Overcoming Fear When Writing: Be Inspired

By |2014-07-15T10:00:34+00:00July 15th, 2014|Uncategorized|0 Comments

They say: “Feel the fear and do it anyway.”
I would add to that: “Let your inspiration carry you.”

One way of tuning into your inspiration is to be inspired by others.

Who are the scholars you admire?
Which papers are the ones you’d like to have written?
Which argument is so compelling it makes you go: ah!
Or, which papers annoy you to no end?

You are looking for the emotional response here. And the intellectual challenge.
Combined, they will lead to compelling work. Yours.

Collect these papers and books, and voices and arguments, and tune into them before you start writing.
Don’t overdo it, you don’t want to drown in other people’s voices.
Just read enough to gain momentum. To move past the voice of fear.

When I was finishing my PhD and was struggling with a particularly difficult chapter, I had one of my supervisor’s books within an arms-length reach, always.
He was a terrific writer, very gifted. He was also a very intuitive scholar.
These qualities lined up with my own, and often simply reading one of his paragraphs would be enough for me to want to write my next page. Yes, his work was that inspiring.

For me, personally, the feeling-tone is most important. I need to get writing, above all. The content is secondary, it always seems to follow. And when I write from a place of being inspired, I don’t need to worry about it. Or so I have learnt. It simply happens. At times I have used novels I was reading in the same way. Just a sentence or two could be enough to override the fear and just start putting my own words on the page. Creativity turned on.

There are other, more practical, ways of using the literature when you are stuck. Other scholars can show you the way when it comes to method, when it comes to structure, when it comes to making an argument. They can show you what has already been said and done, and where to look for references or evidence to help build your argument.

They can show you, above all, that whatever you are trying to do CAN BE DONE.
Writing that paper can be done.
Writing that chapter can be done.
Other scholars can show you how. The nuts and bolts of it.

Again, there were a couple of relatively technical papers that I referred to when I was finishing my PhD, and uncertain about some aspects of my methodology. How, exactly did my beta-brain sisters and brothers in the same field tackle these questions? How did they make their argument, how did they run their analyses, what were their exact disclaimers? What was ‘enough’ to make a compelling argument? Reading their papers narrowed it down for me. It gave me answers and made it all so much more doable.

Use the literature to help lift you above fear, by inspiring you into a writing spree, or help it move you beyond fear by grounding you into the small practical steps that make up an argument, and a paper. Allow yourself to soar & allow yourself to build methodically.

Have you used the literature to overcome fear when writing? Tell me how in the comments. I have much more on this, in my e-book, which you can download for free. Oh, and if you liked this article – could you share it? Thanks!

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