The Fine Art of Becoming...

We are all becoming...each moment of each day, we are becoming someone older, someone wiser, perhaps more cynical, or even more loving. I always hope each day brings me a bit closer to who I am meant to be. And in a practical sense, sometimes that means figuring out who I am becoming as a university professor!

Ever since I finished the dissertation, or the beast as I have referred to it, I have felt a mild sense of foreboding, a tightness in my chest that offered up the doubt I am sure anyone who has written a dissertation has: Could it be I only have this one document to write? Is that it? As is my usual fashion when I become overly-anxious, I seek counsel from those who have stood where I am standing now. So I did just that - asked anyone and everyone I have found to talk to the question "How do you find time to write and publish?" In my unofficial research, I found that nobody seems to organize their writing in the same way and nobody feels they have the tiger by the tail so to speak!

I gathered lots of sage advice. Write every day. Get up early and do it first thing. Write before you go to bed. Schedule a time every day to write. Writing is hard. You will get rejected a lot - so write a lot. Expect to struggle. Use your students. Do collaborative projects. Have different research projects at different stages at all times. Have at least three projects going all the time: one that has been submitted, but may need revisions, one that is in process, and one that is being developed. Some people write in their vacation times, others only one or two days a week. Most suggested the every day approach, however, but admitted that they didn't follow their own advice. The best gift I got for graduation (beside my family gifts of course) was a small book by Paul Silva called, How to write a lot: A practical guide to productive academic writing, a gift from one of my professors. It was a quick read and well-worth it. The tips were not anything lofty or unimaginable, but rather a stab at all the excuses university people make for NOT spending time doing something that can eventually lead them toward publication success (rather than perish, of course).

That book inspired personal goals for the summer - the overarching goal is to discover how productive I am and what I can produce in a given time period. I am keeping track of what I write, how much I write, and some extended notes so that in the future I can plan out my projects and estimate the time it may take me to do so. I am learning when I write best, when I do not and what I need to be happy doing it. I am lucky that two of my projects are collaborative. One I am leading and one I am following...so I have the opportunity to experiment in a safe environment. So far, I have been pleasantly surprised. Keeping detailed notes helps me organize each week's sessions and my list of to-do on each project is progressing nicely. I have managed, in two weeks time, to write well over 2,000 words, arrange a meeting to discuss a collaborative project, plan an article and presentation for November, finish an article I had in a file and send it to a peer for review, outline a paper for another collaborative project, detailed with references, begin a book review for MEJ and write up a synopsis for an idea for the graduate course I will teach in the spring.

When I look at the time I put in - only about 14 hours a week - it is amazing to me that I am moving forward in many areas at once. I am learning what takes more time (reading, preparing to write, editing) and what takes the least time (outlining and actual writing) for me personally. I have a nice journal started that will assist me when the fall gets fast and furious too. Mind you, rather than taking a part-time paying job this summer, I have devoted that time to writing. When I think of it in those terms - loss of salary - I push myself a little bit harder. I have to make my time worth something after all!

Maybe I am feeling full of myself right now...and I know from life experiences that there are going to be some dark days of rejection ahead of me, but I want to revel in the new experiences I am having of becoming...and I am excited to see where my next words will take me!