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So what can you do when you are stuck or blocked in your
writing? Here are some suggestions:
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A colleague once told me that he suggests to
this students: Put your fingers on the keyboard and start typing. Make yourself
type, even if you’re just writing “The witch in the graduate school told me I
had to write 15 minutes every day so I’m writing. Of course, what I’m writing
is nonsense but I’m writing.” Really. Seriously. Start writing/typing. Think
about your topic and what you’re suppose to be writing about. “OK, my topic
today is philosophical and developmental theories of moral reasoning so I guess
I should write about Rousseau and Durkheim and Piaget and Kohlberg. OK, so I’ll
begin with Piaget. Piaget is perhaps the ….” You will likely write some
nonsense but eventually you’ll get to your good stuff. Or at least decent
stuff. You’ll make it better when you get to the editing stage.
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The hardest part of a manuscript or chapter or
section or even paragraph is the beginning and the ending. So start in the
middle of the chapter or section or paragraph first. Once you get the
substantive part of the thought you can work on the beginning and end. But for
many people, it’s easier to start in the middle.
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Here’s what helps me get started. If it’s a
chapter or manuscript, I first type each heading that seems relevant from
beginning to end. Then I go back and write in subheadings under each heading.
Then under each subheading I write the thought or idea that will become each
paragraph. By this time I am likely to have five to eight thoughts and ideas
under each subheading. Then, and only then, do I pick a section and begin to
write. Doing it this way, I already know where I’m going with each section.
This helps because I find that as I write a section, even if that section is
going well, I start to feel anxious about the sections ahead. “What if I don’t
know where to go next with this? What if I can’t think of anything to write in
the next section?” I don’t feel so anxious because I’ve already listed what
will be in each section. And because the entire manuscript or chapter already
has many ideas and thoughts, I am convinced that this is doable for me. I can
do this!
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If you are really stuck, here’s something that
works for kinesthetic learners and writers. Get up and move. Pace the floor. Go
for a walk or run. But you have to think about your topic while you do this.
This is not a break from writing. It’s using movement and physicality to come
up with what you need to write. (I had a colleague whose office was next to the
school’s track. When working on a manuscript, he’d run a mile around the track,
then go back and write a section. Then get up and run around the track again,
then write the next section. Another colleague told me that when she was
writing her dissertation at the University
of Minnesota, she scraped
all the wallpaper off her mom’s dining room. Now apparently her mom wanted the
wallpaper removed. But Cheryl would write a while, get stuck, scrape a while,
and get the next paragraph set in her brain. Then she could sit down and have
it flow out. So if you have a learning/writing style that reflects a
kinesthetic sense, try this. But remember, moving and running and scraping
wallpaper are not writing. You still must write at least 15 minutes every day.
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You’ve been writing for more than 10 days now;
how’s it going? Remember, once you start writing, you will get ideas prompted
by the process of writing. So don’t be afraid to start writing each day. Even
when you have nothing in your head to write, when you start writing – the
nonsense suggested above or your crappy first draft -- the cognitive processes
change when you think and write rather than just think about what you will
write. (I started writing a new chapter today and had no idea at all how to
start it. No clue or ideas at all even after thinking about it off and on for 3
days (while I was writing something else.) But once I started typing I got
three great introductory pages that only occurred to me after I started typing.
So really, just start writing.)
(Confession: Last year when we
first started break writing, I got more writing, and more good writing, done
during the break than I had in a long time. I committed to writing at least 15
minutes a day (and those sessions often lasted 5 hours once I started). Maybe
it’s also because I knew students were writing, too – we were in this together.
And this in spite of getting bronchitis as soon as the break started that
lasted for 7 days. But I wrote at least 15 minutes everyday. How could I not
after telling you that you must!)
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If you’re stuck, don’t call it writer’s block.
“Academic writers cannot get writer’s block….You’re not crafting a deep
narrative or composing metaphors that explore mysteries of the human heart. The
subtlety of your analysis of variance will not move readers to tears, although
the tediousness of it might….Writer’s block is nothing more than the behavior
of not writing….The cure for writer’s block…is writing” (Silva, 2007, pp.
44-45). Just as aliens abduct only people who believe in alien abductions,
writer’s block strikes only people who believe in it” (p.47).
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If you want to read another writer who suggests,
not 15 minutes a day, but 2 pages a day, see below for “The Considerable
Satisfaction of 2 Page a Day.” But remember, reading about writing is not
writing. You still must write.
Some
of the information in the Break Writing postings is drawn from previously
published work, and I have tried to properly attribute the ideas and work of
others. If I have failed to do so, please let me know so I can clarify and
correct (ja2310@columbia.edu)
Allen, J.
(2008) The new faculty and graduate
mentor. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishers.
Silva,
P. (2007).How to write a lot: A practical
guide to productive academic writing. Washington,
DC: American Psychological
Association.
Continue to Break Writing #6 - Writing versus Editing
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