Write Often, Write Happy: Academic Writing Lessons from Two Great Books
Today, I’m continuing the reflections I started in my last post. As I revisit my old surf journal from last year, I’m sharing some quick insights from two great books on academic writing, How to Write a Lot and Write No Matter What. If you’re also working on building a sustainable writing habit or just curious about what helped me shift my mindset, keep reading!
In the last post, I told you about how I’m on holiday again, revisiting my old surf spot that I’ve been going to for a few years now. It just so happens that I have this journal with me that I apparently used last year around Easter, when I was here on holiday as well. It seems like once I got back home last year, I must have started a new journal, because I recently found this one was still half empty. During my recent move, I accidentally found it again—and at first, I didn’t even make the connection that this was my surf holiday journal from last year. I just wanted to fill it up. And as it happens, I’ll now be putting in this year’s surf thoughts. It wasn’t planned, but once I realized the connection, I thought it was kind of fitting and cool.
While leafing through it, I found a few insights from last year on academic writing, which—as you might remember from the last post—I was thinking about a lot back then. Towards the end of the year, I shifted more into practical implementation, but especially at the beginning, I was deep into researching and reading academic writing books. In that little journal, there are some brief summaries from that phase, and I thought maybe I could share a few key takeaways with you.
Insights from How to Write a Lot by Paul Silvia
Here’s my super-brief book summary with the key points:
- Track goals, like using pomodoros.
- Set mini goals, such as “fix section XY” as the goal for one session.
- Schedule writing—at least four hours a week.
- Don’t reward yourself by skipping writing.
- Treat writing like a class or meeting you only cancel for serious reasons, like being sick.
- Write in the same place at the same time to build a habit and routine.
- Don’t wait for inspiration. Paul Silvia says there is no such thing as writer’s block in academic writing.
If you feel stuck, it might be because you aren’t knowledgeable enough about your topic yet—or you might not understand enough about how academic writing actually works. If you feel like you’re experiencing it, maybe you need to do more reading. Although, be aware that thinking you always need to read more can be a fallacy, as we’ve discussed in earlier posts. But supposed writer’s block in academic writing can also be a sign of a lack of understanding about how academic writing itself works, which honestly, I think was the case for me. Once you know what to do and how you need to structure your text, it’s much clearer what your next step should be. During my PhD, I definitely struggled because I didn’t understand academic writing or how to build arguments and participate in academic discourse. Now, I find it much easier, even though, of course, I’m still far from mastery.
Insights from Write No Matter What by Joli Jensen
I also have a few thoughts jotted down from Write No Matter What. As far as I remember, I might not have finished the whole book during that holiday, but here are some notes:
- The secret is to write often in a low-stress environment.
- This helps you avoid binge-writing or deadline-driven writing.
- Kathy Mazak’s terminology in Making Time to Write calls this the “soaring state.”
- What you need is frequent, low-stress contact with a writing project you enjoy—otherwise you train your nervous system that writing is stressful, which leads to procrastination.
- Procrastination is usually fear, not laziness. Sometimes it’s burnout, but often it’s fear or simply not knowing where to start.
- When writing is low reward and high stress—something you just want to get rid of—you are stuck in the wrong cycle. Instead, you should aim for frequent low-stress contact with projects you find rewarding.
The secret is to write often in a low-stress environment, so you can avoid binge writing or deadline-driven writing. For example, in the terminology of Cathy Mazak from Making Time to Write, this would be your so-called “soaring state.” And as per Write No Matter What, what you really need is frequent, low-stress contact with a writing project you enjoy. Because if it’s the opposite—i.e. if writing is more often than not associated with high stress—you just teach your whole nervous system that writing is bad, and then you’re afraid of it, and you procrastinate.
Usually, procrastination comes from fear, not laziness, as many people think. I mean, it could also be burnout, but often it’s fear or simply not knowing where to start. In Write No Matter What, Joli Jensen says that when we write under stress, it’s often low-reward, high-stress work on a project we just want to get rid of, instead of frequent low-stress contact with something we enjoy. That’s why you need to stop binge writing and deadline-driven writing, even though I know it’s hard. Without a deadline, it’s sometimes harder to get writing done.
I can totally relate. One project I had a lot of trouble with recently probably was because it felt like an unrealistic deadline—especially because I was (multi-)conference traveling at the time. It really wasn’t realistic for me to finish it within the deadline and I hadn’t looked at the text in a while, so I didn’t realize how much work it still needed. Even though the work I did manage to do made it so much better, I had clearly miscalculated, which created a lot of stress. That stress probably contributed to why I fell out of my good writing streak recently (along with all the other things happening at the time—like not having a desk, sleeping on the floor during my move, and so on). Hopefully I can soon get back into it.
Reflections on Academic Writing Books
So, Write No Matter What is very much about understanding the psychological barriers to writing, which I found super helpful.
And like I’ve said before, different academic writing books cover different things: some are more technical, like style guides (e.g., how to avoid too many adjectives), while Writing Science by Joshua Schimel is more about how to write papers that have real impact and survive peer review. There’s also Write Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks by Wendy Belcher, which is a more general intro to what first-time academic writers need to understand. Honestly, it took me such a long time to learn these things independently—even though I owned Belcher’s book for a while, I only read it after I had already figured most of it out the hard way. It would have been better if I had read it early during my PhD. Don’t make the same mistake! But no matter when you read it, it’s highly recommended.
How to Write a Lot by Paul Silvia is a shorter, more fun read, but it also backs up its advice with actual research about what works. Honestly, that’s true for all of these books, but especially also for Belcher’s. They are all based on solid studies showing that consistent, scheduled, low-stress writing—not binge writing—is what leads to success. Most people in academia still binge write and deadline-write, which is why so many people struggle. There are even studies about why peer review sucks but still works and why academia continues using it despite its flaws. It’s just good to know these things.
Personally, I like my work, and I don’t want to spend my time being miserable about writing just because I built bad habits around it. Once I shifted my mindset—and massively prioritized writing by organizing my schedule around it, as Cathy Mazak suggests—it completely changed my writing life. I’ve created a much more positive writing habit.
During my PhD, I was way too overwhelmed to really focus on learning how academic writing works (I could have spared myself lots of misery by investing the time to learn it earlier though!). Imposter syndrome made it so hard to ask questions, because I felt like I had to be perfect and already know everything. I missed so many opportunities to really learn because I was too busy trying to prove myself and thought I couldn’t afford to make mistakes or be perceived as lacking in any area. It would have been so much better to just allow myself to make mistakes back then—but at least now, I’ve had the chance to figure it out.
Takeaways: How to make academic writing work
Each of the books I looked at during my academic writing project stresses that what’s been proven to work for academic writing is consistent, scheduled, low-stress writing—not binge writing. Yet, binge writing is the norm in academia and that’d why so many people struggle with writing.
There are even studies about this. It’s helpful to know that if you want to improve your writing, you don’t need some magical fix—you just need to act on what’s proven to work and drop the bad habits.
Of course, like everything in life—whether it’s exercising, eating healthy, or quitting smoking—it’s easier said than done. But honestly, for me, the shift to better academic writing wasn’t even that hard. It was more of a mindset shift.
I decided that I didn’t want to be this deadline-driven, miserable writer anymore. I actually like writing. I like my work. I just didn’t want bad habits to ruin that and feel miserable doing work I might as well enjoy. Once I shifted my mindset—and seriously prioritized writing in my schedule—it got so much better.
Even if you think you may not have the time right now to really dive deep into this (how academic writing works, changing your writing-related habits or what psychological issues might be holding you back), don’t make the same mistakes I did. This is a time investment well worth making.
So long,
S
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Sarah Lang (May 3, 2025). Write Often, Write Happy: Academic Writing Lessons from Two Great Books. Epigrammetry. Retrieved May 19, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/13uy9