Change
In this recent podcast the wonderful Sarah Rhea Werner discussed saying versus doing in our creative projects - specifically, when we repeatedly say we want to do something but it never seems to happen. Writers, are you with me? The episode really resonated for me as, at the moment, I am still struggling to find the time and space I need to work on my manuscript. The project is outlined, I am excited about it, I’ve talked it through with a few people and they are excited too. But it isn’t getting written. Werner makes the point that, contrary to the deeply unhelpful doctrines of ‘just do it’ or of shame-filled self-criticism ( I am such a procrastinator, etcetc.), if we say we want to write but then don’t there is probably a good reason. A reason we can take seriously.
Werner ultimately finds her own block in the reality of change - we are not the same people we were when a project was conceptualised or initiated, or our lives have altered in some way. I love this, because I see so many clients holding on to an idealised vision of what their work life ‘should’ look like and feeling deeply uncomfortable with the idea of flexibility and shifting writing patterns. Across the course of a PhD or a monograph, or even of an article, it is highly unlikely that our writing conditions will stay fixed. Life happens - illness, career change, family needs - but also shifting interests, new ideas, updated research, clarified goals. There is usually more potential for flexibility within a project than we realise at the outset - PhDs can include sections on how context transformed the initial scope of the research, editors can be talked through why a book that was going to focus on one theory now explores three of them, articles can be revised and resubmitted elsewhere. And yes, funders can be appeased too, sometimes through compromise admittedly but still, the scope for change is there.
So it really sits with us to evaluate why the writing isn’t happening, or isn’t happening how we want it to, and what fixed or unhelpful ideas we are carrying around to bloat the project and slow our progress. In coaching I would call these limiting core beliefs, and yes we can develop these in relation to our writing too. Mine are:
I need big chunks of time in order to make a start on a book
A book is a BIG project that is somehow different from other forms of writing
I need to know everything I need to know before I start
People don’t want to hear from me unless I can prove I am an expert
I have no right to take up space in this field
I have to get it right first time
How many of those did you resonate with? I’m guessing quite a few, if you are an academic writer, since I think these are the core beliefs that sort of get grafted in with a PhD. The mystique of the doctorate is intensely unhelpful, in all sorts of ways - it contributes to the enduring elitism of the sector, it allows senior academic to behave like arseholes and get away with it, it makes writing a long-form research project a much harder endeavor than it needs to be. And once we have completed the thesis we then carry these beliefs into our first monograph, or even beyond academia (case in point right here), waiting for the hammer blow of criticism and correction. The one size fits all approach to doctoral studies has a lot to answer for, not least the way in which it hamstrings otherwise deeply talented and creative writers and fills them with self-doubt and shame.
I am giving myself a break about the book at the moment, because there are good reasons I am not writing it and those reasons will change with time. It is ok to go slow. It is ok to wait a little, and to reorganise a few things. I know that when I do start developing my manuscript in a more concerted way, that many of those limiting core beliefs will fade into the background in the face of mounting contradictory evidence. That’s what happened here on Substack, and a book is no different. But I also need to confront the reality of what writing in my current circumstances means. I’m not an academic any more, I live an hour plus away from a major library, I’m self-employed with unpredictable hours, and I have a dog to walk. It can’t, and it won’t, look like it did when I was writing my thesis. The fact that I still visualise research based writing as long blocks of time, piles of books, and pages of notes is one the main reasons I haven’t managed to find a rhythm yet. Things have changed and my writing process needs to change too.