Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Optimizing focus when your project brings up difficult emotions At the end of A Meeting With Your Writing one day, a participant shared how she’d managed her focus on a project that brings up difficult emotions. I’ve been dealing with one thing that was very hard … with some […]
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What to do about a stalled book project
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · What to do about a stalled book project Are you *not* writing a book? Maybe it’s your “thesis book”. Maybe it’s something else. You might have a contract for it. You might not have started it, but think you should have by now. You might have a lot of […]
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Spotlight On: Grading Season
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Spotlight On: Grading Season Grading is one of those things that many academics struggle to find meaningful or enjoyable, but is required by your employer. Grading is often constrained by policies you have little influence over and deadlines you don’t control. My work is focused on helping academics find […]
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Do you have to finish your grading before you can write?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Do you have to finish the grading before you can write? It’s already difficult to keep writing while you are teaching and doing all the other things that need to be done in the main part of the academic year. You probably look forward to the end of teaching […]
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Spotlight On: Optimizing Focus
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Spotlight On: Optimizing Focus Over the years I have written a lot about focus and distraction because it is a perennial issue for academics at all stages of career. As I pulled them together for this spotlight, I deepened my understanding of the issue and how I approach it. […]
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Making Decisions: planning & scheduling
This post was originally written in February 2021 as a follow up to Planning Your Winter Semester and was shared in the Academic Writing Studio. It has been edited and divided into a series of shorter posts for ease of reading. The general principles—habits, routines, and default responses—are explained in the first post in the […]
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Spotlight On: Writing & Resting
One of the main challenges you face in the summer is juggling writing and rest. The first step is to resist the urge to Write All The Things!. I’ve used a hiking metaphor to explain how your summer writing fits with the writing you do in the rest of the year to help you decide […]
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Why join the Studio in the summer?
You probably think of summer as the easiest time of year to focus on research and writing. You’ve probably been looking forward to it for months because of that. So why would you want to join the Studio? Some people who attend A Meeting With Your Writing regularly during the main part of the year, […]
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Planning in uncertain times
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Planning in Uncertain Times None of us are any good at predicting the future. On one level we are always planning for uncertainty. The level of uncertainty varies though and has been very high for the past year or so, both generally and in relation to your academic work […]
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Introducing: the Academic Writing Studio
The Beginning When I started A Meeting With Your Writing back in September 2011, I didn’t even know if it would work. All I knew was that virtual accountability and community was needed, and that I was prepared to facilitate something that might help. Now, it feels central to everything I do. Participants have told […]
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Starting your academic writing year in mid-summer
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Starting your academic year in mid-summer When do academics celebrate the new year? This is a serious question for those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, where the beginning of the calendar year in January is more like the middle of the academic year. It seems like […]
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Motivation and accomplishment in your writing practice
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Motivation & accomplishment in your writing practice Given how hard it is for most academics to find time to work on their writing, and how difficult it is to know how long some stages of the process will take, I advocate establishing a regular writing practice and trusting […]
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