Get Your Words Out 2019
Dec. 31st, 2019 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI wrote creative fiction on a total of 241 days in 2019.
I somehow managed to meet the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
getyourwordsout "Journeyman" writing habit challenge (writing on 240 days of the year) despite the fact that I hardly wrote anything creative during the first four months of 2019.
What can I say, I was recovering from a serious suicide attempt while trying to submit both a book manuscript and my tenure file by the end of April. That shit was intense.
Setting those first four months aside, I worked on creative writing an average of 24.25 days a month. Every day would be ideal for me – writing is the part of my day I look forward to the most – but teaching, travel, and conferences take a lot out of me, and sometimes it’s hard to be fully human when I get home at night.
In terms of wordcounts, who even knows, really.
Since AO3 keeps statistics, I can say that I wrote the first 40,000 words of a fanfic novel, plus about 40,000 words of shorter pieces. On top of that, I wrote a lot of original fiction, but that’s difficult to measure in terms of wordcounts since it’s mostly still in drafts. Although it’s academic nonfiction, I also formally published about 30,000 words of writing this year, and my book manuscript is a little less than 70,000 words (which is normal for a first book my field).
And then there’s everything else, including a whole hell of a lot of blog posts across various platforms.
I’m not interested in comparing myself to other people, especially since many people who consider themselves to be writers tend to be on an entirely different level of productivity than I am. Still, I think it’s been a decent year for me, all things considered.
Actually, you know what. Let’s be real: This year was shit, and I’m happy it’s over.
I have high hopes for next year, though. May 2020 bring better health and lots of good creative energy!
And also... May the new year bring with it less of a compulsion to be "productive" and more of a steady satisfaction in work that makes me happy.
I somehow managed to meet the
getyourwordsout "Journeyman" writing habit challenge (writing on 240 days of the year) despite the fact that I hardly wrote anything creative during the first four months of 2019. What can I say, I was recovering from a serious suicide attempt while trying to submit both a book manuscript and my tenure file by the end of April. That shit was intense.
Setting those first four months aside, I worked on creative writing an average of 24.25 days a month. Every day would be ideal for me – writing is the part of my day I look forward to the most – but teaching, travel, and conferences take a lot out of me, and sometimes it’s hard to be fully human when I get home at night.
In terms of wordcounts, who even knows, really.
Since AO3 keeps statistics, I can say that I wrote the first 40,000 words of a fanfic novel, plus about 40,000 words of shorter pieces. On top of that, I wrote a lot of original fiction, but that’s difficult to measure in terms of wordcounts since it’s mostly still in drafts. Although it’s academic nonfiction, I also formally published about 30,000 words of writing this year, and my book manuscript is a little less than 70,000 words (which is normal for a first book my field).
And then there’s everything else, including a whole hell of a lot of blog posts across various platforms.
I’m not interested in comparing myself to other people, especially since many people who consider themselves to be writers tend to be on an entirely different level of productivity than I am. Still, I think it’s been a decent year for me, all things considered.
Actually, you know what. Let’s be real: This year was shit, and I’m happy it’s over.
I have high hopes for next year, though. May 2020 bring better health and lots of good creative energy!
And also... May the new year bring with it less of a compulsion to be "productive" and more of a steady satisfaction in work that makes me happy.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-02 12:55 am (UTC)I'm glad you're still here. And I, too, am glad to see the back of 2019.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-02 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-02 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-14 09:02 pm (UTC)Really, I thought when I start serious academic work, other stuff I love - reading/writing for pleasure, fics or original works, playing games, watching movies/TV series or anime would have to cease for most part.
Reading this gives me hope :) how do you manage?
no subject
Date: 2020-01-28 12:00 am (UTC)I tried to push back against the culture of "all work all the time" in my department, and even my polite and gentle attempts were met with strong resistance. Some of my colleagues were sympathetic, but people in positions of power accused me of being arrogant and entitled.
I think part of the culture of academia is feeling like everyone has to be constantly interruptible - you have to respond to emails within one or two hours, you have to segment your day into multiple meetings, you have to have a quick turn-around time for edits and revisions, etc. This makes it difficult to enter the state of flow necessary for real research and writing, but people resent you if you say something to the effect of, "I will not be available on Saturday."
I finally ended up experiencing a major health crisis due to chronic exhaustion, and my university was, to say the least, unsympathetic. I was genuinely surprised by how intolerant my colleagues were of me taking even the most unambiguous "I can't come to the department meeting because I'm currently in the hospital" step back from my job.
I know exactly how the university would respond if I told them that I needed to take more time for my writing. I felt like I had to make a decision about what I really wanted from life, so I told my department chair that I would not be renewing my contract in the fall.
I'm not sure if I'm in any position to give advice, but I guess I can say that you should totally enjoy your time as a graduate student and take advantage of all the resources available to you. At the same time, it's good to keep your eyes open for other opportunities to make use of your skills and expertise outside of academia.
Also, something I wish someone had told me while while I was writing my dissertation is that you don't strictly have to write it as an academic book. If you do a decent job with the literature review in the introduction or first chapter, you can get away with making your presentation and contextualization of your research more accessible.
While you're writing, do research on other venues for your writing besides academic journals and see if you can get short segments (of roughly 1.5k words) published on popular websites or blogs. What you can then do is think about how to turn your dissertation into a book project that you can pitch to nonacademic publishers. From what I understand, there's a much larger market for nonfiction than there is for original fiction, and it might be worth going to publishing industry (and small press) conferences in addition to academic conferences.
And then, if you decide to stay in academia and land the university position of your dreams, you will have already imagined your dissertation as a book, so you'll already be a step ahead.
This was a long reply, sorry. But I hope at least a little of this was useful to you!
no subject
Date: 2020-02-02 08:06 pm (UTC)I see… When you were teaching, were you expected to produce publications at the same time, in addition to the other duties? How are you supposed to produce high quality research if you have your attention divided all the time...
I live in Finland at the moment, so the situation here is a bit more relaxed in comparison to other countries. But then I’m not sure where I’ll be going for postdoc. Maybe somewhere where it’s not so chill and the work-life balance is not a priority.
What you said about writing for popular websites/blogs… yeah, it’s something I should definitely start doing, since these days they highlight how important is research dissemination/popularization. Though it’s also something I’m struggling with, it’s hard to let go of discipline-specific jargon :)