Building Your Writing Toolkit IV: The Most Important Resource of All (YOU!)
My reservations about book workshops, and on bringing summer swagger into the semester.
Friends!
Some of you are already back on campus! How the hell did that happen?
Over the past month, we’ve talked about different ways to assemble yourself a toolkit to keep writing as the semester starts: building community, the role writing coaches can play, when to call on an editor. Knowing that you don’t have to do it alone can help you keep writing as things get hectic or stressful.
But today I want to talk about what I think is the most important, most effective weapon in your arsenal: yourself. Cheesy, true, underrated.
A hard truth
“If you want to make the wrong decision, ask everyone.” —Naval Ravikant
Most people get feedback too early in the writing process. And early, overly prescriptive feedback can derail or kill a project.
Over the past year, I’ve had a conversation with over a dozen (mostly, but not only, junior) scholars who have lost all confidence in a project—or in themselves. They’d been given the advice by a well-meaning senior colleague to get advice too early: either to have a book conference or to go out on early submission with an early book proposal and a few sample chapters before the book was done. Or they have sent an article to five different people for “feedback,” and now have five competing early review memos to read. Or they’ve hired an editor who has sent them back a plan and a revised table of contents and given them a “surefire” formula for getting the book into the world—but one that doesn’t match at all what was in their head.
And look—everyone in this scenario is acting in what they think is the best interest of the writer. The writer wants to know what smart, talented people think of their work! The senior colleagues are trying to be good mentors and to create a network for their junior colleagues! An advanced contract can feel reassuring! Editors read dozens of books a year and so like to give their writers jumpstarts and a formula that works!
No doubt—for some, this works.
But for others, this process winds up being what a friend of mine characterizes as “academic hazing disguised as help,” and the writer ends up completely blocked. Instead of feeling like there is a clear path to revision and publication, the person ends up with the voice of the critic echoing in their heads, and with a project without a core.
Two contrasting examples
Know thyself: One of my clients got an R and R from an interdisciplinary journal, and the reviewer had suggested adopting specific framework for the paper. She was frustrated—”that’s not my jam at all!” We took a look at the paper, and realized the framework she did want to use was there, but underdeveloped. The reviewer wasn’t being a jerk, they were just looking at what seemed like a blank canvas and trying to fill it in. So my client wrote a nice paragraph strengthening the paper’s initial framework, a few sentences in the response memo about why it was a better way to go than what the reviewer was suggesting, and boom! The R and R turned into an acceptance. The process wasn’t super painful: she knew what the paper needed to be, and just needed to close the loop. If she hadn’t trusted herself, she would have been fitting a square peg in a round hole, and the paper would have been much worse.
The danger of letting other people define you: Another person came to me panicked because she needed a book for tenure and she was running out of time. She’d had a book workshop a year ago, and the reviewers had suggested a completely different empirical strategy—collecting quantitative data from several country sites. The workshop participants were so enthusiastic about what could be—given world enough, and time—that they tried to convince her to write an entirely different book instead. And it’s true—the book that the workshop participants had dreamed into existence seems like a great book—just not my client’s book.
The problem was that my client didn’t have the funding or time to do that kind of data collection, and wasn’t even a quantitative scholar! She had a rich set of qualitative data that she was basing the book on. And it was sufficient to write an interesting, compelling book in its own right. But she was so destabilized by the book workshop that she lost confidence in what she did have, and had been frozen for a year. So our work together started with turning weakness into strength: figuring out why a qualitative approach was the best way to answer her research question. Justifying why hers was the best book for her to write. And she got the contract—and eventually tenure. But it was harder, and more psychologically fraught, than it needed to be.
Two overwrought analogies
Let the duck peck: This one is sad—feel free to skip. In Louise Penny’s Three Pines murder mystery series (10/10 recommend), the grizzled poet Ruth Zardo finds herself caring for two duck eggs. One hatches easily, but the second duck is struggling, so Ruth helps the duck free himself. But hatchlings need the struggle to strengthen themselves for the world, so the duck she helped break free of his shell ends up dying…while the sister duck who struggled and freed herself survives.
Let the sourdough sit: A few weeks ago I decided I wanted a sourdough starter, so naturally I decided I needed to make one from scratch. I read all the things, and got it started. And about a week in, it started bubbling a bit more so I got all excited and tried to make some bread. And…it was flat. A tasty, pretty, brick of bread with no air or lightness. The starter wasn’t ready, so my bread never rose. It needed me to keep feeding it, keep building that little yeast colony, helping it get nice and frothy, not just bubbly. So it sits on my counter, still maturing, and we’ll wait a little longer to have sourdough bread.
You are the hero your writing needs: Embracing a productive struggle
My suggestion is to embrace a productive struggle, and know that good writing takes time. If you’re still writing, if the project is stuck in your head when you go grocery shopping or put the kids to bed, if you’re annoyed at the fact that it’s taking you so long to write through things and it should be done already but you still have more to say, if your brain is itchy—YOU NEED TO KEEP GOING (be the strong duck!). Don’t ask for feedback, ask for support to keep up the momentum and to keep writing.
If you are blocked—you have an outline, you’ve tried free writing, you’ve tried thinking about how you’d teach it—and words just aren’t coming, maybe it’s time to talk to a coach or an accountability group about the process.
But—and here comes the pep talk—you are the only one who can do the project you’re working on. You are the expert. It needs your knowledge and skills and passion. If you trust the process, and trust your gut, you’ll write your way to a draft that is ready for feedback. But until then, you need swagger to know that you’ll get there.
A final note—on being an alpha reader
Many of you, my friendly readers, are on the opposite side of this: are the people being asked to be the senior scholar in book workshops or to read early drafts for feedback. It is tempting to be like “ooh what if you did this!” and share the excitement of a nearly blank canvas. Instead, my suggestion is to limit your feedback to a version of three things:
— “Love this—can’t wait to read more!”
— “Can you give more detail/expand here? I can’t quite visualize…”
— “I loved xxx’s work on this topic. You might want to take a look if you need a model.”
And that’s it. “Keep this, do more of that, read this” is all people need at a formative stage to keep writing. And later, when there’s a fully formed manuscript in front of you, that’s when you switch from alpha reader to reviewer. Or better yet, suggest postponing the workshop all together: the people I know who had successful book workshops had a complete manuscript that was already under review. It was about refining, not forming, the product.
So friends, as you start the fall semester, trust yourself to write great things. And if you need a pep talk, I’m around.
Kelly
What’s going on around here
Writers’ circles: There are two spots left in my writers’ circle for mid-career scholars, and two spots available in the circle for early career scholars (I may open a mixed group depending on demand, but there’s no guarantee). Now is the perfect time to sign up for the weekly writers’ circles. These are a fantastic way to build community, support, and accountability around your writing practices all semester long. Join us, and invite a friend! (If you have signed up, keep an eye out for an email from me).
Free end-of-summer pop-ups:
August 20: 2-3 eastern: Spring 2024: Let’s talk. A combo ask-me-anything and strategy session. We’ll chat about planning for the fall semester, setting intentions, and kicking ass.
August 21: 12-1 eastern: Let’s read. A writing room, but for reading. Pour yourself some tea, close your laptop, and spend an hour reading that book that’s been in your bag all summer but you’ve never managed to open.
August 22: 2-3 eastern: Let’s write. An hour-long goal-setting and writing session to get you ready for the fall.
Sign up here, and I’ll send you a link for the sessions—join for one, two, or all three! (PS - a few people have signed up and their emails have bounced back. If you haven’t gotten an email from me by tomorrow, shoot me an email and I’ll send you the link).