Thread by @raulpacheco

I have a million things to do today, but I am going to share a few snippets of wisdom from @ANNELAMOTT 's "Bird by Bird".

It's really weird that this late in my career and in my "writing about academic writing" life, I literally JUST purchased BBB. penguinrandomhouse.com/books/97395/bi…

I say that it's weird that I literally *just* bought one of the books that was recommended to me the most. After reading dozens of books about writing, and after writing hundreds of blog posts about the academic process.

I am SO GLAD I did.

Anne Lamott is a treasure, really.

This piece of wisdom for which Lamott is globally well known, is INCREDIBLE:

Writing is about starting somewhere, so you might as well start with a Shitty First Draft.

The challenge for me is the “quiet the voices in my head” part. I’m always pondering “is this good enough?”

I have read several of these "memoir-type" books that provide advice on writing.

William Zinsser raulpacheco.org/2017/08/on-wri…

Stephen King raulpacheco.org/2018/05/on-wri…

Henry Miller raulpacheco.org/2019/08/henry-…

HOWEVER... by and large, Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird is the most gentle of them.

I also struggle with perfectionism. I was a straight A+ kid from grade school through my PhD. I was used to push myself to the limit.

This is weird because my parents never pushed me to be “the best”. They did demand that I gave it my all. That I did *MY* best. For myself.

But I did a lot of competitive stuff, and when you compete against others, you learn to try to be The Best.

I played nationally-ranked competitive volleyball since I was a child until my 20s.

I danced competitively. I didn't just dance to have fun. I danced to win contests-

Lammott's approach reminds me of @BreneBrown 's words: "when you live a wholehearted life, you learn to be kinder and gentler with yourself".

I believe that's the component that is missing in the structure of academia. We need a gentler, kinder academia, one that builds us up

Though Lamott writes for novelists, the way in which she talks about character, plot, story development, is extremely useful for all of us who do scholarly research.

In my view, research is about telling a story. With data, with theory, but it's a story in the end.

We reveal things. We explain concepts. We make the complex legible.

Storytelling is an underrated skill in scholarly research and writing. Yes, I'm happy you can program with Python and that you develop multilevel models.

Can you tell me the story of what your model reveals?

I am going to be kinder and gentler with myself today. I used my "runway time" reading Lamott's Bird by Bird.

-- for an explanation of Runway Time (h/t Dr. @meredithdclark) please click here -
raulpacheco.org/2020/05/time-s…

My writing time will be spent juggling a million things.

I'm going to have to exchange some writing time for "grunt work" time (preparing lecture slides) raulpacheco.org/2020/05/a-typo…

But it's ok. I will be ok. I am ok with not finishing this damned book chapter today.

I want to survive today and be healthy, so whatever I get done it's ok

It’s Saturday morning and instead of doing scholarly reading I am having my coffee and reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.

Fitting that I’m taking notes in index cards off a chapter ON Index Cards.

This is a wisdom pearl:
“[...] when you give yourself permission to start writing [is that] you start thinking as a writer”.

(I always copy the exact quotation with a Harvard style annotation with author, year and page to avoid plagiarism and misquotation or poor citing)

Lamott admits (p. 129) that her index cards systems is disorganized. Unfortunately I’m a Type A, Upholder, Virgo, so I like organizing them.

You can see my index cards on @dustingarrick and @SarahAnnWheele1 ‘s paper and on @STRomanoPhD ‘S book.

Lamott on giving feedback to writers:

TL;DR: don’t destroy people’s self-confidence - build them up with rigorous, firm yet gentle guidance.

Lamott is correct that healthy writing groups evolve to manifest many of these characteristics:

Wrong photo in the previous tweet.

I agree with Lamott on writing groups:

There are, obviously, points where I disagree with Lamott.

Publication won’t make me rich but it will keep me gainfully employed!

Learning from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.