Solution to Writing Obstacle No. 3:
“If I have a long, productive writing day, somehow it’s harder to get started the next day, rather than easier.”
Boice observed this phenomenon during his research—that it was possible to have too much of a good thing.
If you find yourself regularly struggling to start writing the day after a long writing day (more than six hours), try limiting the amount of time that you write (Boice 2000).
While this can seem counterintuitive (What?! You want me to stop writing when I am really moving along?!), I have heard from those with an unusual problem, graphomania (obsessively writing), that the advice is sound.
One student who tended to spend many hours a day writing, not due to any deadline but just by nature, told me that his writing got better, smoother, and quicker when he started to limit the amount of time he spent writing.
One author proved to himself that less is more. When he spent ten hours a day writing a book, he took a whole year to finish. When he spent four hours a day writing his next book, he took only six months to finish (Schwartz 2013). Rest is essential to the creative process” (Belcher 2019).
Solution to Writing Obstacle No. 3, one of the motivation obstacles listed on page 31 of Belcher’s Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success (University of Chicago Press, 2019).
Works Cited
Belcher, Wendy Laura. 2019. Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Boice, Robert. Advice for New Faculty Members: Nihil Nimus. Allyn & Bacon, 2000. Print.
Schwartz, Tony. 2013. “Relax! You’ll Be More Productive.” New York Times, February 9, 2013.
Schwartz, Tony, Jean Gomes, and Catherine McCarthy. 2010. The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four
Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance. New York: Simon and Schuster.