Does writer’s block exist in academic writing?

We have been talking about academic writing quite a bit recently, so I wanted to discuss another obvious question: Does writer’s block exist in academia?

Academic writing isn’t like fiction writing (in my opinion)

A common misconception, in my opinion, is that people often mix up academic writing and fiction writing and much of the advice out there tends to focus on fiction writing. However, I don’t think they are that comparable. Fiction writing is more about creativity and there’s this idea of writer’s block or feeling like you’re not in the right mood to write. While you shouldn’t do that with fiction writing either, I think it applies even less to academic writing.

Even Paul Sylvia, in How to Write a Lot, says that if you think you’re suffering from writer’s block as an academic writer, you should make an outline and he argues that writer’s block doesn’t exist for academic writers. I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but I do think that if you’re experiencing writer’s block in academic writing—and I think I was during my PhD phase—it’s probably due to a lack of understanding about the steps of academic writing. I honestly didn’t have a strong grasp on that until recently. I didn’t have a good sense of the processes involved and in my search for advice, I often ended up with suggestions related to fiction writing that weren’t very helpful to me and only left me confused and desperately trying to force myself into things that didn’t work for me.

You may need to develop your own system

Another thing to be aware of is that writing processes vary from discipline to discipline. It might not differ drastically between humanities fields, but it’s still not exactly the same. For example, in the sciences, some people suggest a productivity method where you create one graphic a week and then write about it. That’s not how I conduct research at all, so that advice wasn’t helpful to me, but I can see how it might work for them.

You need to develop your own system. For instance, for writing in history you have to process your sources alongside the secondary literature. What I’m trying to say is, think about your own processes (such as looking for literature, engaging with your data or sources, writing a draft, editing, etc.) and when during the day you prefer to schedule each sub-process. You probably only learn this through experience.

Think about your biorhythm but don’t overdo it

Finding out how your biorhythm works can be really helpful, too. But also, don’t get too caught up in it. Yes, it’s true that I work best at certain times of day but that doesn’t mean I can’t get the same tasks done well during other times. I read and write best whenever I feel less stressed by urgent deadlines and administrative tasks (the reasonable part of biorhythm to take into account), but this can happen at various times during the day, although it happens more often in the mornings and evenings.

So, don’t let talk of biorhythm make you feel like you need to get your work done at a specific time of day, or that the day is wasted if you don’t. I’ve struggled with this myself, feeling like if I didn’t start early enough, the whole day was ruined and I wouldn’t accomplish anything. But you can always restart at any time.

This is also what I meant when I said (in an earlier blog post) that you can accomplish a lot in just 15–20 minutes; in fact, that’s a sweet spot for many tasks, in my experience. Of course, it’s too short to finish writing your dissertation and larger writing projects require a more sustained rhythm of working for a few hours, but if you can get three hours of focused work done in a day, that’s already a great achievement beside all the other distractions that inevitably come with life, especially so in academia. And if you do the three hours every day, you’ll have some inspired days where you might even be able to do (write) more but that comes from the momentum of doing a little every day. So, don’t wait for the perfect day or perfect moment.

If you’re afraid you don’t have what it takes to do a good job, let me assure you: all the skills you need can be learned. Cultivate a craftsperson mindset. Show up for your craft.

Still, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t, because that will only make it harder to get back into writing on the days when you can. Cultivate a positive attitude towards your work and keep at it.

Best,
S

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