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Tips for putting words on the page
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Tips for putting words on the page By Rachel Toor Associate professor of creative writing at Eastern Washington University's writing program in Spokane. Excerpted from an article that originally appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. ® 2013 Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA)
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Excerpted from an article that originally appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Rachel Toor. "Frequently I talk with academics who feel they don’t write enough. Even people with a tenure blade dangling over their cervical vertebrae don’t usually have to reach far to find justifications for not getting stuff done. I don’t want to use the word 'excuses,' because they are often valid and real problems, and I don’t want to minimize how hard it is to have something to say and find the right way to say it. Friends of mine who are in the creative-writing field (such a strange misnomer; what writing, I ask, is not creative?) mostly don’t have a hard time finding the discipline to get the writing done. It’s the most important thing we do—even those of us who have day jobs as professors—because it often goes to the deepest issues of identity. It’s not only what we do but who we are. If we are not writing, we are nothing. For many academics, however, writing is what comes after the real and engaging work. It’s like having to wash the dishes after preparing an elaborate meal." Here, Toor gives her tips for putting words on the page.
Transcript of Tips for putting words on the page
Tips for putting
words on the page
By Rachel Toor
Associate professor of creative writing at Eastern Washington University's writing program in Spokane.
Excerpted from an article that originally appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
® 2013 Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA)
Make it routine.
• Ensure that writing is a scheduled part of your day. Figure out when you can fit it in—though it may mean giving up a shower or making baked Alaska—and protect that time.
® 2013 Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA)
Give yourself interim deadlines. • The idea of having to write a whole
book can overwhelm. What if you have to write only a chapter? I'd never run a marathon if I thought I had to run 26.2 miles. Instead I run one mile at a time. You can do anything for eight or nine minutes.
® 2013 Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA)
Have a goal.
• Maybe it's 500 words a day. Maybe it's two hours in the chair. Decide and commit. Perhaps you will have to get up on Sunday mornings at 5 and work until you hear the kids screaming. Sleep, like showers and baked Alaska, is overrated.
® 2013 Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA)
Don't buy into your own neuroses.
• If you think you can write only in the morning, prove yourself wrong by writing at midnight.
® 2013 Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA)
Use competition as a motivator.
• Which of your frenemies do you want to beat? Get a complete draft done, even if it's terrible. I love tinkering, refining, rethinking, and cutting. Having something to edit is my reward for churning out a crappy first draft.
® 2013 Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA)
Stop when you know exactly what will come
next. • That can make it easier to start again,
even if it means quitting mid- (see, I know exactly where to pick up).
® 2013 Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA)
Enlist help.
• Make a writing date. Join a writing group. Writing is lonely and boring. But it can help to have support. Or accountability.
® 2013 Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA)
For entire article visit: http://chronicle.com/article/I-Dont-Write-Enough-Because/139875/
More can be also be found on Rachel Toor’s website: http://www.racheltoor.com
Finally, say out loud your own particular and peculiar reasons for not being able to write
enough. You probably won't need someone else to tell you there are ways to work around them. Your
excuses—I mean, reasons—may even begin to sound a little nutty.
® 2013 Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA)
