Back to the Waves, Back to the Academic Writing Project
In today’s post, I’m reflecting a bit on my writing journey over the past year, and what it feels like to revisit old journals and unfinished posts. I’m writing this from my favorite surf spot in Portugal, where I’m also thinking about how much has changed—and stayed the same. If you’re interested in the ups and downs of my academic writing, personal growth, and balancing life transitions, keep reading! However, please note that it’s more of a rambling post. Something more targeted about academic writing is coming soon.
Last year, I had prepared so many posts and I was so deep into my writing project—and I still have so many drafts that haven’t been posted. I think through this journey I learned a lot, even though I didn’t really finish posting everything. Some of the posts still need fixing before they can go up, but maybe I’ll get around to doing that step by step. I think some of them were already in a pretty good state, so hopefully it won’t take too long. But then again, this blog hasn’t been as dead as my other one unfortunately is, so I guess we don’t have that much of a problem. Plus, Astrid is kind of back in action too, so you can still expect things to happen on Epigrammetry.
Reading, journaling, remembering
What’s interesting is that I’m yet again in my favorite holiday place in Portugal to surf. I usually go there once a year, and it’s always so interesting to be back in this place that’s kind of still the same. You’ve been going there for a long time, but at the same time, you’ve changed. This year there’s actually a small special circumstance: I found one of my old journals.
Now, I have these little journals where I sometimes take notes—I’m not sure I’d really call it “journaling.” Sometimes it’s writing about things that bother me, sometimes it’s brainstorming ideas. It’s not like a to-do list or a goal list with concrete things; it’s more unstructured reflections. When I hear “journaling,” I always imagine structured stuff or like a daily diary, but really, what I have is just a notebook where I write certain specific types of things.
Because I’ve done this for a few years, I kind of know what goes into these notebooks and what belongs in other types of reflection formats (like monthly goal setting templates or similar). For example, if something is bothering me more psychologically, I’ll write it there. Or if I’m thinking about how I could improve my routine, that’s often in there too. Every once in a while, when I read a book—usually audiobooks—I’ll put a little summary of the key takeaways. Though honestly, I don’t do that as much as I could. Maybe I should, because I listen to a lot of books, but I don’t really have a system to remember it all.
There are all these YouTube videos nowadays where people claim they can remember everything they read. Honestly, as someone who reads a lot, though I don’t really identify as a “reader”—I mean, I don’t spend all my free time reading like some people do. Maybe Astrid would say she does. But because I’m writing lots of papers, and apparently I’m already known for doing these crazy thorough literature reviews and wanting to include everything—yeah, I do!—I actually read most of what I cite.
I think a lot of people cite things they haven’t really read, but I definitely read at least 95% of what I cite. Sure, sometimes something gets added at the last minute and I don’t get around to reading it thoroughly, but usually, I have read almost 100% of the things I cite. I read a lot, and I can tell you—even if you write about something actively—you still can’t remember everything. Over the years, studying for so many degrees and all, I’ve learned that once you put enough info into your brain, some of it will inevitably get lost.
So nowadays, I don’t feel the need to have a perfect system for remembering everything I read. But then again, it’s nice to get reminders every now and then.
(Sorry for the detour about the journal and ways to remember what you read!)
Anyway, during my move to Berlin—I recently took up a new post at MPIWG there, which I’m really happy about—I found an old journal. It’s only half-filled, and it happens to be the one I used last year in March and April, when I was also surfing here in Portugal. And it’s just so interesting to realize I’m back in the same place, but each time I return, I’m a little bit different. Not in a drastic or bad way—just a good, normal evolution.
Over the last two years, I spent a lot of time reflecting on academic writing. Last year, I was still deep into that phase where I was reading and re-reading academic writing books like How to Write a Lot by Paul Silvia or Writing Science by Joshua Schimel—which you’ve probably heard me mention a lot. I’ve read Writing Science at least five times, and I still find new things in it every time. It’s such a rich book with so much material to absorb. (I’m someone who reads pretty fast—too fast to assimilate everything in one go. So my preferred mode is just to get through a book, maybe repeat some chapters if needed, and then read it again. Since I usually listen to them on Listening.com or Audible, I can easily fit that into my day without it being a huge drain.)
There are some notes from those books in my journal, and some insights on academic writing too.
Getting back into my productive writing routine
Honestly, the only thing I kind of regret about the move to Berlin is that before it, I was finally in a really good writing routine. I finished a bunch of smaller articles before leaving my old job because I wanted to clear my plate. Two of them have already been published, and a few others came back from review and now need revisions. (So, more work for me!) Plus, I signed up for so many calls for papers recently, so I’ll be doing a lot of academic writing again soon—and I hope I can get back into that productive routine.
Of course, with the move and starting a new job, there have been lots of meetings and distractions. I didn’t really get around to writing as much. But I really hope I can get back to that good place with my academic writing, because it felt so good to be there for once.
I think part of why it was working so well was because I just knew more about writing and understood better how the process works.
This is already a long post, but in the next one, I want to share a few more quick things I found in my old journal from my reading on academic writing last year. Sometimes, I find it’s even better to summarize from a distance, because you remember only the most important stuff. And we also wanted to lighten up the blog a bit by mixing longer posts with quicker summary posts—different types of content. Deep dives if you want them, but also short insights for quick reads. So that’s what you’re gonna get next time: some of my insights from last year, and the things I was thinking about. It’s also so interesting for me to see what I was up to a year ago!
Also, speaking of old things: the blog’s draft archive is massive (Astrid scolded me about needing to clean it out… and I haven’t. I’m sorry!). But honestly, it’s a treasure trove of my old thoughts. There’s even a third post on post-PhD submission fatigue that I never published—by the way, that first post about it is our most-read post on this blog! Apparently, there aren’t many posts on that topic and people are looking for information on it. So, maybe I’ll still post that third one, even though now I’m three and a half years post-PhD. It feels like such a long time ago! Maybe it’s even better to post it now, with the perspective of someone who really got through the fatigue—because I honestly don’t feel that way anymore. Now I have new challenges and new kinds of fatigue 😉
But yeah, that’s it for today and stay tuned for next time!
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Sarah Lang (April 26, 2025). Back to the Waves, Back to the Academic Writing Project. Epigrammetry. Retrieved May 19, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/13tp1
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[…] 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 […]