Think of yourself as a writer

Authors need to understand the process by which their manuscript will be evaluated and take that into account when they submit. If a smart recent college graduate can’t decode what your book is about, you’re in trouble.

When I graduated from college I hoped to land a job working on a dude ranch in Wyoming. Instead, I fell into a career in scholarly publishing, acquiring books for Oxford University Presses. I realize now that as an editor I didn’t pay nearly enough attention to the prose. I cared more about the ideas than about how well they were expressed, at least that’s what I told myself. It wasn’t true.

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8 Ways to maximize the joy of writing

Maximizing my happiness and enjoyment of life is my top priority, and that includes my academic freelance writing.

Like me, you probably spend a lot of time writing. Life is short — make sure you get the most joy out of your writing time by following these 8 tips.

1. Write About What Interests You

Specialize in an academic writing niche you love and you’ll find you look forward to your work. You’ll also likely find greater success: you’ll be more enthusiastic when pitching projects to editors or clients, and you’ll get a lot more done in a given time period.

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5 Suggestions for writing outside of your discipline

My own work has taken me far afield from my study of law. I’ve delved into feminist theory, critical race theory, rhetorical theory, literary studies, urban planning, and more. I’ve always found that the most interesting texts — textbooks, journals, book reviews — are those that are written in an interdisciplinary fashion. Maybe that’s my liberal arts education coming through, but there’s something about reading a law text with history examples, or an article on communication theory that pulls in political science, or even a sociology selection that combines medicine and health sciences literature that is simply more interesting. Students, professionals, and other scholars likely appreciate the interconnectedness of our interests as well. In order to keep people questioning and pondering, encourage broader discussion of relevant issues, and develop an increasingly interested and literate public, we must be able to do more than write inside our comfort zone.

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Using scholarly models for academic writing

I’m not, of course, talking about simple imitation, or worse, plagiarism: the models are not there to replace our voice, but to help us find it. Models can help provide structure and ideas that we can adapt to suit our own ends and intentions.

We have to start writing with our own vision of what we want to accomplish, and our own sense of what is important and interesting. But that’s just a jumping off point. We need to focus these general interests and ideas into a specific project.

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Advice: Solitaire, snacks won’t cure writer’s block

Tactics that authors use to break writer’s block, such as playing solitaire, exercising or eating, can be both helpful and hurtful, said Drema Albin, a post-internship resident in the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Counseling Services Unit. These strategies can work more as distractions, said Albin, keeping authors from sitting down and writing. She recommends authors instead make a point to put something down on paper, even if it is just “I can’t think of anything to write” over and over. “The outcome of the writing is not as important as being engaged in the process,” said Albin.

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Punctuation, other stylistic rules: obstacle or opportunity?

Punctuation, and other stylistic rules, with all their exceptions and apparently arbitrary forms, can seem like a massive obstacle to writing. If you’re unsure of punctuation (which is reasonable, given all the conflicting opinions on punctuation), the rules are more than a nuisance; they conspire to break into the writerly flow with their demands for figuring out, for example, where to put a comma. Punctuation and other rules are enemies to many writers. Certainly most of us don’t enjoy reading Strunk and White or the massive style manuals that define proper writing style in many academic fields.

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