Academic writing has always been challenging for me. The mental effort it requires ends up producing harsh self-criticism, and I've convinced myself that other graduate students write both faster and better than I do. To address this struggle, I've been examining the various factors contributing to my difficulties and negative feelings about writing, with the hopes that it may elucidate something that could help me in my “learning how to write” journey.
I took a large amount of time off between degrees: I went into a Masters program right after undergrad. My Masters as an MFA at an art school in Film, Video, New Media & Animation and my undergrad was at a private liberal arts school in Film Studies and Gender Studies. I then took almost 10 years off before starting a PhD program. I don't regret my time outside of academia. I partook in a range of jobs from a teacher, barista, freelance videographer, social worker, dog walker, etc. that gives me a lot of perspective on jobs than someone who has solely been inside the academy. Further I also appreciate my experience being at a range of higher education institutions. However, taking that time off meant that I was a lot rustier at academic writing compared to many peers of mine who took far less time off (or even none at all). During my Masters I wrote plenty of class essays, but getting an MFA at an art school does not give you the same experience and institutional knowledge than getting a Masters at an R1 school. Before starting my PhD program, I didn't even really know what an academic journal was or the methodological and theoretical differences between many academic fields and subfields. I didn't know that for someone to study media through quantitative means involves working off almost entirely different scholarship than someone who is, say, a film studies historian (—–) which sounds pretty embarrassing to write out now. The first 2 ½ years of my PhD felt like a masters —– learning the ropes about what academic research constitutes and how to navigate the system. Now, I finally feel like I more or less get how academia and research work. I also now finally have a sense of what “field” I want to be a part of (if I am able to get a job in academia at all...which is unlikely), but it took me 4 years to finally figure that out.
Mental health: I have ADHD, anxiety, depression, PTSD. The world is also on fire. I'm constantly questioning what even is the point of me being in grad school. I miss my friends. I miss having more hobbies and playing music and traveling. These things together are inhibiting.
Learning my limits and daily rhythms If I'm realistic with myself, unless I'm working on a strict deadline, I on average can only really write for 2-3 hours. Depending on my anxiety levels, sometimes it's more like an hour. If I am really in a flow mode I can get into more. When it comes to reading academic papers, I can probably do deep readings of texts uninterrupted anywhere between a meager 15 minutes to an hour (It really depends on how dry the writing is).
I also have learned that I write best in the late morning and early afternoon, that I need to do something stimulating or “fun” before starting work, and that snacks and things to hold in my hand helps me too.I generally have a very difficult time articulating myself. I have been that way since I was a kid. I often have described to friends and mental health clinicians that my brain feels like a theme park. I have a lot of competing thoughts that are all going on at the same time. They swirl and take shape in different ways. But the ideas are not thought-out sentences. They are sensory, abstract, and visual. I think very visually. There are things about what I'm writing about that I feel viscerally have something important to provide to scholarship, but I can't seem to articulate that in any formulaic manner. If I could submit a collage board and a video essay with fragmented thoughts for a dissertation I would.
This has been worse in the past, particularly when I was struggling far worse mentally and having a lot of issues with obsessive intrusive thoughts. It has gotten a little better (as in the intrusive thoughts I get are just not as “sticky”) but it is still an accurate way to depict my brain. From what other people share with me about their brains, it does not seem like other people's brains run as fast as mine does. I wonder what writing would be like if I could just be capable of slowing down more. I wonder if I would be able to write and read for longer, and then have time to make art and music and read for fun if expending energy to just focus on one thing wasn't so exhausting.I want to do everything I have so many things I want to do. Honestly I have too many things I want to do. Everything is interesting to me. Its not just that I want to make art, play in bands, and be a writer (which is already a lot) its that I want to make all different kinds of art, play in multiple bands, and write all different kinds of things. Instead I can barely do any of them; and certainly not well. Not only has it been hard for me to pick a specific niche field I want to write within, but even when addressing one topic within one methodological and theoretical framework. I can't seem to figure out how to narrow it down from there.
Challenging distorted thinking: The reality is that I do not know, empirically, if my writing perils are specific to me or if other graduate students feel similarly to me is. To be honest, I'm too scared to ask other graduate students how much they write in a day or how quickly they can finish an article or essay. I know it'll just lead to me comparing myself. What I do know from years of therapy is that I can't lean too much into this distorted fabricated story. It is very likely that writing is difficult for other graduate students. While there may be people who write much faster than me, there may also be people that struggle with it more than me.
Challenging distorted thinking pt 2 Nothing feels good enough: While I have written zines, a book chapter, and class papers as a bachelors and master student, I have only once been published through a peer-reviewed journal. It simultaneously was deeply gratifying and a phenomenal learning experience but also so incredibly difficult. It took me almost two years to finish it. I cried in the library multiple times and met with at least 6 people to have them look over my writing. I somehow finally submitted it. Months later I finally heard back. Even though I didn't get it accepted right out (instead it was a revise and resubmit), after receiving the email, I broke down crying while at the gym. What got me crying was mostly from the thoughtful feedback I received from the reviewers.. I didn't realize until later that Social Media & Society is a top academic journal in my field. Given my pessimism that I will be able to get a job in academia that journal article will probably amount to nothing. But if anything, I can see that as physical proof of the work I've been doing during my time at IU. I guess I need to just remind myself of that every once in a while.