Thread by @raulpacheco

OK.

I just watered my Mom's garden, made coffee and now I can explain to you my 3,000 to 10,000 growth in number of words.

You can guess the TL;DR

I DO NOT WRITE 7,000 WORDS PER DAY.

I write papers based on a strategy called "Writing by Memorandum".

I write memorandums.

When I was in graduate school, I took courses on qualitative methods. One of the core ideas that I made mine was "writing memorandums" raulpacheco.org/2016/07/writin…

I write papers by assembling memos.
raulpacheco.org/2017/06/writin…

Yes, for those of you doing empirical work: I DO write...

... memorandums about my data, my methods, analysis, results, etc.

In this post I gave you 8 sequential steps to quickly produce a Shitty First Draft (hat tips Anne Lamott) raulpacheco.org/2016/04/8-tips…

I always suggest assembling the paper about 70-80% of the way before finishing.

This is my folder of a chapter on intersectional public policy I will have published in a book edited by @Dr_Atchison

As you can see, I have several memos that outline pieces of my thinking for this chapter.

I did not sit down and write whatever many thousand words in one day

- I can write bits and pieces of memos (not even a full memo!) every morning. Even if it's only 50 words of a memo. raulpacheco.org/2018/04/125-25…

- I write pieces of a memo as part of my #2ThingsADay before shit hits the fan.
raulpacheco.org/2018/04/the-ac…

- Often times, just looking at (and adding comments to) my Drafts Review Matrix (DRM)raulpacheco.org/2018/02/an-imp… is the one activity I consider "staying in touch with my writing" raulpacheco.org/2019/03/what-d…

- Other times, I just open the document & read raulpacheco.org/2020/04/stayin…

What I did this morning was to assemble all the memos I had already written for this particular paper.

To note: I did not have written 10,000 words in memos. I probably did have about 7,000 which means that yes, I did write 3,000 words in one day. But that's because I had...

... the mental space, the physical space, the time (and an impending deadline that I cannot avoid because it means letting someone down that has been incredibly kind to me).

Now, all I have to do is edit, cut words/add words, move stuff around, re-read and format the paper.

But again, I insist: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WRITE 3,000 WORDS PER DAY.

Whatever you can add to a memorandum is good enough (yes, 15 words IS good enough).

Whatever time you can devote to your work is good (yes, 10 minutes is enough).

We're in a pandemic. BEING WELL IS PRIORITY.

There's enough pressure on us to take what I just wrote as 1 more reason to feel pressure. On the contrary. If I share my process (and my life) is to remind you that less than 6 months ago, I almost died of chronic pain and chronic fatigue.

I am writing now because I'm healthy.

DO WHAT *YOU* NEED TO DO.

Don't listen to your inner demons or the external pressures.

Right now the goal is to survive this !@#% pandemic.

If my process helps you in any way, take it (or adopt parts of it).

Don't feel pressured by it. Or by academia, writ large.

</FIN>

NEW BLOG POST: Writing by memorandums raulpacheco.org/2020/04/writin…

This thread in handy blog post with additional insights.

TL;DR - writing small bits and pieces of a manuscript helps (memoing)