On admitting the struggle - and getting unstuck
On admitting the struggle - and getting unstuck
"It's not just me!"
I admitted to a colleague earlier this week, “This article I’m writing is making me MISERABLE!” and he replied, “I’m so glad to hear that! Because I also have an article making me miserable–so it’s not just me!”
We don’t often share when writing or research or whatever projects are not going very well. It feels like admitting failure or that you’re not actually very good at your job. It’s a very vulnerable feeling to tell somebody else you respect, and whose respect you want, that you’re really struggling with something.
Today I want to touch briefly on two big topics: 1) why and how to be open about your struggles; 2) how to get unstuck from your struggles.
Why and how to be open about your struggles
Here I am admitting to this whole list as my first real newsletter, that yes, this article I’m working on really IS making me miserable and frankly, going terribly! Twenty articles and a monograph later, and I still struggle! Why would I admit this? (Besides the fact that next week I will compensate with a seriously exciting milestone to share with you…)
Actually, I’ve been whinging about this struggle for months now to various people. My big problem was that the article was supposed to be based on a conference lecture I gave a year and a half ago, but all that material had already been published in other venues by the time this journal special issue was given the green light—so I had to start from scratch. I had to think of something that fit both the special issue remit and my own research agenda.
A deep sense of panic set in early last semester when the deadline was a month away (23 October to be exact) and no topic was in sight. Part of me really wanted to pull out, but it didn’t meet my qualifying threshold for withdrawing (I have a flowchart for deciding when to withdraw from a commitment—coming soon in another newsletter!). I really wanted to be a part, and realized I needed some outside help. So I confided in my department’s Friday social writing group (also coming in another newsletter!) and they urged me on. I called my former post-doc, a wise wise woman, and she urged me on. And I’ve found that every time I get up the courage to admit my struggles, I get so much sympathy, encouragement, and support that it makes me much less miserable, and actually inspires me to get my butt in gear and commit to whatever it is that is freaking me out. Through these conversations and much sweat and tears and actual research I finally thought up a great topic that fits, and it still feels new, and speculative, and difficult, and scary; but it’s going to happen.
Some important caveats: I’m lucky to have those kind of supportive colleagues, and I also try to be strategic about who I talk to. I identify safe people and safe spaces and admit vulnerabilities because afterwards I find I feel better, just to get it off my chest, and talk through solutions out loud, and have somebody listen, and maybe offer advice. Those people, meanwhile, realize they might also experience these same struggles (“it’s not just me!”), and that they too have a safe space to air them when they need to.
Now depending on what type of person you are, and your employment or position of precarity, you might feel that safe space is nowhere to be found. But I bet you have some colleagues somewhere in the world or other normal-people friends who could be a supportive sounding board for whatever struggles you’re going through. So make a list (actually write down their names) and reach out to them when you need to. It’s easy to forget who your cheerleaders are when your brain is in crisis mode.
What are other strategies you use to find somebody to talk to when you feel like your writing sucks or you can’t write at all? How do you find safe people? What to do if you feel you have no one for support? I’d love to hear your own tips and experience in the comments.
How to get unstuck from your struggles
You can find whole books on this already and I could write a whole book on this—and it will come up a lot in this newsletter! (And maybe someday I’ll write that book.) But here are a few specific things that have helped me to unstuck on this specific *&@!ing article (besides swearing about it liberally):
Lowering my standards for a 0 draft. I’ve used this approach for another piece recently and it’s a game-changer; it doesn’t suit every stuck-situation, or every person, but it can be worth a try. Here’s how it goes: I have almost all my primary and secondary material notes all typed up in another document, so it’s all kind of in my head; and I have a start of an outline or maybe a whole general outline… but maybe no recognizable argument yet (could be that’s what’s holding me back, obviously). Then I start a new document and I start writing the article as if I was explaining it to a friend out loud - maybe even do dictation to text. I meta-commentary what each paragraph is doing and even each sentence. For instance: “Now here in this paragraph I will have the core of my argument. I will argue [very rough argument idea]. The first part of my argument might be: something about manuscripts. The second part might be: something about printing. Then I will have some sentences about what’s at stake, both in terms of historical context and maybe also larger questions in the field.” So almost everything is a placeholder! This is kind of the same but slightly different than the ‘shitty first draft’, and calling it a 0 draft takes some pressure off the first draft. Fly through writing quickly, a whole 0 draft like this in one morning, without judging or tweaking, and you’re on your way.
I did this for a piece I was having trouble on some years ago, on Syon Abbey, England’s only monastic house of St. Birgitta’s Order. I know TONS about this topic but was frozen with fear about writing it. So the 0 draft literally had sentences like: “Syon was an important place for women. Why was this? We know quite a lot but still need to see the big picture. We also need to figure out the nuances. That is what I will do in this essay. I will talk about liturgy. I will talk about devotional reading. I will talk about abbesses and printing. I will eventually have an argument that goes here.” So you can bet none of those sentences survived the next revision, haha! But they gave me something to revise. They were words on the page I could just rewrite, revise, remove, whatever. Sometimes (maybe not all the time) it’s just so much easier to have something to work with instead of a blank page, trapped in the perfect sentence vortex. Trapped because you can’t see the final argument yet - you need to write your way to it.
Do any of you do this kind of drafting? How does it help you? Leave a note in the comments!
Trusting the process. Writing a 0 draft or placeholder draft requires you to trust that at the end of the process you will get a grown-up article with real sentences. Of course you will, this is not your first rodeo! Even if it’s your first rodeo, it’s not your first sentence. The Syon Abbey piece that began as a 0 draft that would get a C as a first-year essay is now published by Cambridge University Press and just fine :-) https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108869485.006 It got there because I revised it way up, got lots of feedback both before submission and from the editors and peer reviewers. You don’t have to write the perfect article first - you just have to write an article. It doesn’t even have to end up perfect! It just has to have some words. I try to trust that my unofficial and official peer reviewers, and I, all together, will help get it there.
Deadlines with people I’ll see face-to-face (or screen-to-screen). On Monday this week I submitted a draft for the first deadline I’ve kept with this ^&@!$ article— because it wasn’t for some editors far away (whom I deeply respect and hate disappointing), it was for my UiB Literature & Religion Research Group colleagues (whom I also deeply respect and hate disappointing) but with whom I have actually committed to a writing workshop at a specific time where I have to walk in the door. In an hour, on Friday morning, eight of my UiB colleagues, none experts in the article subject but all brilliant and great at giving constructive criticism, will work through my partial draft with me and help me figure out how on earth to make it better. I made huge progress with that Monday deadline hanging over me, and I’ll make huge progress after their feedback today. I am thankful for them!
In subsequent newsletters I’ll discuss lots of different ways of giving yourself internal deadlines for writing and good practices for soliciting helpful feedback from others.
To wrap up: Am I using this newsletter to procrastinate writing this article? Yes. Is this writing helping to get the words flowing and will get me inspired to write my article? Also yes! Win-win!
Am I brave enough to share the topic or other details of this article with you right now? No! But I will be ready in a few months when I get it back from peer review, so keep an eye out for that newsletter. I promise it is really fantastic topic (about two visionaries, hint hint) if I can just keep on chipping away at it, one sentence, one footnote, one word at a time.