the work achieved wherein it is to be found that the ceaseless labor is the freedom of play, that what’s at stake isn’t a reflection in the mirror of fame but the escape from the prison of the self.” – Lewis Lapham
"A book in a man’s brain is better off than a book bound in calf — at any rate it is safer from criticism. And taking a book off the brain, is akin to the ticklish & dangerous business of taking an old painting off a panel — you have to scrape off the whole brain in order to get at it with due safety — & even then, the painting may not be worth the trouble." -- Herman Melville
and this Hamilton/Anime mashup :)
MeMail if you want a writing accountability buddy!
posted by idlethink at 1:29 PM on June 7, 2022
I've found Paul J. Silvia's How to write a lot (2007) helpful and practical, and you might too.
I have a digital version of @FencingGal's quote set up, using TiddlyWiki to give me a randomised selection of inspirational writing quotes (and any other reminders, nice artworks, etc) every day. Some quotes in my rotation:
"When I wake early I say to myself, Fight, fight. If I could catch the feeling, I would; the feeling of the singing of the real world, as one is driven by loneliness and silence from the habitable world... Anything is possible." -- Virginia Woolf
"The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful, to get a surge of inner life or inner supply or unexpected sense of empowerment, to be afloat, to be out of yourself." -- Seamus Heaney
"Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing; it’s about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration that it creates." -- Mordecai Richler
"Writing is facing your deepest fears and all your failures, including how hard it is to write a lot of the time and how much you loathe what you’ve just written and that you’re the person who just committed those flawed sentences (many a writer, and God, I know I’m one, has worried about dying before the really crappy version is revised so that posterity will never know how awful it was). When it totally sucks, pause, look out the window (there should always be a window) and say, I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing." -- Rebecca Solnit
"Now I am 79. I’ve written many hundreds of essays, 10 times that number of misbegotten drafts both early and late, and I begin to understand that failure is its own reward. It is in the effort to close the distance between the work imagined and the work achieved wherein it is to be found that the ceaseless labor is the freedom of play, that what’s at stake isn’t a reflection in the mirror of fame but the escape from the prison of the self.” – Lewis Lapham
"A book in a man’s brain is better off than a book bound in calf — at any rate it is safer from criticism. And taking a book off the brain, is akin to the ticklish & dangerous business of taking an old painting off a panel — you have to scrape off the whole brain in order to get at it with due safety — & even then, the painting may not be worth the trouble." -- Herman Melville
and this Hamilton/Anime mashup :)
MeMail if you want a writing accountability buddy!
posted by idlethink at 1:29 PM on June 7, 2022
Here is a post I cowrote about how I use one-hour videocalls to get more nonfiction writing done.
posted by brainwane at 7:04 PM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by brainwane at 7:04 PM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
I am a semi-motivated fiction writer. I love to use timed sprints to just vomit some stuff out onto a page -- doesn't need to be good, just needs to be there -- and then refine it later. IMO refining it is where the magic happens. I like this timer tool a lot: https://wordsprints.org.
posted by missmobtown at 7:53 AM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by missmobtown at 7:53 AM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
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Another thing that has helped me a lot is following Penn Jillette's lead in timing my writing with an hourglass. I bought a fancy one from JustHourglasses.com, and it makes me happy to look at it and use it. I'm a slow writer, and going by time rather than number of words works better for me. Also, when I'm feeling really stuck, I spend the time on revision, so I'm not adding new words at all.
The third thing is setting a specific time as writing time. If I decide that I write at 7:00 am every day and that's it, I'm much less likely to procrastinate.
Here's the inspirational quote I currently have on my desk: "I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and hope it gets better." -Annie Dillard
(I write my inspirational quotes on index cards and use these stands for them. Having beautiful things on my desk helps me want to be there. Also, my desk can get very dusty, and it's amazing how much just giving it a good cleaning makes me want to be there more.)
posted by FencingGal at 5:08 AM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]