It's a Feature, not a Bug!

A little more about conquering fears, swagger, and not writing defensively

Hi friends,

I woke up this morning thinking about how, four years ago today, I was one thousand months pregnant eight months pregnant with my third kid, living in the middle of the country thousands of miles from any family chairing a scrappy little political science department as the world shut down. So this Cicero quote made me laugh.

Here we are, four years later! Kids still aren’t obeying their parents! People are still writing books! Cicero is still relevant content! Heady times.

Anyway, I wrote last week about how you might not need an editor yet—you might just need the space/confidence/swagger to develop the piece into what it’s meant to be.

Today I want to talk about one specific way crises of confidence show up: writing defensively about the perceived weakness or flaw you see in your argument. In fact, often times this weakness is the coolest part of the project! Trust me and keep reading.

A short thought exercise

So, here’s a thought exercise I want you to do with me. Think of the piece of writing you’re avoiding right now—the one that makes you go organize your spice collection by color or grade midterms instead. Get a piece of paper, and write down what you’re most afraid is wrong with the project. Don’t just write down “this is unpublishable” or “I won’t get a job” — write the because part. “I’m afraid this is unpublishable because…people will call this me-search.” or “I won’t get a tenure track job because…people will think I’m too old.” You get the idea. Write down everything swirling around in your head.

What you wrote probably falls into one of two categories: shit that you can fix (but don’t wanna), and shit that you can’t fix but is actually the best thing about the project.

Category A isn’t easy, but most of us know how to tackle it. One of my clients is working on an R and R. She suspected there were some data snags when they submitted the paper, and then Reviewer 1 said “hey this is great, but what about this data stuff?” And she said “okay, fine…” and so now she is fixing the data stuff. This is great—it’s how science is supposed to work! Human knowledge will be better because of peer review and the chance to do things more precisely.

None of y’all come talk to me about Category A problems because you know what to do, even if you don’t want to actually do it.

What we talk about instead are Category B problems. These are existential, not (usually) empirical. They have a voice inside your head: they sound like that member of your dissertation committee, or your vaguely snooty aunt or the “cool” kids from graduate school who tell you why this work isn’t important, or that you’re not important enough to do the work. They are the gatekeeping, imposter-syndroming assholes that take up space in your head and stay there.

Flipping the fear

So look back at what you wrote above about your deepest, darkest fear about the project you’re avoiding. Find the place in the manuscript or job materials or whatever where you’ve tried to caveat it away, where you’re writing defensively, where you’re making excuses, and move all of that to the first paragraph about why your work is the most awesome. I mean it.

Here is what that looks like:

Fear: They’ll think I’m too old.

Defensive writing: “although I earned my PhD later in life than other candidates, I am still….”

Flip it: “as a first-generation college student, I had the opportunity to work in retail and industry before returning to graduate school. This experience will enable me to connect with the vibrant first-generation and community college transfer community at your institution.”
~
Fear: Reviewers will want fancy stats or ask me about generalizability and I just want to write about the cultural production of gender norms and sheep-related professions.

Defensive writing: “even though 30 interviews with female sheepherders is a fairly small-N, the results provisionally indicate that maybe…”

Flip it: “Research (quantstudy1, 2023 quantstudy2 2024) has shown a relationship between rigid gender norms and nomadic lifestyles, but how does this manifest itself in people’s lived experiences? Interviewing thirty female sheepherders across the Scottish Highlands provides insight into the performative elements of….”
~
Fear: All the bros in the field are going to come at me so I need to cite them so they know I know what I’m talking about and then maybe they’ll listen.

Defensive writing: “a considerable amount of scholarships exists on the topic of why men are great leaders [and then 7000 words of citations about masculine leadership written by white men until finally…] This paper argues that maybe we should start to think about looking at women as leaders too.”*

Flip it: “Existing research is essentially a masturbatory exercise in conflating masculinity with ‘effective’ leadership [cite women who have written about this too so you don’t drive up the citation counts of people you hate]. This project reimagines the category of leadership through a gendered lens, finding that…”
~
Fear: COVID ruined everything so won’t get tenure and won’t have a job and will have to wait tables back in my hometown which may actually pay better and have better work/life balance but my boyfriend from high school still hangs out there and…ugh.

Defensive writing: “my CV has a gap between 2020 and 2022, and most of my papers are co-authored. However, a paper in the top anthropology journal shows that I am capable of great things please just tenure me…”

Flip it: “despite the fact that the COVID pandemic shut down most global fieldwork, including my NSF-funded trip to Fiji, I was able to leverage my extensive network in country to continue collecting data and producing high-quality research. This kind of community-engaged research that makes visible the vital role of cohorts in country and is the applied work that our university hopes…”

*There is a great section in Pamela Haag’s Revise book about how this kind of language obscures power relations.

What’s your point?

Here’s my point! Making yourself small doesn’t mean that people are less likely to attack you. It makes you an easier target for all of the academic bullies, haters, and reviewer 2s.

By taking what you perceive to be a weakness and casting it as an asset, you do two things: you make the doubters defend their ground. And you give your allies space in the conversation. It lets you cite the people doing good work, not the people you disagree with (they already exclusively cite each other! Don’t give them more air!). It gives your letter writers the language you want them to use in the file explaining why your work is worthwhile and valuable. It gives graduate students who want to do cool stuff a model for what that can look like.

In other words, a little swagger makes the world go round.

Write good things,

Kelly

Housekeeping

PS—This newsletter will always be free, but if you like it you can always forward it to a friend or nudge a colleague to take one of the super fun classes coming up!

• Book writing workshop! So You Want to Write a Book: A Yearlong Book Writing Workshop. I couldn’t be more excited about this workshop, and I hope that all of you with great book ideas will consider applying! All of the details you need, including scheduling and payment logistics, are here, and you can apply here. I’m also very happy to set up a quick chat to answer questions about the workshop and see if it’s a good fit for your project.

• Free writing challenge! If you’re looking ahead for some end-of-semester accountability and camaraderie, sign up for our free AprWriMo challenge, where we’ll write together every day from April 15-April 30. We’ll also have a full-day minimalist writing retreat on April 19, where we’ll open Zoom up at 8 am eastern, and keep it open until 8 pm or the last person logs off. Sign up here. It’ll be great, I promise. (If you’ve already applied, I’ll send out info soon).

• Editing and coaching! If you think you’ll need editing or coaching support this summer or fall, now is a great time to get on our calendar. Along with the traditional developmental editing and consulting services, we’re expanding to offer new services, including drop-in editing, support for scholars for whom English is an additional language, and help with alt-ac job searches.

• Future plans…Folks have been wondering if there will be writing workshops this summer. Other than the book writing class, I’m taking a break from workshops from May through September. But I’ll be editing and working one-on-one with folks this summer, and then back in the fall with a new (and even more awesome) version of the Writers’ Circle, so stay tuned for more details that!