Prof: “How are you doing?”
Student: “Oh you know school, assignments work, family, and you?”
Prof: “Much the same really school, assignments, homework, deadlines, otherwise good thanks”
Professors are expected to write books and publish academic articles and when you are a new one like me, ‘at the bottom of the totem pole’, you are repeatedly reminded as you are given yet another administrative task that to make Tenure you need to publish.
Well, I have a serious case of writers block. If I need to prepare a class or a presentation it comes naturally, I do the research, put it all together and voila it comes together beautifully and I enjoy every step of the process. But writing is another thing altogether. It’s like going to the gym, getting there is so hard but once you see the benefits you enjoy it and keep going only until you fall out of the routine AGAIN and then it takes forever to get back into it!
Well this is what happens with my writing intention, I organize, tidy, clean, list, sort, read BUT I don’t write. It’s not even that I don’t enjoy it, I think it’s more like a task that never ends. So after discussing this with some wise friends, I am trying something new. Not very different to how I work with children. I have set my goals, broken this down to achievable objectives. I know what my terminal destination is and now I know what my enroute behaviours are which will take me there. Now that I have my map I don’t think I will get lost anymore. I am giving myself tangible and achievable goals with rewards immediately after the writing is done. Eventually the act of writing and completing the task will serve as my reinforcer and PIFF PAFF POOF I will have magically written my scholarly articles and books!