How to beat writer’s block

Roberta Gilchrist highlighted an article by Matthew Reisz in the Times Higher published on the 22nd January 2015 –  ‘Learning to accept ‘good enough’ as a benchmark can help academics escape a writing rut.’

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/how-to-beat-writers-block/2017995.article

Peer pressure: look beyond scholarly insecurities to focus on a specific goal

Peer pressure: look beyond scholarly insecurities to focus on a specific goal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘PhD students often procrastinate because they feel they have “not yet had a breakthrough in their thinking, have not yet crossed the conceptual threshold”. Others get bogged down by the impostor syndrome, “the feeling that you do not yet have anything important enough to say” or that the real experts “will immediately attack what you do say as rubbish”

‘Finally, at those ghastly moments when the gears seem to seize up completely, don’t just sit there staring at the screen. Instead, recommends Professor Wisker, “stop writing, go for a walk, do anything other than write, and let your mind flow around the issues when it wants to. The breakthrough in thinking, understanding and expression often comes when your mind is freer. Then catch it, build on it and write.”

Do you procrastinate?  Are you able to say ‘this is good enough.’  Can you take a ‘helicopter view’ of your work?