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Bit #32 – Identify Your Writing Distractions

As we continue to refine your writing BASE (behavioral, artisanal, social, emotional), today we will hit on a key factor in strengthening your writing behaviors – minimizing distractions.

Distractions rob us of our writing productivity.  If you can learn to minimize distractions, your writing habits will increase tremendously.  

Let’s start today!

1. Make a table with two columns.
2. Label the first column distractions and make a list of all the common distractions you face daily when writing (e.g., checking emails, motivation, people, etc.).
3. Label the second column solutions and brainstorm a solution for each distraction you listed.  You may not have a solution to each one but be creative and resourceful. 
4. Get a post-it note or something you can put up as a reminder.  Write something on the post-it note that will remind you to focus.  Put the post-it note somewhere you will see it when you are writing (the bottom of your monitor is a good place).  Then, every time you see that note, it will remind you to stay focused.

Here is mine…

While it takes practice to remove all distractions when writing, it is possible.  Recognizing what your distractions are is a great start.

Set a goal this week to work on one of the solutions you identified on your table.

Bit #31 – Authorship Order

Writing competencies fall into four categories: behavior, artisanal, social, and emotional.  We need to strengthen each competency to enhance who we are as writers.  

Today, we will look at one component of the social aspect.  Writing can be an extremely isolated event, but it does not have to be (and should not be).  Writing (and publishing) with others can be advantageous and rewarding if you have a good team.  A good writing team involves people who complement each other and share writing responsibilities.  

Side note…if you do not currently have a good writing team, find/create one.  You will be amazed at how your writing productivity will grow.

Part of a writing team’s responsibility is to determine author order when a new project begins.  Author order can be a sensitive and frustrating process if not done well (and at the beginning of the project).  

The American Psychological Association (APA; https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2015/06/determining-authorship) created documents to help with determining author order (see below).  I have used the “Authorship Determination Scorecard” most often.  I appreciate having a formula for author order when working with more than two people.  I have only used the other three documents (“Authorship Agreement,” “Authorship Tie-Breaker Scorecard,” and “Publication Contract”) when working with people I do not know well.

Nothing will ruin a writing relationship faster than author order (I speak from experience), so I hope you put these resources away somewhere to use when necessary.

Bit #30 – Finding the Right Writing Group (or Groups)

Being part of a writing group (or groups) is the key to academic success. Writing should NOT be an isolated or individual event, and the more we can share the load with others, the more productive we will be and the more we will enjoy (gasp!) the process.

My writing groups are why I have produced 16 publications in 3.5 years while teaching a full (4×4) load and raising a child. I do not say this to brag but to emphasize the lifesaving value of a writing group. I could not have survived this long without my groups. 🙂

There are two types of writing groups; accountability (working on different projects but keeping each other on track) and team (working on the same project). Both are beneficial, and you can have both for different purposes.

My writing team serves both as a team and an accountability group (as many teams do), but I have some groups that only serve as my accountability partners. Writing groups can come and go. I have one writing team that is always working on a project, and I have three other teams that only work together as we find projects that make sense for collaboration. What is most important is that you have writing groups in place. The steps below will help you create writing groups (or add more).

1. Don’t wait for someone to come to you. Search for people who you would like to be in your groups.
2. Choose carefully. Find people with a similar work ethic, purposes for writing, etc., to you. Everyone in the group will obviously have differences (thank goodness), and you want people whose strengths are a good match for your weaknesses and vice versa but having people who do not pull their own weight will hurt the group (think about other group projects you have been involved in). Plus, diversity cultivates growth.  
3. Make sure someone takes the lead on each project. If that is you, provide leadership. Leadership responsibilities can be based on author order (see below) or whatever makes the most sense for your group. Leadership responsibilities often rotate.
4. Create a data/writing management plan. What tools/systems are you going to use for collaboration? Popular ideas include Google Suite, Dropbox, and Trello.
5. Decide on authorship as a group. Nothing kills a great collaboration faster than authorship (see last week’s email).
6. Decide on a writing strategy. Group roles? Is everyone going to write? How will you divide up the parts? Will some people take a lesser role in the process? Dividing up the work is an important step that should not be taken lightly. Remember, you must produce a cohesive product at the end. The more Frankenstein-like your parts, the more difficult the editing process. Collaboration is a spectrum, and the level of contribution should match the authorship order. UNC Chapel Hill presents a series of questions to help guide this process (https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/group-writing/).

7. Set clear timelines and adhere to them.
8. Be transparent throughout the process. Groups that can trust each other are MUCH more successful, sustainable, and enjoyable.
9. Pull your weight. Being a coauthor is a benefit and a responsibility.  
10. Celebrate your successes! While publication acceptance is worth celebrating, make sure to celebrate smaller successes along the way. The more you can cultivate the relationships within your groups, the more enjoyable the process will be for everyone.

Go start or join a writing group today! 🙂

Bit #29 – Bird by Bird

How are you feeling today?  This time of the year is always challenging for me as my already busy schedule seems to become busier.  I know I will make it, I always do, but that does not alleviate the overwhelming feelings that often penetrate my thoughts.  

When things get overwhelming, try following Anne Lamont’s advice and take it “bird by bird.”

Anne writes:

“Thirty years ago, my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day.  We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead.  Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy.  Just take it bird by bird.”

This week when/if you are faced with seemingly overwhelming tasks (whether writing focused or not), remember to take it “bird by bird.”

Bit #28 – The Wedge

In nature, a wedge is a simple machine used to secure or separate two items.  In golf, the wedge is a club used to aid the player in making accurate short-distance shots, get their ball on the green, and/or help extract a ball that is embedded or even buried.  

In writing and in life, we need to incorporate wedges into our daily schedule to serve a similar purpose as in nature or golf. 

In her book, “A Minute to Think” (click picture for more information), Juliet Funt teaches us how to add value to our time.

In this instance, the wedge is a small portion of “white space” or empty space that we insert between two activities.  This space helps pry apart our actions and events so that our day is not crammed with us running from one thing to the next.  The wedge also stops us in any moment of life when taking the next action mindlessly would be a mistake.

As you schedule your writing (and other activities this week), consider putting a small “wedge” of time between the events on your calendar. These time blocks allow you to reflect, question, think, and internalize one task before moving on to the next. These thinking practices help reinforce what you have been writing, learning, and doing. 

 Also, since the time is on your calendar, you do not have to feel guilty for taking 15 minutes to reflect.  This time is not truly empty, but free to help you be the best version of yourself. 

Bit #27 – Surround Yourself with Positivity

Imagine this scenario…

You go to a party one evening, and the people you sit next to are complaining about the food, the music, the ambiance, etc. As a result, you would probably leave the party with the impression that it had been a terrible party or a wasted evening. Truth be told, you probably would not have minded the food or the environment, but the complaining is contagious.

But, if you went to the same party and instead sat next to people who were raving about the food, the music, the ambiance, etc., you would leave thinking the party was great.

This scenario applies to every aspect of our life, but definitely to writing.  

If you surround yourself with people who are optimistic and positive about writing, you will feel better about yourself as a writer and the task of writing. So, begin searching for people who are positive about writing this week. This mindset will take you far in your writing productivity.

Bit #26 – Schedule Your Writing

You’ve heard me say (possibly multiple times by now) that scheduling writing time each week is one of the most important things you can do to increase your writing productivity.  Our time is one of the most valuable things we possess, and we must continually strive to control our time instead of allowing our time (or lack of) to control us.

For writing, that means sitting down with your calendar or planner each week and blocking off chunks of time dedicated to writing.  When something is on your calendar, you are more likely to accomplish it. 

Your challenge for today involves scheduling your writing for this week.  If you have already set aside time almost every day to write, congratulations, you are on your way to a successful week of writing.  If you have not already scheduled writing for this week, follow the steps below.

1. Get out your calendar and evaluate your week.  Where do you have free blocks of time?  These time segments do not need to be large, just available.
2. With the available times, think about where you think you would be most successful writing.  Do you write better in the morning?  Afternoon?  Evening?
3. Block off at least one 20-minute segment of time each day (or at least five days during the week) that aligns with when you think you will be most successful writing.  These times can be consistent each day or just where you have space.  If you have been writing consistently for smaller blocks of time, challenge yourself to increase your time blocks.  Maybe add five minutes to each one.
4. Now sit back and admire your organization. 🙂  You have set up your week for writing success. 

Bit #25 – Recognize Where You Are

How we think shapes how we live and our beliefs about ourselves. When we believe in ourselves, we have greater confidence which reflects in our daily activities. When we think negatively about who we are and what we are capable of, we can quickly spiral to a place where we are not our best. As Jennie Allen shares in her book, “Get Out of Your Head,” whether we realize it or not, our emotions trigger our thoughts. Our thoughts dictate our decisions. Our decisions determine our behavior. Our behavior shapes our relationships.

Our thoughts about who we are as a writer are no different. With so much riding on our thoughts, how do we refocus our thoughts on writing positively? Research shows that almost 70% of the thoughts we think are negative. To combat these tendencies, we need to take intentional steps to start on a positive note.

For today, let’s focus on you! Take some time to complete the following activity (inspired by Jennie Allen – click the book for more information) to become more aware of what you are thinking about concerning writing.

Step 1 – Take out a blank piece of paper or use a mind map program such as coggle.it.

Step 2 – In the middle of the paper, write the primary feeling or emotion regarding writing you are experiencing right now (e.g., anxious, frustrated, inspired, motivated, etc.).

Step 3 – Draw a big circle around the word (center of your mind map).

Step 4 – Write everything you can think of that contributes to that feeling or emotion around that large circle.

Step 5 – Draw a smaller circle around these contributing factors, connecting them to the larger one.

Step 6 – Near each smaller circle, list how that factor contributes to the emotion you are experiencing.

Step 7 – Keep going until you have exhausted all the possibilities prompting that emotion.

Step 8 – Look for patterns and common themes.

Step 9 – Choose one aspect you can focus on changing over the next few weeks or months.

Step 10 – Ask yourself what you can do or what you need to change your thinking and start there this semester.

Once you have a starting place, try to use the weekly “bits” to combat any negative thinking you have towards writing and the aspect you want to change this semester.

Changing our mindset about who we are as writers can make all the difference.

Congratulations on taking the first step today!

Part of building writing habits involves finding time to stop and reflect on where we are in our writing and where we want to be.

One way to reflect is to find your writing base. Take a few minutes this week to complete the activity below. Once you find your writing base, reflect on where you want to be and how you can get there. Many of the Weekly Bits of Wonderful Writing Wisdom strategies can help you get to where you want to be as a writer. If you need more or something specific, let me know.

Bit #24: Finding Your Writing Base

The amazing Helen Sword created an activity to “Ramp up your productivity, strut your style, expand your social networks, and develop new pleasure in writing” called The Writing Base (click on the book photo to learn more). “The Writing BASE provides diagnostic advice for writers who want to broaden and deepen the behavioral, artisanal, social, and emotional dimensions of their writing practice.” This activity is explained further in Sword’s book and on her Writing Base website.

So, get out a piece of paper and get ready to reveal Your Writing Base.

1. Draw an x and y-axis on a piece of paper.

2. Label your axis with the words behavioral, artisanal, social, and emotional. These four areas constitute a strong writing habit, so we should always be working to enhance these areas.

3. Choose one current writing project.
4. Put a dot on each axis of how you currently feel based on the current writing project (see below).  
   1. Behavioral – How would you rate your writing behaviors on your current project (e.g., writing productivity)? Strong (close to arrow)? Need refining (close to midpoint)?
   2. Artisanal – How would you rate your artistry/confidence as a writer on your chosen project? Strong (close to the arrow)? Not as strong as you would like (relative to the midpoint)?
   3. Social – How social is your current writing practice? Pretty isolated (close to midpoint)? Are you involved in writing groups/have an accountability partner (toward the arrow)?
   4. Emotional – What are the primary emotions you associate with academic writing? Positive (toward the arrow)? Negative (toward the midpoint)?

5. Connect the dots.

6. Your result will probably not be as symmetrical as this example, but it does not have to be.  
7. Looking at your result, determine one area (artisanal, social, emotional, or behavioral) you would like to enhance.
8. Visit Helen Sword’s website to enter your results and determine what your “shape” means and ways to enhance your writing based on your results.
   1. https://writersdiet.com/base/base/
   2. Adopt strategies into your daily writing habits to enhance the area you chose. Be careful not to allow one area to suffer while you are working to enhance a different area (i.e., add to/modify your current base, do not take anything away that is working).

I hope you find this exercise helpful and one that will guide you as you continue to build your writing habits.

Bit #40 – Editing Tips

This week, we will once again take advice from Dr. Pat Goodson (click book picture below for more information).

  

1. Word Placement

“When words aren’t near the words they go with, they go with the words they’re near” (Cook, 1985, p. 18). 

The way we position words in a sentence impacts their relationship and meaning. Confusion and ambiguity often result when words are poorly placed (Strunk & White, 2008). So, how do we make sure we place our words where they belong? Try this technique.

• Set your timer for 10 minutes (repeat as many times as needed).
• Highlight all of the nouns in your text (sentence by sentence).
• Examine the words that are close to each noun. Are the modifiers near the noun or in a completely different part of the sentence? (A modifier is a word, especially an adjective, that restricts or adds to the sense of a head noun (e.g., good and family in a good family house)).
• Move words around to fix your word placement problem as needed (i.e., put the modifiers by the nouns they modify).
• Repeat this activity for verbs and adverbs.

2. Read Aloud

While reading what we write aloud is often uncomfortable, it is worth it. Reading your work out loud can be hugely eye-opening. This process helps you find errors in your own writing (e.g., long-winded, repetition, interruptions, deletions, etc.) and helps you notice how comfortable your language is as writing becomes clearer and more inviting when the language is comfortable to speak aloud (Elbow, 2010).

• Set your timer for 10-15 minutes.
• Print a copy of your text (printing is necessary because it changes the look of your text, so you are more likely to recognize errors).
• Read your text aloud, s-l-o-w-l-y, as if you are reading it for the first time, and make changes as you notice them (either stop at the moment and fix each error or make a mark/comment so you can go back and fix them all later).
• Then, have someone else complete the exercise with you (see #5 and #6).
• If you have a writing partner, do this activity with them and have your partner read your work to you. They will always catch more errors than you will.
• If you do not have a writing partner (you should get one), have your computer read your text to you. All computers can be configured to read aloud. Look in the set-up menu for the features to assist users with visual disabilities (or Google how to do it). The computer will not be as effective as it does not read with intonation or inflection, but you will still note areas that need work.
• Repeat as needed

Have fun editing! 🙂