Thread by @raulpacheco

Micro-thread on "dealing with The Dreaded Blank Page". I have been wanting to write a thread and a blog post on this topic for a very long time. When one of my PhD students told me "Dr. Pacheco-Vega, I don't know how to START a paper", I literally froze. I was like "BUT WHY?"

He explained that he had read plenty of scholarly papers, and so on, but STARTING was the challenge. I have written about how to write a first rough draft of a paper in 8 steps raulpacheco.org/2016/04/8-tips… and how to go from idea to a finished paper raulpacheco.org/2017/06/writin… Later on...

... I understood what he meant:

Facing The Dreaded Blank Page was VERY challenging to him.

Well, people, I have been writing for more than a decade and I am here to tell you that

a) Writing is hard
b) Writing well is VERY hard
c) Dread for the Dreaded Blank page is justified

As a child, I used to read Charles Schultz' "Charlie Brown". I never realized I would actually be a writer when I grew up, but I strongly identified with Snoopy, and his approach to The Dreaded Blank Page:

"It was a dark and stormy night.."

That was his prompt, and it worked.

My advice for novice and seasoned writers is always: you develop a writing practices by

a) practicing, and

b) setting non-lofty, achievable writing goals

c) working on one piece of writing at a time

I also wanted to recommend books on writing practices (next tweets)

I have read many, many books on writing, but three that stand out specifically to help developing writing practices are:

a) @WendyLBelcher #12WeeksArticle raulpacheco.org/2018/01/writin… (2nd edition out just now)

b) @biblioracle 's "The Writer's Practice" penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566892/t…

and c) Patricia Goodson's Becoming an Academic Writer raulpacheco.org/2017/07/becomi…

My blog post also has several pieces on developing an academic writing practice:

raulpacheco.org/2017/07/four-s…

raulpacheco.org/2017/11/acwrim…

There are two elements to this: practicing writing and organizing.

There are books that teach you how to practice and develop your writing skills, and books that teach you how to organize yourself to make the space for writing. The two best ones I have found for the latter are Jensen's Write No Matter What and Zerubavel's The Clockwork Muse.

My reading notes on Jensen raulpacheco.org/2018/03/write-… and on Zerubavel raulpacheco.org/2018/08/the-cl…

I will also admit that I reconsidered my dislike for Helen Sword's "Air & Light & Time & Space". I re-read it last night, and it works well as a workbook too raulpacheco.org/2017/08/air-li…

Anyhow, my students ask me "Professor, how do you deal with The Dreaded Blank Page?"

My answer: I use prompts (here are 5 suggestions) raulpacheco.org/2017/03/using-…

I use devices (questions, topic sentences) or actions (data analysis, reporting, explaining) to prompt me to write.

I tell my students to write paper outlines using topic sentences and questions PRECISELY because each question and each topic sentence acts as a prompt.
raulpacheco.org/2018/03/two-me…

They don't need to focus on writing The Entire Paper in one sitting/one week. They can just focus.

(Here's where @AliaGvR will jump and scream and say: THIS IS WHAT SCRIVENER IS MADE FOR!)

To deal with The Dreaded Blank Page, I always recommend that my students open a new Word document (several use LaTeX, but I'm a Micro$oft Office adopter what can I say). BUT people say...

... that you can open a new card in the corkboard on Scrivener and that you can draw from all of those. I'll believe them and send you to my trusted Scrivener advisor @AliaGvR for advice on using Scrivener to do what I suggest in thes following sequence of blog posts;

1) break down the work in manageable pieces raulpacheco.org/2016/05/my-dai…

2) focus on ONE piece of writing at a time
raulpacheco.org/2016/05/my-dai…

3) Consider spending time on that one piece of writing your Quick Win of the day raulpacheco.org/2016/07/keepin… or ...

4) Simply make one of your #2ThingsADay goal raulpacheco.org/2018/04/the-ac… spending 30 minutes on ONE writing task at a time.

The process I outline here is literally how *I* deal with The Dreaded Blank Page. Others may use different advice (read this Brain Pickings piece)

- from Brain Pickings brainpickings.org/2016/09/13/wri…

- a cursory Google search google.ca/search?q=dread…

- a Twitter search twitter.com/search?f=tweet…

TL;DR: we all dread a blank page, but we can practice our way out of it. Writing is hard, but it's a skill that can be developed. </fin>

NEW BLOG POST: Dealing with The Dreaded Blank Page raulpacheco.org/2019/08/dealin… this thread, but in handy blog post format. Remember you can reshare on Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, or email it (or print it for future reference) using the social buttons of my blog.