According to Paul Silvia in his book How to Write a Lot, the second most specious barrier to writing is ” ‘I need to do some more analyses first,’ aka ! I need to read a few more articles.’ ” (p. 18).
I’ve often fallen into this trap. There are SO MANY things out there that I just NEED to read before I can get writing… Well, before I know it, I’ve done tons of reading but lost track of what the hell I was going to write about. Finding articles for an academic is like surfing the web: a few interesting articles in a bibliography leads you to a few more which lead to a few more and so on.
I’ve been following Silvia’s advice by sitting down with a word count goal everyday. This month, it’s 300 words a day, everyday. By getting my own ideas on paper, or at least trying to, I see where I need to do extra reading to support or bolster my argument, I realize where my own ideas are fuzzy and where I need to clarify them, often in response to other people’s work, and so on. This kind of focussed reading helps with efficiency and productivity.
An unexpected consequence of this type of reading and writing process is that it generates many more ideas than just reading. As each new interesting idea or concept comes to me, I open the file with future projects and write a quick note and maybe a citation. But then I leave it there and return to the project at hand. Currently, I’m writing one essay, but much of my reading has given me insights into another idea that I’ll be developing into another article soon–I’ve been writing down my ideas and keeping bibliography, so when I finally get to that project, I expect it won’t take too long to finish.
Finally, I think it important to say that every academic should take part in the conversation of his discipline. We all have something to say, and to simply keep up with the current literature is not the same thing as joining in. Writing everyday is the way to join that conversation and make your voice heard.
