write together

 

There are different ways to include social writing in our writing practice and I want you to try some, if not all, of these different types of social writing to see what works for you. In no particular order:

1. In Real Life accountability by Shut UP and Write.

For this you need to find a bunch of like minded writing folk at your university to meet up with in a regular weekly slot. Perhaps this is your PhD cohort - after all they all need to be writing. The best SUAW sessions are structured by someone else, so as to give a sense when to start, finish and take breaks to move around. You can request your doctoral college to provide these sessions for you and happily, Academic Coach can come to your University to facilitate these.

Even without an outside moderator, you can use Pomodoros to structure your sessions - these can be between 25 minutes and 50 minutes long, plus 5 minutes where each person announces their goals for the session and at the end announces what they have done. 

2.  NaNoWriMo

This provides a different type of non-facilitated online writing retreat with a virtual cabin in the woods. It runs from 1-30 November and Camp NaNoWriMo from April 1-30 and July 1-31. I personally use this a lot and I have drafted multiple papers (and this course) using NaNoWriMo.  It is great for creating first drafts, less good if you are at the 3-4 drafts in or beyond stages of editing rather than generating new words. So blank page syndrome - this is the biz. All you do is post daily in a few sentences: ‘I am doing this’ and then at the end of the day: ‘I did that’ in a cabin of like-minded writers. Log your word count or hours. Cheer people along, they cheer you along. That is all. https://nanowrimo.org

3.  For the twitter people, there is the ever dependable, #AcWriMo which is a rip off of NaNoWriMo for academics on twitter. Again this is a November thing. Follow it, report on your progress, get pep talks.

4. Writing Retreats

There are loads of writing retreats you can look into yourself, in some beautiful (and not so beautiful) locations. The facilitated structured retreats by Rowena Murray in Scotland come highly recommended but they are not cheap. You can search online for one you might like and your budget can stand. University funds can also be used to access these services.

For cheapskates there is also the rather sweary but very fun Writers HQ: https://writershq.co.uk. Although dedicated to fictional writing, it is all the same stuff. They are all over the UK.

These people offer day writing retreats for £30 where they feed you too - a veritable bargain, and also highly recommended if you are mobile and want to just commit time to finishing something away from your worldly distractions.

Clearly the downside to physical writing retreats is (a) the lack of flexibility (b) the travel time and (c) the cost of that travel. These may not be feasible in you real life.

5. Focusmate - https://www.focusmate.com

This is a new forum for on-line social writing. You can use it for free for 3 sessions per week, or for a paltry 5 dollars per month, you can have unlimited access. Focusmate matches you with someone who wants to work alongside someone at the same time randomly over the internet. You say hello, state your goals, and off you go. You mute the mike and work away. You can even interact over the chat function if you don’t want to talk. At the end you review your goals and say goodbye. You can set up personalised invites so that you do this with someone you know too. It sounds weird but give it a go, it is surprisingly effective at increasing your productivity.

When you do social writing, you still need to stick to your writing schedule. So either adjust your schedule to fit a mutual diary, or if you do a writing retreat that may take a day or an afternoon (i.e. in excess of your 2 hours scheduled slot), this will be in addition to your regular writing slot, not replace it. This is crucial. Social writing is not a replacement for regular writing - it’s supplementary, like vitamins!

TODAY I WILL…

  • Commit to trying one type of social writing listed and schedule it in to one of my writing slots next week;

  • Write for 2 hours minimum working my way down my task list.