[Writing Practice Series] When Your Writing Practice Is Resilient You Don’t Have To Be [RE-RELEASE EP 191]

In this episode, I discuss how a resilient writing practice allows you to navigate life’s inevitable derailments so you don’t have to be resilient yourself. Rather than writing from guilt or pressure, a resilient practice lets you pause and return to your work. I explain how predictable challenges, like academic responsibilities, and unpredictable ones, like illness, can impact your writing. 

Then, I share the essential components of a resilient practice and how to foster a more positive relationship with your writing. From embracing disruptions to accepting your humanity and setting realistic expectations, I guide you through the process of maintaining consistency and finding fulfillment in your writing. 

Handling Derailments Because of Job Obligations

Having someone tell you to make writing your top priority, make time on the calendar for publications, and stick to it no matter what doesn’t work. You’re human, and life happens. There will always be derailments, from unpredictable events like children getting sick to more predictable academic obligations such as rejections, revisions (R&Rs), grading due dates, and speaking engagements. To make your writing practice more resilient, you need to shift away from an all-or-nothing mindset, create a flexible plan, and cultivate a relationship with your writing that allows you to step away when needed and return to it once the distractions have passed.

Thoughts Around Unpredictable Derailments

It is essential you accept and embrace your humanity. When you or your kids get sick, it derails your writing. Rather than beating yourself up for not having time to write when you’re sick, shift to a mindset of grace. Negative thoughts and the urge to push through when you’re unwell or facing a significant life event only keep you stuck in an unhealthy relationship with your writing. Developing a resilient writing practice means recognizing that it’s okay to miss a day or two — you will always be able to return to your work when life settles down.

What a Resilient Writing Practice Looks Like

A resilient writing practice isn’t about one specific technique or writing every single day. It’s about having a toolkit of strategies that you can call upon to move your writing forward, especially when things get tough. It’s also about fostering a positive relationship with your writing so that frustrating days are rare, and most of the time, you feel excited and fulfilled when working on your publications. Additionally, understanding your own writing process — knowing what motivates you and what tends to derail you — is key to building long-term resilience.

To learn more about the skills and tools needed to build a resilient writing practice, enroll in our Navigate program!

“I am embracing the word resilient when it comes to your writing practice because I think it captures a really important feature or aspect of a writing practice that we don’t talk about enough. The way we tend to talk about when it comes to writing always feels punitive. Since you cannot write from a place of guilt, I think an important part of your writing practice is being able to set your writing down and pick it back up.” 

“Your writing practice needs to be resilient because your writing is going to get derailed. You might get derailed professionally or you might get derailed because of being a human and getting ill. Life ebbs and flows. That’s why your writing practice needs to be resilient so that you don’t have to be so damn resilient. 

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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