Do you have a book project that’s been in progress for a long time? You are not alone. Over the years I’ve helped several mid to late career scholars who are weighted down by the unfinished projects they have lying around. Like this one that was shared in a recent Writing Clinic.
The situation:
“This book has been the bane of my existence for more than a decade. It’s just been interrupted by a whole series of various kinds of things.
I did manage at one point to get a full draft. The reviews were vicious, but reasonably fair, and I just have not managed to revise to resubmit. I have made progress in fits and starts along the way.
Right now, I don’t have any other big things that I owe anybody. I am hopeful that this could be the summer where it gets revised to hand in.
Clearly, it is not just lack of time that is preventing me from doing this book. Because I have published, I don’t know, maybe three, or four other single authored books since this one.
It isn’t that I can’t get stuff done. It’s that I can’t get *this* done, particularly.
So I’m trying to figure out what the block is, and what’s a way to think about it, that would enable me to finish it and move on. Because just saying I have to do this is clearly not working.”
A Writing Clinic is a group session for coaching and community connection, for members of the Academic Writing Studio. Here are the kinds of questions I asked to help this member figure out what was going to work *for them*.
Can you say no?
Do you actually have to do it? Or could you uncommit to this?
This is a really important question to ask yourself when you are stuck, and especially when you are *this* stuck.
You may have heard of the “sunk costs fallacy”, which is when you feel like you have to finish something because all of the work you’ve already put into it.
List the reasons you are doing this and take them seriously. It’s only worth finishing if there is a reason that has something to do with the potential readers of this book.
Reconnect with your why
What is it that feels important to you about writing *this* book?
You need to be specific. What is it about this book, in particular?
In the Studio member’s situation, the book was an introduction to their specific area of expertise for a series of introductions in their field.
I’ve edited their response to give you an idea how specific you might be.
“It is important because it sets the conversation. There is not a good introduction. There is a book that is 30 years old, that is wonderful and field defining, but it is 30 years old, more advanced than really works for an introduction, and it’s 30 years old.
And even in the time I’ve been dithering about this project, an incredible universe of new scholarship has been published, which makes this really daunting.
It feels so important to get it right, but it’s also really hard to get it right. You cannot possibly do justice to everything.
And yet, it just needs to be useful. It doesn’t have to be perfect.
It is really exciting. If I get it right, it’s a chance to shape the way some number of years worth of students comes to the start off in this field.”
Your book is probably not this kind of book. However, in this Studio member’s response you can see them work through some of the key issues for themselves as they try to articulate the why.
- They’ve identified the potential readers and their specific needs.
- They’ve clarified that there isn’t another book that meets those needs.
- They’ve realized that the book won’t be the same as what they would have written 15 years ago.
This revealed that the body of work this introduction would lead readers to, is important and exciting.
How does this book add to what’s already out there?
In that example, there was a book that sort of met this need, but not really. I suggested that the Studio member spend some time thinking about what it is about that book that isn’t really an introduction. What is the book they need to write?
You will probably have similar books come to mind. When you are writing a book proposal, these are called “comps”, short for “comparable”. Laura Portwood-Stacer has a good explanation of what that means in the book proposal context, but a 30 year old book wouldn’t be on the list for that purpose.
Sometimes “The only book like this in the field is 30 years old, and a lot has happened in the intervening period.” is a big part of your why.
However, one thing that might be making it hard for you to finish this book, is that you are not at all clear that you have an important contribution to make. Although the starting point was slightly different, the things I said in “Sneaky ways your gremlins try to get you not to actually publish” are probably also relevant to you.
You might use the strategies in “You don’t have to find a gap in the literature” to think about where this book you are trying to write will sit on a library shelf, and what it adds to the knowledge represented by that shelf of books.
- What kind of book are you writing?
- What do you think this kind of book really needs?
- What would be the book that you want to write?
If this is a book that would be used for teaching (as the introduction example would be),
- What book would I want to have available to teach with?
This is a long way to say that being clear about who your actual audience is will help you articulate why you are writing this book, and make some decisions about what, specifically, you need to do to finish it.
What’s specifically hard about an introduction
There are some challenges that are specific to particular types of book. And some strategies for getting unstuck that are also only going to be relevant to particular types of book.
This particular Studio member was writing an introduction. In an earlier Writing Clinic, another Studio member asked for help with a textbook they are writing. These 2 types of book have a lot in common.
When it’s your special area that you know a lot about, it’s often hard to figure out what the first introductory teaching looks like. The reader of this book is not the same as the reader of your other scholarship.
It is often easier to teach an introduction to something slightly off to the side of your main area. You’re knowledgeable enough to be able to do something useful, but you’re not so aware of all the nuances. Too much detail and nuance is not helpful in an introduction. It’s confusing.
The first step is to be really specific about who you want to read this book.
- Do they know anything about this topic already?
- What related knowledge can you expect them to have?
- What else might they be reading or learning concurrently?
That 30 year old “too advanced” introduction my client mentioned has recently been reprinted with a new introduction. It is still relevant as an introduction to the specific area for those who are familiar with the general field.
The book my client is writing is for new entrants to the field as a whole. These readers might be undergraduate students and others who have much less knowledge of not only the specifics, but also the broader conceptual terrain, the history, etc.
If you can identify other books like yours, you can ask the same questions about the readers of those books to help you clarify the difference and help you decide whether there is a need for the book you want to write.
You can also use the answers to these questions to help you decide what needs to go in your book, and what you need to leave out to avoid confusing your (specific) readers.
For an introduction, you might ask,
What does a person coming to this for the first time really need to know?
For a textbook, I suggest using the same tools you use to plan your classes:
What are the learning objectives?
Basically: you know roughly where they are starting.
Where will they be after they’ve read your book?
It will also be helpful to think about the subset of readers who will be inspired by your book and want to know more about the topic.
- How does your book prepare them to engage with more advanced material?
- How can you help them figure out what to read next?
You are finishing this book *for these readers*. How might you remind yourself who they are?
- A sticky note with a description of them?
- A photo collage or stock photo that reminds you of them?
- Something else?
Your gremlins may occasionally forget that and start shouting at you about how it is not a good representation of your scholarship. Or that your nemesis in the field is going to hate it. Or that the promotion committee won’t value it as much as some other thing…
None of that is relevant. If you find yourself getting distracted by worries about how People Who Are Not The Audience For This Book will react, stop. Do whatever you need to do to regulate your nervous system. (A few slow breaths usually works.) Remind yourself who you are writing this book for.
The readers of your introduction or textbook are not going to be re-evaluating everything they’ve thought about your scholarship because they don’t know your scholarship.
Even the ones that do know your scholarship will be thinking, “I’m so glad they’ve written an intro/textbook because I’ve been looking for something good to recommend.”
Your introduction or textbook *will* be missing things. Everybody knows that this kind of book is *always missing something*. There are so many different contexts in which people will use it, that it *cannot be perfect* for any given thing. It will be a good option for many of those uses.
What does this book need to be finished?
If you’ve got this far, I assume you have decided that you do need and want to finish this book. Not ‘A Book’. This book.
Knowing *why* you are finishing it is a big part of finding the motivation to actually do the work.
It is also important to make this book a priority over other things that might also be demanding your attention.
Consider declaring a moratorium on new writing projects until you’ve submitted this. At the very least, make sure you ask yourself “Is this more important than finishing the book?” before you take on anything new.
In other words, the first thing this book needs is time.
How are you going to protect time to work on this book, in particular?
Your answer should involve your calendar and some of the strategies you know have worked for you in the past.
Once you have time, you need a plan for what to do in the time you’ve allocated.
If you are as frustrated as my client is with her book, frustrated enough that the phrase “damned book” in the title resonated, or you’ve been comparing this book to the albatross in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, you need to ask yourself:
What is the minimum I need to do to make this book happen?
That might require a document to store all the side quests, deleted scenes, and new questions that are tempting you so you can give them proper consideration later.
If you’ve got an abandoned manuscript, as my client has, you might find the process in The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook helpful (even if your manuscript is not and never was a dissertation).
You might go through chapter by chapter to evaluate the content in relation to what the reader needs and make a plan for getting each chapter draft complete in that sense.
Once you’re confident about the chapter content, you can use “How do I know when my book is ready to submit?” to make a plan for refining the whole book before submission.
You don’t need a full plan to get started.
You need 3 things:
- A reason to do it (that has something to do with the value to a reader).
- Time to work on it.
- A list of specific things you can do next.
Keep your reader in mind and ask yourself “What does this book need to move forward?”
Make sure your list includes items that are specific enough that when the time you have protected arrives, you can look at the list, pick a thing, and do it.
Sometimes the book you’re trying to write, it’s just hard to write.
You became an academic because you enjoy doing challenging things. If you have a good reason to write this book, it’s probably one of those good kinds of challenges.
Help is here
If you would like extra support, the Academic Writing Studio includes Planning Classes and the Establishing A Writing Practice class to guide you through formulating your plan, weekly co-working sessions (‘A Meeting With Your Writing‘) to help you protect time for writing, plus quarterly Writing Clinics where you can get the kind of support the person whose situation prompted this post had. There are other group coaching sessions for additional help with your book or with the other stuff that’s making it hard for you to protect the time to work on the book.
My Short Guide books also use this kind of coaching approach and include questions to help you get unstuck and keep your projects moving forward. You can learn more about them, read samples, and purchase here.
Related Posts:
Why are you writing this book?
Letting go of unfinished projects
This post was originally sent to newsletter subscribers on October 18, 2024 as part of an October book-writing feature. The other post can be found here.
