How to write a lot

Moments before I wasted my money on a book about writing well, Amazon suggested that I also buy a book on writing a lot. And since Amazon would never recommend a book that I didn't really need, I bought it.

The book is called How To Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing. It's by a psychologist named Paul Silvia. It's cheap. It's short. It's not bad. If you really have a hard time getting writing done, it might be worth your money.

The book's fundamental message, though, is one that you've probably heard before: The secret to writing a lot is to schedule writing time and to stick to that schedule. You can start with a few hours a week, preferably spread over several days. But make a schedule and stick to it. That's it.

Philosophers will want to skip some sections. Silvia explicitly wrote the book for psychologists. There's a whole chapter on writing papers in the Introduction–Methodology–Results–Discussion format that dominates psychology articles. Annoyingly, the publisher describes the book as "[d]rawing examples from [Silvia's] own field of psychology," rather than being for psychologists.

Silvia's adopts an informal, humorous tone, which makes the book rather quotable:

"Finding time is a destructive way of thinking about writing. Never say this again. Instead of finding time to write, allot time to write."

"Like businesspeople, academics enjoy talking about goals. Some academics are so enamored of goals, initiatives, and strategic plans that they become deans and provosts."

"I assume that each paper I submit will be rejected. It's the only rational conclusion, and my faith in rationality is supported by the amount of rejections I receive."

"Rejections are like a sales tax on publications. The more papers you publish, the more rejections you receive." 

"A writing schedule brings balance to your life.... Is academic writing more important than spending time with your family and friends, petting the dog, and drinking coffee? A dog unpetted is a sad dog; a cup of coffee forsaken is caffeine lost forever." 

 

 

Comments

[Marcus Arvan]

David: good stuff.

I agree with the point about rejections. One must get used to rejections. They always sting a bit, but everyone I know who's been successful has told me the same thing: send out lots of stuff. Yes, you'll get lots of rejections (9 out of 10 on average!)...but that 1 out of 10 will be a publication, and it's the 1 out of 10 that shows up on your CV.

I also agree wit the point about work/life balance. Writing is important, but don't let it take over your life. It's important to partition your life. For me, writing time is Monday-Friday, daytime hours when I'm not teaching. All other times are for my wife, dog, family, and friends.

Finally, I have to differ a bit on the "allotting time" suggestion. If one allots 5 hours a day to writing, what happens if you spend that 5 hours going in circles? Answer: frustration...and frustration doesn't lend itself to productivity. The single best piece of writing advice I ever received was consistent productivity requires a positive attitude every day, and a positive attitude is produced by accomplishing small goals every day -- for example, a set number of pages a day (say, 5). Anyway, I've found that it works. Set a daily page goal. Don't stop until you meet it. As soon as you meet it, stop. You'll wake up every day with a positive attitude, because every day you'll have gotten something done.

[Mark Alfano]

Nice post, David. I also find that having (too) many projects going simultaneously helps. I'm one of those structured procrastinators (http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/) who's pretty good about doing the third or fourth thing on my to-do list in a timely fashion.

[David Morrow]

Marcus,

Silvia also likes goal-setting. I think he would be okay with your approach as long as you scheduled time to achieve those goals--e.g., by saying "At 3:00 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I'm going to sit down and write 500 words, no matter how long that takes me." I think this would still count as "allocating time" rather than "finding time." I agree that what really matters is maintaining momentum and avoiding what Silvia calls "binge writing."

Mark,

I'm procrastinating right now!