Bridge and Gather
Thoughts on words, writing, community, and imagination
Celebrating the writing process
Each week of my Writing in Good Company accountability group, I offer a question to reflect on. This is the question I ask on the eighth and final week of a session:
How do you celebrate your writing efforts, accomplishments, and successes?
After 30 minutes of quiet writing on that last day, at the end of the hour, I ask each person to make a list of all the things they accomplished over our time together. Including, very especially including, very small things: things we thought, or felt, or asked for, or showed up for, or tried for the first time.
We then share our accomplishments with each other. We celebrate together.
With the permission of the participants in the very first 8-week session of Writing in Good Company, here is a list of the wins — large and small — that we celebrated:
- Prioritized a commitment to saving one hour a week for writing
- Kept at it even when struggling, with exhaustion, depression, guilt, lack of inspiration, or just afternoon blahs
- Cancelled meetings in order to prioritize writing
- In various other ways made space to write and think and focus on one’s own projects
- Finished a research manuscript, or two
- Submitted a grant proposal, or two
- Finished a book chapter
- Submitted a proposal and syllabi for a new series of classes
- Figured out how to split one dissertation chapter into two
- Wrote (and delivered) presentations, transcribed materials into English from other languages, edited literature searches and thesis chapters for others
- Learned that short writing time can be useful
- Took breaks from writing to go for a walk or a run or to garden or to celebrate family and friends
- Asked for and received support from a colleague within the writing group
- Provided support to a colleague in the writing group
- Connected with another writer in the group for ad hoc daily writing sessions [aka body doubling]
- Joined two additional writing groups per week in addition to this one
- Felt a sense of movement, consistency, confidence, or space to think, which led to a new relationship to writing
- Felt a sense of community in writing
- Thought about starting a writing group of one’s own
- Learned from each other
- Celebrated each other
- Did A LOT of writing
Congratulations to all of the writers in good company!
As one person added to the Zoom chat at the end of our celebration:
“I have to go but just wanted to say I am very grateful to you all and I celebrate all of you and all of your efforts! Thank you for helping me find community!”
* * * * *
Writing in Good Company is open to early-career professors, postdocs, graduate students, and others writing academic- and research-adjacent work. It is designed for women, people of color, first-generation Americans, and first-generation postgraduate students. Everyone is welcome. At this time, there is no cost to attend.
The next session of Writing in Good Company starts September 9, 2024.
Perhaps you’d like to join us.
A few favorite resources for academic writers and editors
This is my personal list of favorite writing ideas, tools, and techniques — resources I have learned from, admire, and return to. Please email me (or comment on this post) to share your favorite writing resources!
Language skills
Tools, templates, and self-paced online courses in academic writing skills from Dr. Crystal Herron at Redwood Ink
A variety of resources available on Dr. Letitia Henville’s website, Short Is Hard, including her online course on Becoming a Better Editor of Your Own Work
Guidance on conscious, inclusive language in academic and science writing at the ACS Inclusivity Style Guide
Writing and publishing skills
Academic writing coaching, workshops, and online resources from Dr. Malini Devadas at MD Writing & Editing, including an upcoming free webinar on “How to write, submit, and publish regularly”
For those writing an academic book, the Book Proposal Accelerator course and associated online resources created by Dr. Laura Portwood-Stacer at ManuscriptWorks
A series of videos on Practical Strategies for Pain-Free Academic Writing, from a writing workshop by Dr. Alexis Shotwell
Technical skills
Lists of academic editors for hire, including BIPOC editor directories, along with BIPOC and white editors volunteering time to support Black and/or Indigenous scholars at the Academic Editing Circle
Tips, tricks, and training on how use Microsoft Word more easily and skillfully from Adrienne Montgomerie at Editing in Word
Additional training in Microsoft Word, PerfectIt, and Endnote from Cadman Training Services by Dr. Hilary Cadman
Resources on diversifying reference lists:
- The Cite Black Women movement and website
- The Cite Black Women+ in Physics bibliography founded by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
- The Decolonizing Science Reading List curated by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
- Why Dr. Letitia Henville of Short is Hard believes that “auditing your list of references leads to better science”
Tools for focus and scheduling:
Research and ideas
Books that have shaped my approach to academic writing groups:
- Community as Rebellion: A Syllabus for Surviving Academia as a Woman of Color by Lorgia García Peña
- The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez
- Pathways to Nonviolent Communication: A Tool for Navigating Your Journey by Jim Manske
Books that have shaped my approach to editing academic writing:
- Writing Science in Plain English by Dr. Anne E. Green
- They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein
- The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Dr. Steven Pinker [1]
- Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing About and By Indigenous Peoples by Dr. Gregory Younging
- The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself by Susan Bell
— notes —
[1] I am aware of Dr. Pinker’s reactionary politics. I also found that reading the first half of this particular book on language changed my editing eye radically for the better.
Writing in good company
You are invited to join a weekly online writing group for early-career professors, postdocs, graduate students, and others writing academic- and research-adjacent work. I am calling this group Writing in Good Company.
I have designed this group to support especially women, people of color, first-generation Americans, and first-generation postgraduate students, who frequently do not receive adequate cultural and institutional support for their careers. Everyone is welcome. At this time, there is no cost to attend.
The next session will begin in the week of September 2, 2024, and run for 8 weeks.
If you’re ready to join in, click this link to fill out a short sign-up form.
Writing in Good Company is loosely organized around the concept of academic writing accountability groups, or WAGs. (Read more about WAGs at the Washington University Postdoc Society writing accountability group page or in the paper on Intentional and Unintentional Benefits of Minority Writing Accountability Groups published by Trends in Microbiology.) At Writing in Good Company, instead of rigid ideas of what constitutes “accountability,” the goal is for each participant to learn what kinds of practices support them individually as a writer, scholar, and career scientist. This learning will take place through practice, reflection, and sharing.
Each weekly meeting will provide a quiet, structured space for dedicated writing time. The only requirement is to show up as often as possible. There will be options to participate (or not) in brief weekly check-ins on anxiety levels and accountability goals; to join a writing-silently room or a chat-and-ask-questions-as-needed room; and to join a room dedicated to people of the global majority. There will also be time to ask and answer questions and share resources about the writing side of academic life.
The group will be held on Zoom at a time arranged based on the current members’ schedules and re-evaluated for every 8-week session. It will be organized and hosted by Kyra Freestar, of Bridge Creek Editing and the Academic Editing Circle.
We will begin with the following goals:
- To increase your writing productivity
- To increase your writing awareness, confidence, and satisfaction
- To meet and build connections with other early-career academic writers
- To build the skills and confidence to lead your own academic writing groups in the future
We will begin with the following group agreements:
- We focus on our own and each other’s strengths and believe in each other’s success.
- We participate (or not) in the ways that work for us.
- We take care of ourselves. Stretch, eat, drink, take a break, etc.
- We give each other the benefit of the doubt and ask questions.
- We keep confidentiality: Learning goes, stories stay.
To learn more or sign up, click here to fill out a short survey.
To meet Kyra and ask questions directly, click here to sign up for a 20-minute Zoom call.
To recommend this group to others — friends, colleagues, and colleagues you’d like to be better friends with in the future! — please send them the link to this page or the link to the online sign-up form itself.
You are always of course welcome to email me, at kyra@bridgecreekediting.com, at any time.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Kyra
For Black and/or Indigenous scholars
Find pro bono editing support at the
Academic Editing Circle
What a client of mine once said about discovering the existence of academic editing: "Why has nobody told me about this magic trick?" #amediting https://t.co/CMo6Q5iLwU
— Kyra Freestar (@KyraFreestar) January 22, 2021