How to Write a Book Without Losing Your Mind

Someone recently asked me why I always seem 'chill' about writing. He had observed a number of other people who seemed to struggle terribly with procrastination, stress, and general alienation in the writing process. Why not me?

I assured him that I struggled a lot more with these problems during my Ph.D. program and tenure-track process. Publishing your first book (or writing your dissertation) is normally the hardest. Now I've published (depending on how you count them) about 13 single-authored books. It gets easier.

Still, stress, frustration, and even moments of panic are common to the writer's life. I don't want to exaggerate how objectively stressful being a writer is - surely it is less harrowing than (say) being a cop or an ER doctor. But I do think there are aspects of the writing life that are especially conducive to feelings of unease, isolation, and even despair. 

When you are 'ABD' (all but dissertation), you lose much of the structure and rhythms that once organized your student life. Most obviously, you stop taking classes, and you lose many or all of your short-term writing deadlines. It can seem like all you've got is that "big ol'" dissertation project sitting there waiting to be written, due at some indeterminate point in the future - or until they kick you out of the program...

Or you get a job, and you have some number of indeterminate years to go through the unfamiliar and intimidating process of revising your dissertation, getting a contract, and publishing a book.

How can you keep yourself sane in the middle of this amorphous and seemingly insurmountable process? I have no magical formula, but here are a few tips:

1) Hold yourself accountable for daily progress. One of the main sources of stress and procrastination, especially in the early stages, is the sheer magnitude of it. It will presumably take you years to finish, you've never done something like this before, and it is largely self-directed. There's simply no way around the fact that you have to track daily progress. As longtime readers know, I shoot for writing 1000 words a day when I am in full-time writing mode. But the number of words doesn't matter as much as having some way of gauging whether you are making progress, or whether you are spinning your wheels through endless fiddling or directionless 'research.'

Think about it - let's say you need to write a 100,000 word dissertation, and be done in two years. Assuming you only write 180 days a year, you would need just to average 278 words a day in order to finish on time. That's about a page a day, on half the days in the year. If you break the project down into those small parts, it looks much less intimidating, and far more tangible. When it comes down to it, you don't "write a dissertation," you write this day's word count...or this hour's paragraph.

If you are no good at holding yourself accountable, then get a writing partner (or group) who is at a similar stage of career and writing. Report to them your word count progress.

2) Develop a functional relationship with your adviser. Part of what stresses people out in writing is the fear that their adviser (or editor, which is a somewhat different relationship) will think their writing stinks. Perfectionists, in particular, often struggle terribly with showing their adviser any of their work. 

Some advisers admittedly are not very nurturing or available. If that is clearly the case with yours, you may want to switch to another one. But I think most advisers generally want to be helpful, although they also have many other things to do. They don't likely want to be your psychiatrist, or your 'bestie'. Thus, you as the advisee need to find an appropriate balance in relating to them. 

The worst things to do with your adviser go to two extremes: one is constantly demanding attention and seeming incapable of doing independent work. The other is "ghosting" or avoiding your adviser. The absolute worst is becoming so paralyzed that you won't respond to his/her emails. At that point, a student should seriously consider whether he/she really should continue in the program. But don't go to the other extreme either, asking for daily contact, advice, and affirmation. 

Basically, you want to stay in regular touch with your adviser, asking their advice at strategic but not incessant moments. Meet your deadlines, and explain why when you (inevitably) don't. Reset deadlines when you don't hit them, and try your very best to meet them the next time.

3) Be rigorously committed to a non-academic community. For Christians, of course, this will be the local church, if no other group. There you will find people who can pray for you, and you for them. Your problems with writer's block are real, but they take on a somewhat different aspect when you interact with someone who just lost their job, or is dealing with infertility, or has a parent with Alzheimer's. The diversity of believer's life situations, I believe, can really help us put our own struggles in a more constructive perspective. There's also something wonderful in receiving prayer and encouragement from people who are in a different life stage, especially those a bit further down the road than you.

Let's also just admit that academics and writers do tend to be a little neurotic (or worse). Being around "normal" and "regular" people can be a great balm for the soul, as you watch them walk faithfully through orders of stress that you maybe haven't even considered. 

From around the web:

"Tradition, the Bible, and America’s Debate over Slavery": my friend and former student Paul Gutacker at TGC.