The Good Enough Professor’s Guide to the Writing Lifestyle

Writing more is a goal that I hear all the time from academics, whether it's a craving to just do your intellectual work, when it so often gets sidelined for teaching and leadership commitments, or you want to share something exciting that you're working on, or you want to just finally get those publications on your CV, writing is very often on our minds. Today's episode is about creating a writing lifestyle, a way of thinking about digging into our scholarly work that really builds on our humanity: the emotions that we feel as we're writing, and about our writing, how our bodies react to writing and how we might think about working with our bodies instead of against them, and the aspect of ourselves as social beings – all of which I think are so crucial to continuing and feeling satisfied by our writing.

Creating a writing lifestyle, which I'm talking about today, is really in contrast to establishing a writing habit. I think we're told constantly in the academic world about how we “should” – and I hope you hear the air quotes and my use of “should” – how we should write every day for 30 minutes, or we should create time blocks of writing and do them regularly, or kind of “insert writing advice here,” right? And sure, of course, that can work for some people at some stages of life. But what I've seen can be more effective and feel better, is shifting from attempting to create a static writing habit, to thinking about how to build a dynamic, flexible writing lifestyle.

Another way that this approach differs from what we normally hear is that it assumes that you are going to be coming and going from the writing lifestyle. It's not something that we're trying to establish as eternal. The reading lifestyle is always embedded in the context of our actual lives. We aren't going to assume that the conditions we have now are going to be the same forever. Instead, you probably have an idea of how long you want to sustain your writing lifestyle, and the specific conditions you'll be working under. Maybe it's very short term for a couple of weeks in the summer, or over a break. Or perhaps you want to finish an article in the fall semester while you're also teaching. Or you might be thinking longer term like an entire year of sabbatical. You can use the framework of the writing lifestyle for any of these lengths of time, because it's based on your capacity, your context, and it's flexible and responsive.

I want to note here that I'm using “writing” because that's how it's usually framed. But this is really an approach to scholarly work that I've used with folks in the arts, dance professors, for example, as well as with scientists who might be getting stuck with working in the lab. So I'm using writing as the frame here, but this approach might be useful for you, if the work you're doing is not necessarily producing writing, if you have another kind of intellectual work that you're producing. In this episode, we'll be exploring the writing lifestyle as a low-pressure approach that focuses on flexibility and satisfaction, so that you can sustain your writing, you can pick it up when you need or want to, while honoring your full humanity.

As you're listening today, I suggest thinking of your own writing practice as an experiment. What do you already know about yourself when you're writing, and what might be new for you or worth trying out again. And I want to reassure you, that even if you're feeling disconnected, anxious or just deeply negative about your writing today, it is possible to find enjoyment and fun in your work again.

Okay, so the writing lifestyle begins when we start thinking about it. Before we actually decide that we want to write, we are considering adopting a writing lifestyle. And this time of contemplation and decision making is crucial to the process. I see so often that folks get derailed right here, usually because we make assumptions. For example, “there's a deadline, so I have to do this” is the most common. Or, “my schedule is clear at the break, so it's got to work now,” or one that I often fall into, “well, this is when I planned for it, so it's got to happen.” These kinds of assumptions take away our sense of choice.

The first thing to do is to find your agency within the choice to start up a writing lifestyle. And I'm going to gently suggest that there is always a choice. If you feel that there isn't one, I gently encourage you to really explore the structural conditions that are oppressing your sense of agency. The most common example is tenure, which is, of course, an intense, stressful, external hard deadline. So thinking about finding agency within that deadline of tenure, you might clarify tenure expectations, and check that your project for your writing lifestyle is actually contributing to that goal - claiming a sense of intentionality, a sense of choice around what can feel very challenging. Another common sense that we don't have a choice comes from some gendered assumptions about missing a deadline, or letting down the editor. What if we, you know, admitted: sure, I don't like to go back on my commitments, and maybe I don't have the capacity to do it well now - all right.

Another way to think about this is to find your flexibility. If I look for nuance, where is it? What might happen if I loosened my assumptions, and maybe considered asking for an extension on the deadline, or changing of the topic that I promised to this editor? You know, where is that wiggle room that usually exists? Usually can be found in dialogue. It's so important to find your choice so that your decision to start the writing lifestyle is intentional, and doesn't have a kind of stench of coercion, if that makes sense, which can really make it difficult, right? So finding that flexibility, finding the choice in creating a writing lifestyle. One example I can give you is a colleague who was feeling kind of resistant about starting their book. We had a great conversation in which they finally got to the sense that, “I want to write this book! I want to write this book!” - getting to a place where you're claiming that decision and that choice.

So when you really rooted into your sense of choice and flexibility, the next thing to consider is so important.

• What is my capacity right now?

• What's my energy?

• What are my support systems like right now?

• What are the other time commitments that I have in this moment?

• How is my attention?

• What else is important during this time?

You really want to kind of take a broad view and think about the length of time that you're thinking about for this writing lifestyle. What's going to be competing for your attention, and your time and your energy? Now, conditions do not have to be perfect to begin a writing lifestyle. In no way do they have to be perfect. What's important is to really consider what else is happening in this timeframe, and have a realistic sense of the conditions that you'll be working under.

Another question. Reflect on the last time you wrote regularly:

• What did I learn about myself when I was writing?

• What worked?

• What didn't work?

• How is my writing lifestyle going to be different this time?

So there's a lot of different ways that might be different. For example, you might be trying out the writing lifestyle, rather than binge writing. You might be on sabbatical, versus trying to write during the semester when you're teaching three classes. Or maybe the last time you had a block of time for writing or really attention for writing was pre-tenure, and now you're chair of the department. Or perhaps you were writing a lot when you had no kids and now you have one, or one kid versus two kids, right? What were the actual conditions under which you were writing, what was working about that what didn't? Use your imagination to think about how it might be different for a writing lifestyle.

Being really clear on your choices, your intentions, your motives, and your context can really help you make a decision about whether or not this is a good time to adopt a writing lifestyle. And it's okay to say it's not the right time! If you do decide that this is the right time, it's a good time for a writing lifestyle, I want to offer this as a goal – and this might feel a little bit odd to you! I'm curious what you think about this. For me, the goal of a writing lifestyle is to get interested in your project, and to enjoy your writing time so that hopefully, you will want to sit down again tomorrow, or in your next session, and do it again. This sounds really simple, right? But we can feel really vulnerable to perfectionism and persistence coming up, perhaps comparison to previous writing binges, or writing at different times of your life. This is why we really intentionally make those comparisons. One phrase I hear a lot at this stage of the process for folks is, “why can't I just…”

• “Why can't I just put my butt in the chair and write?”

• “Why can't I just start writing every morning?”

• “Why can't I just write?”

There's a lot of self-blame and self-recrimination that can come up, so this is a really vulnerable time. Thus the goal of getting interested and enjoying your writing time. This has compounding benefits! To be able to reliably stir up your interest, to reliably—not every time, but mostly—enjoy, your writing sessions will come back to you a million-fold! The key here is to find out what gets you into writing, what gets you looking forward to your writing sessions. So we're going to focus on three aspects of yourself to make a lot of space for being kind to yourself. We're going to talk about inviting emotions into your writing sessions. We're going to talk about incorporating embodiment, thinking of yourself as a full embodied human. And finally, thinking about yourself as a social being, what are the social supports that you need to support your writing?

One of the things that I've noticed when I work with clients is that there's the writing, and then there's all the feelings that we have about our writing. The writing itself is actually pretty neutral. The feelings about it can be much more complex, and often get in the way of the actual writing. So if we acknowledge the emotional piece of writing, we can make it part of the ongoing rhythm of a writing lifestyle. Instead of something that detracts from our writing, or makes it harder, it can help support our writing when we acknowledge it when we invite it in. Part of what I'm suggesting is accepting that writing can feel like a roller coaster, that we're gonna have a lot of feelings, and that's okay, that's something to expect.

This became very clear to me a couple of years ago. I was on sabbatical. One day, I was really grumpy, I was just feeling really awful about my writing, and I didn't have a lot of confidence that day. I ended up accidentally rewriting a paragraph that I'd already written a few days ago. I later found the original. And I happened to remember that on that day, I felt great. I felt confident. And what was a real eye opener for me was that the writing was exactly the same. I mean, it was exactly the same. I used the same word choices, the same structure. It was such a surprise for me to see that on this day that I felt great, and I felt like totally in the flow of writing, and on this day that I was super grumpy and like hating writing, I produced the exact same content. This was really important for me to see that my feelings about my writing, writing didn't actually make a difference for the writing itself. Now, it made a difference from my experience, certainly, but there was this freeing moment around my output.

So what are some ways to invite your feelings into the writing process, so they don't take over the writing itself? I think one of the most straightforward ways is a writing journal in which you write about your feelings about writing. And this is something that you could do before or after, or both before and after.

• What's my energy right now?

• How am I going into this session? (Or if you're writing at the end: How am I leaving this session?)

• How am I feeling about it?

• What's important about what I'm writing today?

• And then, this is important, especially if you're doing a journal before your session: What expectations do I have about my work day? Surfacing those expectations and then being able to clearly evaluate them: does this actually really make sense? Is this a realistic goal for me today?

Being really aware of those feelings can help you manage some of that affect around writing. Some other ways of opening the door to emotions about writing... I work with someone who does a short meditation practice before her writing sessions, and that works really well for her. Some other ideas: you could just use a simple scale with things like energy 1-10, confidence, 1-10, and you can change out the different emotions that you want to track or choose the ones that work for you. You might get an emotion card deck and choose a card for how you're feeling and maybe one for how you want to feel. You could pull a tarot card, if that's something that you enjoy doing. You could choose a sticker at the beginning or the end, anything that helps you take a moment to check in with yourself. It doesn't matter exactly what it is, except that you find it useful, and you don't dread doing it. Acknowledging that having feelings is a normal part of the writing process.

All right, embodiment is another key piece for the writing lifestyle, along with emotion. The writing lifestyle incorporates embodiment –we're not just eyeballs and typing fingers, right? We have emotions, we have bodies. And it's so important to support your body through a writing lifestyle, for a couple of reasons. One is that thinking itself is an embodied practice. If you've ever been on a run and had an amazing revelation about your work, or been swimming or taking a walk or whatever, you know, this is true, right? Thinking is an embodied practice. Sitting is not necessarily great for making those connections. And yet, you know, this is what we do. Writing is thinking. Thinking is embodied. So taking a walk and using a voice-to-text app could be a way to change up your writing practice and incorporate movement. Another is simply going to another place, changing the environmental context in which your body is acting. Go somewhere else to read, go to the local library, or go right at a coffee shop, change that environment. You might try drawing a mind map or getting out some paper and markers or crayons and, without using words, draw something that represents your writing task for the day. Drawing is an embodied intellectual practice. Allowing ourselves to be a little bit more creative with what we consider work.

Thinking is our work. This is something that I talk with a lot of academics about – that this is one of the things that we assumed was true about the academic lifestyle, that we'd be thinking all the time. We all laugh! We know what we're doing, and often it's not thinking. It's various kinds of administrative work, etc. But you know, how can we get back to valuing thinking? One way to do it is to bring back that embodied practice of thinking. Stand or move, or however your body wants or needs or can move: incorporate that. This requires experimentation and trying things out.

Another key piece of embodiment is this idea that when we are engrossed in writing, we often disregard our bodies. And that can be a huge challenge for enjoying writing, and therefore sustaining a writing lifestyle. You know, we might be forgetting to eat, we might forget to drink water, we might drink too much coffee. Or if you're really deep into a project, you might have trouble sleeping, maybe you're thinking about writing or thinking about your work. Maybe you're not incorporating the things that usually help you manage stress, or ignoring back pain. That's the one I usually do. I've also heard from folks who might decide they don't have time to do, for example, their PT exercises for their knee, which then just creates problems down the line. So some things that might help us remember our bodies. Even though we've set up this very strange artificial system of sitting, and using the computer, and not moving, you might set a timer to remind you to get up and move, you can incorporate short walks either through your home or office or go around the block. You can do a short stretching session or short yoga session, which I like to do on Alexa (Alexa has some little short yoga sessions). You might schedule having a cup of tea, whatever that means for you, or putting lunch on your calendar, trying a five-minute workout video, doing a plank, for however long, whatever it is that you enjoy, or just trying out some different things. Just to remember and remind ourselves that we have bodies and that our bodies need attention and care, so that we can think.

The third foundational piece of the writing lifestyle is your social identity. Writing can be a supremely isolating activity in really wonderful ways where we can explore in solitude so beautifully. And it can feel stifling and sometimes really lonely. In the writing lifestyle, we can think about that network of social support and interaction very intentionally. So going into your writing lifestyle, consider what you know about yourself as a social human right now, in whatever social context you are in, whatever life stage you are, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, consider that it might be useful to talk about your work to other people regularly, to have a dialogue with a colleague, or perhaps you just need or want to have some fun, some good social engagement time with friends, and that this is going to support your work.

A friend of mine runs an accountability group for her work sprints. She creates an Excel spreadsheet for a couple of weeks at a time, and invites other scholars and colleagues to participate. The spreadsheet includes questions about the kind of work that you're doing, what kind of day that you have, what your goals are, but also, how are you treating yourself? What are you grateful for, with the caveat that it's okay not to be grateful for anything, sometimes or all the time, right? Sometimes that's just not on the table. And that kind of sharing really creates community and a sense of purpose. A wonderful client likes to plan social events throughout their writing lifestyle, so they can really look forward to that aspect of themselves being that social person. And don't forget pets! When I'm writing, I really like to have my birds in the room, because they make this sort of lovely twittering noise. And that helps me focus and makes me feel less isolated. So that's an example that is social, but it's not really involving other people necessarily. You can really think broadly about what it means to be a human being in a social context. You can also be intentional about asking for different kinds of support from family and friends. You are not alone during your writing lifestyle. I know that building networks of support and asking for help are not easy. And in fact, this is one of the main aspects of my approach to faculty development. I have a whole workshop just on networks of support—and I will do a podcast as well on this topic. It's not easy. But I want to note that connecting with people regularly during your writing lifestyle makes it easier to ask for support when you need it. And it's an opportunity to start building those skills.

I have a lot of ideas around the writing lifestyle, and the roots of them are really here in this podcast episode in attending to three aspects of yourself, your emotions around the writing process, caring for your body as you're writing, and remembering that we as humans need sociality and connection, perhaps even more while writing. Focusing on these three things is going to support you to find what works for you, and help you enjoy your writing so you want to continue to write. We want to have fun with our writing so we can return to it as a fulfilling practice in itself.

In my next podcast episode, I'll share some of what you might encounter as you're moving through the writing lifestyle. The bones of it are here in this episode, but next time, I'll help you set expectations for the skills you'll be practicing, particularly how to reconnect with your writing, which is something that we will be doing consistently throughout the writing lifestyle, because our circumstances change, and our comfort level changes, our contexts change. So that skill of reconnecting is really important. I'll also talk about some of the challenges that you'll experience. I like to call them the Fire Swamp, and the Slog. We'll talk about strategies for what to do at these moments, and how to sustain your writing lifestyle through these inevitable vicissitudes. And we'll consider how to be intentional about when a writing lifestyle comes to an end. Until then, I hope this perspective on writing brings you some relief and adds some intention and play and fun to your writing practice.