David Hodgson
Planning and preparation as key to enabling a space for writing
I have done a lot of writing in the last few years. Finishing a PhD, several papers for publication, and co-authoring a full-size text book. Plus starting on new papers and a new book. This volume of writing doesn’t happen by accident: it has to be planned in detail. And given that many of these writing tasks overlap and are competing with other things—such as teaching, research supervision, life generally—then scheduling how the writing is going to happen is really essential. I have to carefully plan the time and space for writing. There is nothing particularly special about planning in principle, but how well the planning goes will shape—over a span of time—my ability to sit down and actually write at a level of consistency needed to meet my goals. Plus, planning itself can be enjoyable, sort of like trying to solve a puzzle. The main problem (puzzle) I am trying to solve using the approach outlined below is time. Writing takes time, and it is too easy for other things to crowd out the space I need to write. Also, although I generally enjoy writing, it can be downright difficult at times, and so time is needed to soothe the temptation to do all those other (sometimes easier) things.
I tend to complete a good deal of writing in blocks of time, usually three days. This doesn’t replace smaller doses of writing (an hour here, a morning there), but blocks of time of about three days can help keep things moving. This time is precious, so it has to be used wisely and planned for accordingly. What follows is an ideal vision, notwithstanding the fact that things don’t always go to plan!
At the end of each year I will plan out the entire following years’ worth of three-day writing retreats (usually 5 or 6 retreats). This is also a space to review the previous year’s efforts. I will do this with a colleague (Dr Lynelle Watts), with whom I do I lot of co-authoring. When I say ‘retreat’ I don’t mean trips to a cabin by a lake with a writing coach. I just mean three-day blocks of time. Retreats can be at home, in an office, in a library room or meeting room on campus, or at a café (so long as there is a power supply for laptops). Mixing up different writing spaces helps with creativity and keeps things interesting overall. This planning is important, as these retreats need to fit around critical times in the year where I know I will be busy with other things, or have other responsibilities to attend to (for example, I won’t plan a retreat when I know I might have to host a birthday party for someone immediately before or after). Some timeslots in the year are just better than others for such things. A whole-year plan will sort that out. Second, the jobs of writing that I know are on the horizon are allocated to these retreats in advance. If I know that there is a paper or chapter due sometime in the year, then these are plugged into the retreats well in advance. This takes some of the pressure off from feeling like I’m always in a flat spin panic about needing to write all the time, but can’t work out what I should be doing when. I can relax a little knowing that certain writing tasks are allocated and planned for, and I can forget about them for now, until the time arrives.
So much for planning out the year, each writing retreat requires its own planning. As mentioned, the time is precious so I like to make the most of it. Three weeks out from the retreat I will prepare a one-page outline of what I need to work on. This is like a to-do list, like a basic map of the writing goal (for example, a chapter or article outline). I also make whatever arrangements I need at home to prepare as well. This is important too.
I then spend the next three weeks using whatever time I have collecting and organising sources, such as articles, books, websites, etc. Websites are book-marked, articles downloaded and saved, and chapters or sections in books marked with flags. Depending on the task, I try to collect 20-30 sources. Full details for all sources are entered into Endnote. Then I read through them all, making little notes as I go. This initial preparation time can be enormously satisfying, almost like preparing for a holiday or organising a party. It helps me build commitment to the writing process, and finding and organising sources of information gets me enthused about topic. Then I revise the outline or to-do list and then I am ready for the retreat.
Day one of the writing and I spend the morning going through my sources, organising them, and entering more notes into the outline to start to flesh the details out. In the afternoon I begin to write. I will normally finish in the evening. By now my head is really into the topic and I have a good sense of what I am trying to do. At this point I am glad for the preparation as it now feels like actual words going on to an actual page might even be possible.
Day two is where the bulk of the writing happens. I normally start at about 6.00am and work through until about 9.00pm. I write using ‘shut up and write’[1] and ‘pomodoro’[2] techniques in continuous rounds (30 minutes on, 15-20 minutes off, using a timer). Break times are used for conversation with writing buddies, small walks, food, etc. Although I read and take notes in silence, I write to music using playlists I have created on my phone. Listening to music plus writing in rounds means that I can sustain a long period of writing. Music is also an enjoyable part of the process. I try not to censor what I am writing—the goal is simply to work through the sources and take copious notes and start to organise them coherently.
Day three starts again at 6.00am. Usually on the third day I am trying to organise and make sense of what I have written so far. I will spend the morning organising and reorganising the material, going back through the sources, deleting the rubbish, until I have a draft of about 5,000 words. In the afternoon I will start to edit on screen, and make comments and highlight the sections in the text where there are missing sources, under-developed points or weaknesses. By about 3.00pm I have usually had enough! The last thing I do is make a new to-do list.
The outcome of this process is that I now have about 5,000 words of reasonable draft. The next three or four weeks I spend whatever time I can redrafting, finding missing sources, finishing off any missing transitions or links, and then proofing and editing. By now the piece of writing is about 6,000 words, about the size of an average article.
Conversations I have had with colleagues reveals that this method is not for everyone, and there are limits to it. For example, some writing retreats have been less productive than others. Sometimes the writing process simply surfaces problems with my idea or thinking, so I have to rethink my plans and start over. And if the material and writing is very intense and difficult, the time after can require some recovery. But if it works well, then it is a good way to make some headway into some significant writing goals, such as producing a paper, or getting a chapter written.
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