Academics, 30 Days or Less Until Back to Campus: Did You Meet Your Writing Goal?
by DuEwa Frazier
Writers dream about writing even when they’re not writing. It’s probably the same for academics, except for academics there’s a waking anxiety that creeps up on you when you’re on the clock as far as your publishing goes. And we know what clock that is. Tick tick tick…
If you’re new on your tenure track, or maybe you’re a lecturer or adjunct who is looking toward applying for TT job this year, you’ve got publishing on your mind. It’s July 22nd and most academics are heading back to work, back to class in 30 days or less. Summer is almost over.
If you were keen or at least strategic, you probably started writing and submitting your work right when school was out in May or early June and by now you’ve gotten some responses. If you didn’t, I’m not judging. Maybe you had a rough Spring semester and May to now has been recouping your mental health.
Summer provides precious time for academics on break, to conduct research, turn your dissertation into a book chapter, or put the finishing touches on that book proposal. Or at least to have a handful of journals or other publications you plan to submit to before things get hectic in September.
Did you meet your goal? Or at least set one? Among the groups that I’m apart of I’ve observed an exciting push toward getting groups of fellow faculty together online who need to write but haven’t been doing so on their own.
Are writing groups really working to gain the kind of motivation and direction one needs to push out publications before summer’s end?
I think that writing groups are great, but only if each individual has their goals already set.
When I planned my publishing before and during my summers while on the TT, I didn’t do it in a group. I became my own coach. I set my writing goals and kept track of my submissions in a document I created. I wrote regularly and made contacts with those in publishing who would accept my work. I had dogged determination and a clear focus.
The same way you need to be doggedly determined to finish your doctorate degree or apply for jobs, is the same kind of determination you need for your writing goals. Like literally chase it!
In less than two years, I churned out two edited volumes, one scholarly edited volume published by IGI Global and the second, my most recent book, a hybrid (edited volume with scholarship and creative writing) published by Routledge. I worked for three summers on my research and writing. Did I take breaks - yes but it was like the kind of breaks you take from having a second or third job. Breathers really, not breaks. I also did a lot of research on academic publishing and scholarship as an academic. Because these are things that no one teaches you, unless you had a really good doctoral chair who mentored you and actually cared about the path you were heading to after earning your degree.
I didn’t have a mentor for academic publishing. And I didn’t have an agent solely assigned to me to follow and push me along for my writing journey. I’ve always admired writers who seem to have someone to hold their hand at every phase, it makes their journey easier. I guess I was supposed to teach and help other academics, thus I had to teach myself.
But it’s a great accomplishment to use your summers to write and send out submissions. Your work is not finished however when summer ends. Serving as an editor of two published volumes, I did a lot of editing and follow up during the academic year while I was also teaching and doing my faculty service. It can be managed but you have to be really good at compartmentalizing and going for stretches where all you’re doing is working - no play time.
If your goal is tenure and rank at your institution or a new FT faculty job, you’ll want to set clear publishing goals for yourself that you can attain. Being pretty ambitious and focused on my publishing, I was going to meet my goals whether I had the support or not, but that is my personality.
New academics should have mentoring at their respective institutions or at least seek out a mentor or coach outside of your university so that you can meet your marks in the scholarship area.
What remains of your summer writing before heading back to the classroom is up to you.
If you’re interested in a coach mentor to help you make your final weeks of summer a productive one for your writing goals, let me know. I’m the founder of Never Scared Writers & Academics. Now accepting clients for coaching.
DuEwa Frazier is a poet, writer, digital storyteller, children’s / YA author, speaker, founder of DuEwa World Digital, and scholar who is finishing projects and coaching others. Check out Introduction to Afrofuturism: A Mixtape in Black Literature & Arts edited by DuEwa Frazier, published by Routledge/Taylor & Francis. Visit www.duewafrazier.com