The tension between the reality of now and your hopeful vision of the future creates forward momentum that helps you achieve your vision. There are good reasons to be fearful in general and in relation to your academic career. There are also reasons for hope. Those may be tiny glimmers right now. It is important to notice those glimmers and find ways to expand and multiply them. This is how change happens. Slowly. Collectively. Building on the positive to create new possibilities.
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Using the supports you need: Part 2
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Using the supports you need, part 2 I have written previously about how I learned in yoga that it can be helpful to use supports in your practice. I’ve been thinking about this principle again recently in a different way. I think this might help you see the difference […]
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Reconnecting with the desire to write
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Reconnecting with the desire to write I was talking with a client about writing and motivation recently. We started with “It’s really hard to write with a gun to your head.” which strikes me as a pretty widespread problem. Whether that metaphorical gun is the REF, the tenure process, […]
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Communication vs Validation: why are you publishing?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Communication vs Validation: Why are you publishing? The primary purpose of publishing, even scholarly publishing, is communication. If you centre the communicative role of publishing, with a focus on the audience and the difference you would like your work to make for that audience, decisions about when and […]
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Thoughts on “Untangling Academic Publishing”
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Thoughts on “Untangling Academic Publishing” I have written before about communication and validation in your publishing decisions, and encouraged you to prioritize communication in your decision making process. In this post, I want to extend that argument using a recently published scholarly report as a jumping off point. (you […]
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Hiking as a metaphor for (summer) writing
As I was updating the script for the Planning Your Summer class, I felt a bit weird about the Juggling section. I mostly ignored it at the time because I couldn’t quite put my finger on the problem. The juggling metaphor has been central to how I developed all the planning classes and it seemed […]
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A strategy to overcome resistance to write
Sometimes you sit down and try to write and you just can’t. Resistance may show up as procrastination, or writer’s block, or gremlins shouting louder than usual about how you are not qualified to do this, or something else. The root of your resistance may be emotional, or you may just be really unsure how […]
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When you stop writing…
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · When you stop writing No matter how good you get at scheduling regular writing, sometimes you just stop. Maybe you just miss a week. Maybe you miss several weeks. It happens. There are lots of different specific reasons but it happens to everyone sometimes. Do not make things worse […]
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Coming back to a neglected project
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Coming back to a neglected project In any given session of A Meeting With Your Writing it is not uncommon for someone to be coming back to a project they haven’t looked at in a while. Summer and sabbatical are also times when you might revisit abandoned projects with […]
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Do you need to be excellent?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Do you need to be excellent? I have written before about “doing your best” being a distraction and instead encouraged you to focus on doing good work. In this post, I want to extend that argument using a recently published scholarly article as a jumping off point. (You can […]
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Early morning writing
The benefits of early morning writing can often seem like preachy, unattainable, eye-roll inducing positivity. But I have brought together some real examples of this life-changing process for your writing, just to give that eye-roll some evidence first… Rachael Herron has written eloquently about how crazy the idea of early morning writing sounds and how […]
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Being an academic in dystopian times: Making time for activism
Whether current events have prompted you to become more politically active for the first time, or increase the time and effort you put into your activism, you must account for that in your plans. Neither your activism nor your health and work will benefit from you burning out. These will be difficult choices even if the need for being more involved is incontrovertible. Whatever form your activism takes, take the time to decide what is not going to happen, or be done to a lower standard, to make space for it.
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