Writing Workshop

16th May 2019
Held by Kylie Crane

At the core of academic practice, and of particular pertinence to scholars in the final stages of completing their dissertation, there it is: writing.

A solitary practice, for the most part, it can be very difficult, isolating, even disconcerting. It is burdened with (oftentimes unrealistic) expectations. It is subject to (extremely creative strategies of) procrastination. And we face challenges of time management, as well as strategies for dealing with problematic interruptions and ensuring necessary breaks and.

The workshop was conceived as a forum for the exchange of ideas and development of strategies to support the production of text, including (rough) writing and editing. Accordingly, we took the time and space to reflect on our own writing practices. We talked about the challenges we face in writing, so as to push back on beliefs of genius inspiration or the myth of the inspired and yet somehow isolated scholar. We also shared strategies and tactics we have developed to support the production of text (using pomodoros, Seinfeld chains and other tricks of staying on task, blocking time and/or social media, parking downhill (Joan Bolker), marking problems during writing to come back to later, and other accountability tricks, but also resting and attention restoration techniques), as well as techniques for pushing through editing (including some very ‘old school’ ones that require the use of scissors and post-its).