Will Your New Year Resolutions to Write More Regularly Actually Work?
As the new year approaches, you will be tempted to make resolutions about writing: “I want to do more of it, more often, more regularly, I want to write 8 papers this year, I am going to do nothing but write.”
And you will believe that resolving to be a better version of yourself will be enough to motivate you to do what you know you should, but somehow can’t seem to.
You may even manage to get off to a good start. A few days of extra hours devoted to writing. You believe you can do it.
But when mid-February rocks up, and the teaching starts getting demanding, and the emails start pouring in, and you realise that there are 11 more months ahead of doing what seems like extra and unrewarded work, well, we all know that “writing” will be relegated to the bottom of the to-do list.
If only changing your behaviour was as simple as wishing you could change it.
Burdening the Individual
To be able to achieve your new goal, you will need to change something about your current behavior, and you will then need to sustain that change to turn it into a habitual act that, over time, takes much less effort to carry out.
We have been told that we can achieve this by starting new habits and routines. But the problem with habits and routines is that they place the burden of change entirely on the individual. To cultivate, practise, and sustain this new version of ourselves, we must rely only on ourselves. And without planning, self-monitoring and a deep internal desire to change, research says our resolutions are quite likely to fail.
The Power of Rituals
We need to rethink our idea of change as arising only from self-discipline or self-management; it could be more useful to focus on the power of the social in rituals to effectuate change at the individual level.
While often confused with habits, rituals are fundamentally social. Rituals are sequences of practices that reflect the beliefs of a group and create a sense of belonging. Think, for instance, of graduation ceremonies or weddings: it is difficult to imagine these events without their social dimension. And one could say that their power comes from this social dimension; from the meaning that the group gives to the ritual, and the way the ritual helps bring members of the community together.
What does ritual have to do with writing? When it comes to writing, the ritual of writing regularly, in a community, has many benefits, as Rowena Murray’s body of work on writing communities and writing retreats for academics shows us. This collective writing practice is more than just a routine, though; there is the power of community. Murray argues that a community of practice helps researchers legitimise the writing process, and other researchers have found that after attending a writing workshop, participants were powered by the discussions and exchanges to continue prioritising their writing for several months after.
So, achieving your New Year writing resolutions would be easier, and you would feel more motivated to work on your writing, if you were to make those resolutions in a group, finding support in a community of shared goals.
And as an added benefit, the ritualised group writing practice will buoy you with a high level of emotional energy: the kind of feeling you get when you attend a concert, or when you are watching a great game on television with your friends; the kind of elation and enthusiasm that tends to happen in group settings. This kind of energy keeps us motivated to keep up our writing practice on an everyday basis.
Tips and Resources to Get Started with Community Writing
Here are some tips and resources to get you started on your writing community journey:
Create your own writing community: Start vetting your colleagues / fellow PhD students for who might be interested in being part of a writing community. Set up a weekly or twice-weekly writing session at a designated spot and time (face-to-face or even online). You can lead it. The idea is to create a welcoming atmosphere where people feel liked and comfortable, and the group setting makes them feel less alone and more supported. Then write in 25 minute pomodoro writing sprints. At the end, break up for idle chit-chat to foster a relaxed group feel. As a bonus, you could also try exchanging your writing with each other in the group to get useful feedback from another perspective. This exchange does require writers to be brave, but researchers have found that although initially painful, the activity has been unendingly rewarding for junior academics.
Shut Up & Write: This group writing event first started in California and now has local chapters all over the world. The concept is simple: come together as a group for 90 minutes, but shut up and write for over an hour. The event is always free, and is led by one person who hosts it at a predetermined time and space in a city. Participants have varied backgrounds, and the focus is on writing in a group. This format does not support writing exchange and feedback. Find your local chapter and join for free, or create your own chapter.
Join us in our “Finish That Paper!” Workshop: We’ve put together a workshop that starts in the New Year and helps you realise your New Year writing resolutions and more. It takes the community writing aspect a step further:
Three experienced facilitators (an associate professor, a doctor of literature, and an experienced academic editor-trainer-coach) will take a group of 15 people through 12 weekly community writing sessions.
In each weekly writing session, before starting off the 25-minute pomodoro writing sprints, facilitators will introduce a writing or planning tool or strategy. The goal of teaching these productivity, strategizing, planning and organization tools is to bolster your writing work so that you can work smarter and faster. For example, the facilitators will show how unacknowledged emotions hinder productivity and create writing blocks; they will share tools to manage your research pipeline; they will give you frameworks to find your way through messy rewrites; and they will help you understand the importance of creating a circle of trust, amongst others.
By blocking out two hours a week on your calendar for the workshop, you will advance your manuscript by at least that much time each week.
At the end of the 12 weeks, you will have a firm grasp on the swirling nexus between emotions, writing, planning and productivity to give you clarity about your position in this buffeted windstorm.
Around the new year, you will see plenty of advice about motivation, discipline, and change. But change is hard without the energy and support of a community. So good luck finding or creating your writing community. And happy new year.