When it comes to writing a book, consistency is the name of the game. Books aren’t written in a series of all nighters or binge writing sessions. If you want to make regular progress instead of relying exclusively on sabbaticals or research leaves, you have to write regularly. Yet, many academics worry that they aren’t writing enough. In today’s episode, I’m going to teach you how to write consistently so you can reach your book book writing milestones and submit for publication on time. Let’s get into it. Welcome to Academic Book Writing Simplified. I’m your host, Jane Joanne Jones, a writing coach and a writer who’s here to give you some tough love about the way you write.

This podcast is for women and non binary scholars in academia who are writing academic books, but feel as if the process is a little or a lot like a mystery. If you’re ready to create your confusion and frustration for ease, clarity, and purpose, you’re in the right place. Let’s head into today’s episode. Welcome to today’s episode. I’m your host, Jane Jones, and we’re going to discuss how to create a consistent writing practice. Now, many writers I work with have a certain stage of the writing process that they like the most. It might be the beginning, where everything feels brand new, the middle where they can wrestle with a complicated argument, or the end when they can finally see the finish line. Where they struggle is building consistency across all stages.

Today, I’m going to teach you how to build a consistent writing practice. We’re going to discuss the difference between consistency and frequency, how to get unstuck or move past resistance, and how to maintain your writing practice once you create it. Grab a notebook, because I’m gonna be sharing some tips you can implement as soon as you’re done listening. So let’s talk first about the difference between consistency and frequency. Many writers get discouraged because they’re not writing every day, and therefore believe they don’t have a consistent writing practice. Consistency and frequency are not synonyms. Consistent means at regular recurring intervals, and I’m saying this to remind you, you’re like, I can get a dictionary myself, but I’m reminding you because a lot of people beat themselves up because they don’t write every day. But if you decide to write every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for instance, and then maintain that schedule over weeks and months, you are a consistent writer.

You might have to dial up that consistency when you’re nearing a deadline, or have additional writing responsibilities, like a revise and resubmit or call for proposals land on your desk. You might have to dial the consistency down if you get sick or have a very busy admin week where grades are due, for instance. But if you’re keeping your schedule for the vast majority of the time, you’re consistent. In order to decide what consistency will look like for you, you’ll have to look at your calendar, your capacity, and your deadlines. Here are four questions to ask yourself. When am I available to write? When do I have the energy to write well? If I’m available, but I don’t have the energy to write well, what work can I do instead? Is there formatting or reading or data analysis or any other kind of task surrounding the intensive writing that I can do to move my work forward? And finally, what are my writing projects due? Once you have the answers to those four questions, you can use them to create your writing schedule. Now, let’s get into maintaining your writing schedule. And generally, if you have a good schedule, meaning you’ve cleared the time and are available to write, but aren’t using the time the way you’d like, maybe you’re not showing up to the sessions or you’re showing up and not getting a lot done, there are probably two reasons why that might be happening.

There can be other reasons of course, but these are the two I see the most in my coaching. The first reason is that you’re stuck. In my definition, stuck means you want to work, but you don’t know what to do. The second reason is that you’re resistant. Resistant is when you know what to do, but don’t want to do it. I’m going to address how to deal with both, but the first step for you is to diagnose which one you’re experiencing. So let’s talk about being stuck. If you’re stuck, meaning you wanna work, but you don’t know what to do, get very specific about how you’re stuck.

Now, I know you might be thinking, Jane, if I knew what was wrong, I wouldn’t be stuck. I get that, but in my experience, many academics do not give themselves credit for how much they already know. So here are two ways to reach a higher level of specificity about your stuckness, if stuckness is a word. The first way is to figure out what you don’t know, but you need to know. Here’s an example. I know I need to clarify my argument, because multiple people have told me it’s confusing, but I don’t know how to clarify it. Next, figure out what you can do to gain more specificity. This might mean eliminating some options.

It might mean adding some options. For instance, with our argument example, perhaps you need to go into the literature. Okay, so you’re adding an option. I need to go into the literature to look at examples of well crafted arguments. I need to see how they’re structured, and compare them to the structure of my argument. Think about what you don’t need to do. I have enough data, or maybe I’ve done enough reading. You’re identifying what you do know in that instance.

You know what’s there, which can help you figure out what is missing. So if you know you have enough data to make a strong argument, if you know you’ve done an adequate reading of the literature, that will narrow down the options of what you need to do to clarify your argument. Maybe I need to word it differently. Maybe there is a pattern in my data that I am not noticing. So I may not need to collect more data, but I may need to reanalyze some of it. Identifying what you do know, I do know I have enough data, I do know I’ve done enough reading, We’ll give you a bit of a life preserver, so you don’t feel like you’re drowning in the uncertainty of not knowing. And often that is what gets us stuck because we feel overwhelmed by what we don’t know. So focusing on the parts that you do have a handle on, that you feel confident in, can help you.

And it doesn’t have to be this enormous amount of confidence, because I know you might be thinking, I don’t feel confident about anything. There’s something there that you have completed. Right? So start there and think about that. Identify what you do know, so that you can figure out how to gain more specificity about what to do next. Okay. Let’s move on to resistance. This is where you know what to do, but you don’t feel like doing it. Now, while stuckness is not normally caused by something within your writing, like an idea that you can’t get a handle on, a sense of confusion about the argument or, like, what you’re doing with your writing, Resistance is usually caused by circumstances that aren’t directly related to your writing.

They can be about the world, which is probably weighing on you pretty heavily right now. It could be your own well-being like being tired or being overworked. Right? These are circumstances that aren’t directly related to the page, but do influence how you show up for your writing. So, if you desire to work through your resistance, here are a couple of things you could do. First is to remind yourself of the ultimate goal. Reinforcing what you stand to gain, instead of a more punitive approach of focusing on what you stand to lose, can build motivation. So instead of saying, if I don’t work today, I’ll never get this done. I’m so lazy.

Try. This will get me one step closer to publishing my book. And even as I was reading this, I was like, this sounds a little bit corny, but corny approaches can be effective. Focusing on the win or the ultimate reward can give you motivation to do that small task that might seem kind of inconsequential in the moment or something. You can I don’t need to do that right now? Right? That’s sometimes how resistance shows up thinking, I don’t need to do this right now. I could skip this. Reminding yourself, hey, this task is in service of a broader goal that is really important to me, and reminding yourself why it’s important to you can help you push through that sense of resistance. In line with reinforcing the positive, you can give yourself an immediate reward, otherwise known as a bribe.

You might decide to write at your favorite coffee shop, watch an episode of your favorite show once your writing session is over, or maybe give yourself reward for completing a week’s worth of writing sessions. This sounds simple because it is. You don’t want to overcomplicate how you deal with resistance, because the feeling of resistance is already complicated. Right? So I want to give you some simple solutions to get past it. And finally, take good care of yourself. And I don’t mean this in a, you know, consumerist self care sort of way, but in a way where you check-in with yourself to get at the root of why you’re resistant. You may not be able to solve whatever external circumstance is troubling you in time for your writing session, but acknowledging it, and planning just one step to confront it, can give you the boost you need. And at times, you might decide that it’s okay to take a break from your writing.

Even as we’re talking about building a consistent writing practice, again, it does not need to be frequent. Right? It also doesn’t need to be robotic. There will be moments where you don’t feel like writing and you don’t write. If this becomes a pattern, you should address it. That’s different. Right? But if it isn’t every so often incident, it’s okay. And acknowledging that, you know what? Today, I just don’t have it in me. And taking the necessary rest that you could show up well for your next writing session, might be the break you need.

So, when you’re able to move past stuckness and resistance, maintaining your writing practice will take care of itself. The work will be in planning how to make use of your time, meaning structuring your writing sessions appropriately, and protecting your time, which means maintaining your boundaries, which, you know, is a favorite topic of mine because I’ve discussed it on the podcast before, especially in episode number six. And also recognizing that sometimes consistency means taking a break. Okay. So to wrap, as we know, maintaining a consistent writing practice is key to maintaining your writing milestones and submitting a book on time. A book is a long term writing project. It is very easy to put it on the back burner. This is why consistency is key.

So that you are making even what seems like incremental progress. When that adds up, the cumulative effect of that incremental progress will be so much when you look back six months, nine months, a year later, and realize how much work you’ve gotten done, even from those writing sessions that, in the moment, seemed like they weren’t particularly wrong. Right? Or that, you know, it was only twice a week, it wasn’t enough. Twice a week for fifty weeks is a hundred writing sessions. Right? So maintaining that consistency over time is what will help you meet your book writing milestones. And remember, there are always going to be disruptions that come your way. But if you focus on the fundamentals of your practice, what we discussed today, you’ll be better equipped to take those disruptions in stride. Now, as always, thank you for listening, and I will see you in the next episode.

Take care. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Remember, writing an academic book is challenging, but that doesn’t mean you have to overcomplicate it. If you liked what you heard in today’s episode, please leave a review. This helps get the word out about the podcast so more people will listen and we can continue the conversation. Take care, and tune in for our next episode.