[Writing Practice Series] 5 Clues That Writing Is On The Sidelines [RE-RELEASE EP 67]

Listen to five key clues indicating your writing might not get the attention it deserves. For each one, I share why you might have gotten trapped in this practice or mindset and why moving your writing to the top of your priorities is so crucial. 

If you find any of these clues that your writing is on the sidelines ring true, I encourage you to think about how you could rethink your approach to writing. Writing can do so many amazing things for your career, but only if you give it the important place it deserves: right at the center!  

Clue #1: You write outside of regular working hours.

If you save your writing for the evenings or weekends, you aren’t treating it like work. Writing is not an “extra” task; it is THE task and should be part of your regular work day.

Clue #2: Your work schedule is designed around your teaching.

The best time to write is during your Soaring State™. Your schedule should be designed around that priority, not whenever you have classes.

Clue #3: You are teaching the generic department syllabus.

You should be infusing the standard curriculum with your academic mission statement. 

Clue #4: You can’t keep a date with your writing.

Other tasks are being prioritized when, truly, nothing is more important than your writing and publications as a scholar. 

Clue #5: Your pipeline isn’t hanging in your office.

Having your active projects and upcoming tasks in a visible spot in your office keeps your writing at the front of your mind. 

“When we don’t put writing inside of the workday that is normal for whatever our institution is, when instead we say ‘I’ll wake up early and do it before work’ or ‘I I’ll stay late and do it after work’ or ‘I’ll do it on the weekend’ – what you’re saying is that writing isn’t the work and what I’m saying is that writing absolutely is the work.”

“Think about organizing your days around your writing or your weeks around your writing or your semesters around your writing instead of around other things. If you truly want to give writing the important place that it deserves in your career, because of the things it can do for your career, then you need to think about how you can pull your writing off the sidelines and put it in the center.” 

We’ve opened the waitlist for our next cohort of Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap®. Check out the program details and get on the waitlist here.

CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION:

1. Our 12-week Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap® program helps tenure-track womxn and nonbinary professors to publish their backlog of papers so that their voice can have the impact they know is possible. Get on the waitlist here!
2. Cathy’s book, Making Time to Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing is available in print! Learn how to build your career around your writing practice while shattering the myths of writing every day, accountability, and motivation, doing mindset work that’s going to reshape your writing,and changing academic culture one womxn and nonbinary professor at a time. Get your print copy today or order it for a friend here!
3. If you would like to hear more from Cathy for free, please subscribe to the weekly newsletter, In the Pipeline, at scholarsvoice.org. It’s a newsletter that she personally writes that goes out once a week with writing and publication tips, strategies, inspiration, book reviews and more.

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