Category: Creative Writing

Writing the Dissertation Is(n’t) a Lonely Thing

Jessica Winck, Assistant Director of the University Writing Center

As a representative of the writing center, I spoke this past weekend with some PhD students at the start of a dissertation writing camp. It was early in the morning and everyone had a cup of coffee and their computers open in front of them, ready to work. I looked around and remembered that dissertation writing can seem lonely, but when we think about it, we’re actually in good company.

I’m not implying that being alone is never desirable or needed, or that we must lean on others for comfort every time we write. We have to admit, though, that academia can make students of all levels feel isolated sometimes.

One of the most telling examples of this isolation is how PhD students have the option of renting a carrel in the library while working on a dissertation. Carrels are these little closets with a small window on the door, a desk, chair, and an overhead light that beams down on the flat work surface. For me, a library carrel isn’t an ideal space for working on a dissertation because such a space can represent, in a spacial sense, what we might feel like overall as PhD students.

There are some important ways not to spend all our time working in a small closet, whether that closet is an apartment or a library carrel. I’ve written before on seeking out your peers for timed writing, say at a coffee shop. There’s a myth in academia that we’re not successful unless we do everything alone. In actuality, there are benefits to working with others beyond getting rid of our cabin fever: you can keep each other motivated while also building the habit of writing that will be useful for years. Beyond these benefits, when we give ourselves the opportunity to be in the same place as other interested scholars, we’re likely to activate those habits of mind that interested us in academia in the first place. On that note, take part in a dissertation writing retreat where you can experience week- or weekend-long scheduled time for writing, reflection, and one-on-one discussions about your work.

I want to put forward one more view on how we’re not alone in this work.

Working on a dissertation is a chance to focus on your particular interests, likely the ones that motivated you to become a member of your field. If you’re like me, you got into your field because you’re captivated by its view on the world and committed to working on its most pressing questions. Plus, you want your work to make a contribution. When you’re counting your words or pages and trying to meet deadlines, let’s try to think of ourselves as part of these larger discussions that are happening every day. Like the rhetorician Kenneth Burke said, these discussions have been going on for a very long time, and they will continue even after we’ve left them. Now that’s really something, to be part of that. Every day that we work on our dissertations, we stay a part of it.

How I Write: Heather A. Slomski, Former Axton Fellow in Fiction

Our “How I Write” series asks writers from the University of Louisville community and beyond to respond to five questions that provide insight into their writing processes and offer advice to other writers. Through this series, we promote the idea that learning to write is an ongoing, life-long process and that all writers, from first-year students to career professionals, benefit from discussing and collaborating on their work with thoughtful and respectful readers. The series will be featured every other Wednesday.

Our featured writer this week is Heather A. Slomski. She is the author of The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons, winner of the 2014 Iowa Short Fiction Award and published by the University of Iowa Press. She received her MFA from Western Michigan University and held the Axton Fellowship in Fiction at the University of Louisville. Her stories have appeared in TriQuarterly, American Letters & Commentary, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, The Normal School, and elsewhere. A recipient of a Minnesota State Artist Initiative Grant and a Minnesota Emerging Writers’ Grant, she currently lives in Minnesota with her husband and son and teaches writing at Concordia College.

Location: Moorhead, MN

Current project: The Starlight Ballroom, a novel-in-progress

Currently reading: Italo Calvino’s The Complete Cosmicomics, which, just out this fall, brings together for the first time in the states all thirty four of his “cosmicomic” stories.

1. What type(s) of writing do you regularly engage in?

Fiction. Up until recently—short fiction. Currently, I am working on a novel.

2. When/where/how do you write?

I write best early in the morning, starting at about 5:30. I either write at the dining room table (to be near the stove for making coffee and the large windows for watching the snow fall, but only if no one else is awake), in my study, or at a coffee shop. I alternate between these spaces, depending on my mood; however, I tend to go in phases. For example, I’ll write primarily in my study for a few months and then relocate to a coffee shop when I feel stifled or need a change of scenery.

3. What are your writing necessities—tools, accessories, music, spaces?

When I am writing at a coffee shop I use a pair of noise-cancelling headphones to block out conversations and the music that the coffee shop is playing. Sometimes I am listening to lyric-free music; often I am just wearing the headphones and not listening to anything. Regardless of where I’m working, I usually only listen to music when I’m using it as a sort of soundtrack for the piece I’m writing. For example, I listened to a compilation of fifty Ennio Morricone compositions while writing “Before the Story Ends,” the last story in my collection. Listening to this album helped me to create the mood I desired for the story. Even now when I listen to that album it conjures up for me the world of my story. Most of the time, however, I am not listening to music. Wearing the headphones while working at a cafe, even though I can still hear the muffled noises around me, provides a kind of mental block—a shield between the noises and me. I often like a little distraction, but not too much. (This is one of the main reasons I like to work at a cafe; it usually provides a suitable amount of “activity.”) Occasionally, however, whether I’m at a cafe or at home, I’ll listen to some jazz or classical music if the silence is too quiet and if I can find something that fits the mood of the piece I’m working on.

I also use my headphones to listen to my works-in-progess. I use a program called Ghost Reader, a text-to-speech converter, which allows me to listen to my computer (the voice I usually use is “Alex”) read aloud what I’m working on. Hearing my work aloud helps me with my sentence rhythms, pacing, and transitions. Before I began using Ghost Reader I would intermittently read my own work aloud as I wrote, but now I prefer to listen to my computer read it to me. Also, when I listen to “Alex” read sections of my work aloud, I enter this sort of in-between space where I am almost reading and writing at the same time. I find positioning myself in this in-between space very productive.

I also keep a stack of books next to me while I’m writing. These are books that in some way relate to what I’m working on, or books that I feel might inspire me, often just by sitting in a stack at my elbow. Occasionally I’ll open one of these books and flip through it. Sometimes I’ll read a random passage or reread a specific passage for a particular reason. Sometimes I’ll open a book to look at its large structure. If it’s a novel, for example, I might look at the chapter lengths. If it’s a collection of poetry I might look at its sections or parts and think about the philosophy behind this organization. (And of course I’ll read an occasional poem.) If it’s a story collection I’ll look at the order of the stories or also its sections or parts if it is divided up in such a way. If it’s a play, I’ll look at the set description, the list of characters, the lengths of the scenes, the way the dialogue and stage directions are laid out on the page, etc. I love going to the theatre for the immersive experience it offers, but I read plays in part for a different reason. I love the way plays look on the page. I am drawn to the white space around the text, which somehow makes the words more three-dimensional and the actions—even subtle ones—more “active.” I am very interested in the relationship between fiction and drama, and I sometimes like to play with this relationship in my work. “The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons,” the title story of my collection, blends these two genres into a hybrid form.

4. What is your best tip for getting started and/or for revision?

I try not to start a story until I feel sure that I have what I need in order to begin. I do think it’s possible, at least for me, to start a piece too early, and maybe not to ruin it but to at least make the process more difficult and less enjoyable. I try not to begin a piece until I have a clear sense of the emotional landscape or mood, equipped with a definite setting, a few key images, and usually a few phrases or lines of dialogue. The emotional landscape is always based on a situation between characters that involves some kind of conflict, even if I’m not exactly clear on the conflict when I start.

On the other hand, I have to begin writing a story before I know too much about it. The act of writing for me is wholly a process of discovery. I discover the story and I get to know my characters as I write. If I know too much when I sit down to write, much of the magic is lost and my writing feels dull. Edward Albee says that he thinks about his plays for a long time before he begins writing them—that he doesn’t begin writing until he knows his characters so well that they essentially write the play for him. While this process clearly works very well for him, it does not work for me. I need the excitement of discovery to breathe life into the words as I write them.

My revision process is pretty standard. When I feel confident enough in a draft, I give it to a few trusted people to read. I am very careful of giving a draft to my readers too early. I need to be sure that I’ve gotten a piece as far along as possible—that I’ve explored what I set out to explore and that I’ve reached a conclusion that satisfies me, at least for the time being. If I give a draft to my readers too early, I run the risk of writing the story that they want to read rather than the story I want to write.

5. What is the best writing advice you’ve received?

On a draft of one of the first stories I turned in for a graduate-school workshop, Stuart Dybek wrote to me to be careful of being precious. This was in reference to a rather tender story, and in a tender story especially there is a fine line between being “precious” or affectatious and being emotionally honest. This was very important advice for me as a young writer. It helped shape my approach to writing in that I try to write with as light a hand as possible; I try to keep myself, the writer, out of the way so that all the reader sees are the characters and the honesty of their emotions. If a writer is too present, particularly in delicate scenes, the writing runs the risk of coming off as forced, false, affectatious, or “precious.” Of course, there is also the danger of being too distant as a writer. This can result in emotionless prose and characters. The key is to strike the right balance.

5 Tips for Avoiding Last-Minute Writing

Taylor Gathof, Consultant

Right now, it’s only the fourth week of the semester, but, before we know it, midterms and finals will soon be upon us. For now, we happily go to class, read our textbooks, and complete our short assignments, yet a large, dark cloud lingers on the horizon…the research paper and/or project.

You’ve seen it on the syllabus. You know you have to eventually do the assignment, but it’s just too painful to even start thinking about. So you tell yourself, “No worries, I’ll think about it later.” Next thing you know, it’s midterms or finals week, 2 AM, and you have less than 12 hours to write this paper.

Is there any end to this madness? Of course there is! Mental anguish is not a class requirement; pulling all-nighters is not a course goal! It took until the end of my junior year as an undergraduate for me to realize that my problem began in waiting to start on a large assignment, paper, or research project until it appeared within my line of sight on the class schedule, which was usually about a week or so before the assignment was due. This would happen in all of my classes, so I’d have this two week period at the end of a semester where I would work furiously and sleeplessly for two days, turn in an assignment, take a breath, work furiously and sleeplessly for two more days, turn in an assignment, take a breath. Sound familiar? After quite a few semesters of this exhausting pattern, I’ve come across some strategies that currently help me avoid letting all of my papers and projects rain down on me at the end of the semester.

So here are 5 tips for avoiding last-minute research paper and project writing:

Get information about an assignment as soon as possible. This will at least put the assignment on your radar. Also, getting assignment information early can help you use class materials to start thinking about potential paper or project topics. For example, let’s say you’re taking a class on the Victorian period in England. You meet with your professor and discover that you have a research paper due at the end of the semester and it should be on a topic covered in class. Since you know this information about the assignment, you can take notice of any topics that arise in class that interest you and may serve as an interesting paper topic.

Brainstorm ideas. Once you find a topic or two, sit down and brainstorm ideas. Make a list of specific aspects of a topic that you are interested in researching and writing about. For example, if you are interested in the topic of insanity in Victorian England, your list of potential research aspects might include: the popularity of insane asylums, the rise in the number of females in insane asylums after 1845, minorities and insanity, etc.

Break up the task of writing a paper over the course of several days or weeks. Writing a research paper often sounds like an incredibly difficult and daunting task. If you break up the tasks of researching and writing over the course of several days or even weeks, the task doesn’t feel so overwhelming. Plan out which day(s) you will: conduct research, formulate a thesis, craft your argument, write an introduction, write a conclusion, create a bibliography or works cited, revise your draft, etc. If you dislike or struggle with writing specific portions of a paper at a time, try simply breaking up the task of writing your paper by planning to write a certain amount of words or pages per day.

Set goals for yourself. Write it in your calendar; set an alarm on your phone. Make a plan and, more importantly, hold yourself to it! Some great ways to hold yourself to your plan of having a certain amount of work done by a certain day is to 1) make an appointment with your professor to talk about your paper and/or 2) make an appointment with the University Writing Center! Making appointments such as these will hold you to your commitment to work on your paper in advance and is an opportunity to receive helpful feedback on your work.

Think about how awesome you’re going to feel when you finish a paper or project. In the past, I’ve found myself avoiding working on a research paper because I continuously think about how terrible and difficult the task will be. Having a more positive attitude helps me stay motivated to get an early start. Rather than dwelling on the difficulty of the task, try thinking about how accomplished you will feel when you complete the assignment or how relieved you will feel to no longer have the task hanging over you!

Hopefully these strategies will help you sleep better and breathe easier when the end of the semester rolls around!

No Dissertation without Self-Care & Self-Advocacy

Brittany Kelley, Consultant

Last week, I worked as a consultant at the Dissertation Writing Retreat. We were all at different stages of dissertating: finalizing the prospectus; building the lit. review chapter and gathering data; and narrowing a mountainous amount of data into a book-length project. Yet, we were all facing similar challenges, similar internal questions:

How can/do I possibly make it through a project so big?!
How can I set good writing routines? What does that even mean?!
I’ve got all these things I love right in front of me, how do I choose which ones to write about?!
What about my committee?

We also all shared some similar challenges in our writing: writer’s block; organization issues; typos; identifying just the right amount of content. You know, all those things you can expect.

But, by and large, we all started to see that the biggest challenge we faced was to remember that we needed, first and foremost, to care for ourselves as we dissertated. That we needed to give ourselves moments of rest. We needed to acknowledge even small victories. We had to remember to ask for what we need.

In other words, we all realized that there could be no dissertation without self-care and self-advocacy.

It seems to me that this is true of all writing situations. Writing is a way we figure things out. It’s a way that we communicate our needs and ideas with others. And it can be exciting as much as terrifying. It can be emotionally draining (and, I find, it often is). The dissertation process can be even more so, because it seems like it’s a proving ground, rather than a starting point. So, it’s important to remember self-care actions, such as:

Set small goals (100 words per day), and then provide small rewards when you meet them (one episode of a favorite TV show; one hour to do absolutely nothing school-related, etc.).
Always schedule in time for real rest. Schedule at least one, free weekend day per week. Or one full week during the summer. Take time away from the project. Allow yourself to recharge and incubate ideas.
Take time to visit your notes, and “throw-away” pages. Show yourself how much work you really have done.

And, of course, advocate for yourself.

If you need some strict deadlines, then set those up with your committee chair.
Remember that your committee is there to guide you, but that the project is yours. In other words, work with your committee to help you meet your goals for your project.
Make frequent meetings with committee members. Sometimes talking it out first is what you really need.
Consider forming a writing group with peers. Low-stakes writing communities can really help you stay motivated and confident.

The dissertation can take a lot out of you. And, as my dissertating compatriots and I discovered last week, it’s important to take the time to recharge, to care for yourself, and to advocate for yourself as you research and write.

So, happy writing! And remember to take care.

How I Write: Austin Bunn — Creative Writer

Our “How I Write” series asks writers from the University of Louisville community and beyond to respond to five questions that provide insight into their writing processes and offer advice to other writers. Through this series, we promote the idea that learning to write is an ongoing, life-long process and that all writers, from first-year students to career professionals, benefit from discussing and collaborating on their work with thoughtful and respectful readers. The series will be featured every other Wednesday.

Austin Bunn’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Pushcart Prize anthology, and elsewhere. His collection of short stories, The Brink, is forthcoming from Harper Perennial (2015). He wrote the screenplay to the film Kill Your Darlings (Sony Pictures Classics), with the film’s director John Krokidas, about the origins of the Beat generation writers, staring Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, and Michael C. Hall. The film premiered at Sundance 2013, and screened at the Venice, Toronto, London, and Hampton’s Film Festivals. He teaches at Cornell University.

How I Write: Austin Bunn

Location: Ithaca, NY

Current project: Original screenplay, short documentary, devised play, and more fiction!

Currently reading: The Trip to Echo Spring by Olivia Laing and The Song Is You by Arthur Phillips.

What type(s) of writing do you regularly engage in?

These days, I find myself drawn to writing screenplays — I love the collaborative experience of making film, the most powerful art form of our time. Also, frankly, screenwriting is, for me, much much easier to produce than fiction. Great fiction demands close attention to the filigree of sentences, original perceptions rendered in fresh language, and consciousness on the page. When done well, there’s nothing like it, and the satisfaction of moving a reader through prose is a deep reward. But man, it’s work!
When/where/how do you write?

I have an office, with a good desk, nice classic chair, and a view of my front lawn. And I never use it. I end up going to a coffeeshop and parking myself for hours there – it keeps the distractions (email, phone calls, news) at bay. I tend to write for about 3-4 hours and then I’m done and I need other people.
What are your writing necessities—tools, accessories, music, spaces?

Foremost: music. If I forget my headphones when I head to the coffeeshop, I know I’m in for a difficult morning. When I start a new project, I start by shopping for a soundtrack: something to inspire, provoke, contextualize what I’m doing. For Kill Your Darlings, it included bebop jazz, period love songs (“You Only Hurt the One You Love”), and a lot of Sigor Ros and Jonsi. Then we were lucky enough to get all of them on the soundtrack!
What is your best tip for getting started and/or for revision?

Getting started has never been hard for me. The blank page is my friend, and I think you need to make friends with it. I give myself total permission to write poorly but I try to find the “voice” of the piece: is it edgy and dense? Funny? Searching and quiet? Those first days are exploratory. Revision is another matter entirely: I don’t love it. It requires the part of my brain that is a close-reader, that inches the bar higher and higher, that expects more from me than I thought I had. I also feel like I can revise sentences forever. Sam Lipsyte told me that if you find yourself revising a sentence once and then revising it BACK to the way you had it, you’re done. Move on.
What is the best writing advice you’ve received?

“Deeply imagine.” Ethan Canin.
“There is no good part. It should all be the good part.” Sam Lipsyte.
“Writing is about the inner experience of life; that is what writing can do that no other art form can.” Marilyn Robinson.
“All actual life is encounter.” Martin Buber.
“You are allowed shitty first drafts.” Anne Lamott

How I Write: Kyle Coma-Thompson — Novelist

This week’s feature writer is novelist Kyle Coma-Thompson, whose most recent book is The Lucky Body (Dock Street Press, 2013). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, AGNI, The American Reader, New American Writing, Bat City Review and elsewhere. He has held fellowships as an Axton Fellow in Creative Writing at University of Louisville, a Bennett Fellow at Phillips Exeter Academy, and a Hoyns Fellow at the University of Virginia.

How I Write:
Kyle Coma-Thompson

Location: Louisville, KY

Current project(s):
A novel, a collection of short stories, a collection of poetry.

Currently reading:
Cemetery of Mind—Dambudzo Marechera;
To Each His Own—Leonardo Sciascia

What type(s) of writing do you regularly engage in?

Fiction and poetry.
When/where/how do you write?

What I write during any given part of the day depends on how much time I have available. If I have a half-hour or hour block of time before my next commitment, I write poetry. If I have two or more hours, fiction. Often I’ll write poems before beginning on a short story, to loosen up.
What are your writing necessities—tools, accessories, music, spaces?

Whatever’s at hand, I’ll make use of. I keep a pocket notebook to write in while I’m walking, driving, at work, wherever. I keep a notebook for story ideas. Then groupings of notecards on which I sketch out the linear structure of events and details of those story ideas. Then I write drafts of stories or poems on a computer, either at home or at work.
What is your best tip for getting started and/or for revision?

Take joy in writing garbage. Forget about any needs or desires you may have to write well or to complete an accomplished piece of work. Just generate an overflow of kinetic slop, then sift through it—often the best ideas or stretches of writing come from uninhibited, unambitious play. In other circles, this is called “brainstorming”.
What is the best writing advice you’ve received?

Even before you even begin to think of writing, empathetic detachment should be a priority. Which means: in a piece of writing, avoid the temptation to address the reader using the first person plural.

Making Your Writing Process Work for You

Layne Gordon, Consultant

In the Writing Center this semester, I have worked with several students who are either returning to formal writing after awhile, or are being asked to do formal writing for the first time. (By formal writing here, I’m referring to things like research papers or argumentative papers that typically require the use of outside sources.) Most of these students have expressed some form of anxiety over the writing process itself—the most common of these being an uncertainty over how to begin the paper.

It has long been established in the field of composition that the writing process is not as linear as past scholars used to believe. You know the old drill: brainstorm-draft-revise-edit-done, with some additional steps sometimes. Instead, it is more of a fluid process in which the various writing activities blend and can even occur simultaneously. For example, I often edit while I’m drafting rather than after. And I frequently make an outline of my paper after writing an early draft rather than before. Contemporary scholars have taken note of these phenomenon and now understand that writing is a highly recursive activity. However, despite this progressive theoretical understanding, many students still have a very real concern over constructing a paper in the “right” way. In the Writing Center this semester, I have found this to be especially true of more formal academic assignments.

So for those students feeling such anxieties at this point in the semester, I offer this advice:

Create a writing process all your own. If you are struggling to write an introduction, skip it for now and work on a body paragraph. If you aren’t quite sure yet what you want your overall point to be, try skipping to the conclusion of your paper and writing about what you want to have proven by the end. In other words, don’t be afraid to try new things in your writing process. To give a personal example, for years I was really against incorporating free-writing into my writing process. But this semester, I decided to try something new and start several papers by simply writing whatever came to mind on the topic. It turned out this was a great way for me keep writing without getting stuck and it let me see how my thoughts were working out on the page rather than trying to sort through everything in my mind.

My point here is twofold:

if you are struggling to write a paper because you are adhering to a process that somebody else told you was a good idea, then now might be a great time to try something new.
if you have been sticking to the same process for some time, then it might be worth switching it up to see if you could improve on your personal process. No one way of writing will work for everyone, and taking the time to explore what works for you can not only make writing your term papers easier, but also more enjoyable.

Of course, you can always visit the Writing Center to get more help at any stage of the writing process and to get ideas and strategies for writing.

Five Strategies to Keep Writing, Even When You Don’t Want To

Ashly Bender, Assistant Director

At the University of Louisville, Spring Break is next week and the Derby festivities are not far behind. The end always seems near in the Spring semester, but at Louisville perhaps it seems always within in reach. After all, university classes are all over by the first week of May to make room for the hats and horses!

For these reasons, and probably others, March is the final push before the end of the semester and final projects. To help you stay motivated, focused, and productive during these weeks, here are five strategies to keep yourself writing and working. Feel free to use them at other times of the year! 🙂

Write 100 words every day. The key to finishing any large writing project is to make a habit out of writing every day—or nearly every day. This habit makes it easier to write because your mind becomes accustomed to the practice and also because it keeps your project fresh in your mind. Some days, obviously, are harder than others, so my personal strategy is to make sure I wrote 100 words every day. This is a small amount that keeps me accountable, keeps my project fresh in my mind, and allows me to feel productive even on days when I’m feeling writers block. Also, often if you can eke out 100 words, more come flowing. But if they don’t, you’ve still met your goal for the day. For a quick reference, the sentences in this strategy make up 145 words, including this sentence.
Tally the number of hours you work, and reward yourself. A good friend of mine who just defended her dissertation uses a strategy of rewards to motivate herself. For every hour that she works, she earns one tally. In the evening or on the weekend, she can trade in tallies for hours of play or relaxation time. If you can hold yourself to it, this kind of reward system is great for making sure you stay on task when you’re supposed to be working. The strategy also helps you schedule time for working and time for relaxing so that you don’t have to feel like you’re working all the time.
Take a break. If you’re really feeling overwhelmed by your project, it may be time to take a break. When we’re struggling with a project, we can get caught up in thinking about the struggle or the impending deadline and lose our ability to actually do productive writing or work. That’s the point at which walking away, for a little while, can actually be helpful. “A little while” might be 15 minutes, an hour, or even a day. You don’t want to take too long of a break, or else going back to the project will seem daunting. Before you take your break, try writing down questions you’re having, what you need to write about next, or other goals you have for the project.
Write on a different “surface.” Dan McCormick wrote a couple weeks ago about how different tools or “surfaces” help us think about our projects differently and can lead to break-throughs. If you’re feeling worn out on a project, try writing about it on paper or in a different program. You might even try writing in a different location. The key here is to change things up a little to open the possibility for new thinking and new ideas.
Talk instead of write. Especially if you’re feeling stuck on a project, it might be a good idea to talk about it instead of writing about it. You could, of course, come in to the writing center. Even I have met with another consultant to just talk about what I wanted to write about—that way I could hear it out loud and another person could help me figure out if it made sense. The consultant wrote down things I was saying, what I seemed excited about, what was interesting to her. After the appointment, I had some notes to move forward with. Another option is to use voice recording software. Word has a talk-to-text function (though it needs a little training), Dragon is a great talk-to-text program, and then there’s always just basic sound recording software on your phone or computer.

So, even though the allure of warmer temperatures, Derby, and other summer events are just around the corner—don’t give up on your projects! Try any or of all these strategies to find out what will keep you writing and working. And, remember, the Writing Center is a great resource for all stages of the writing process.

5 Tips for Productivity: The Secret to Success

Arielle Ulrich, Consultant

Now that we’re nearly a month into the semester, you’re hopefully starting to get the hang of your classes. You’ve gone to a few classes, you’ve turned in some assignments, and you’ve probably just taken your first exam or written your first paper. This is the point in the semester where I typically lose steam because, after all, the end of the semester seems so far away. It’s not until later in the semester, when I’m struggling to write three papers at the same time, that I realize how much time I wasted at the beginning of the semester and wish I could go back in time and slap myself.

However, instead of starting to work on that time machine, I recommend something a little more practical (and doable): invest some thought into raising your productivity level. As a graduate student, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of utilizing your time in an efficient way. If you’re struggling to get all your school work done, it’s not enough to simply work harder, you also need to work smarter. Hence, I’ve put together some tips that should get you started and hopefully serve you well throughout the semester as you plan for success.

Be honest with how you’re spending your time. Take a few days to track how you spend every hour of the day. By finding these gaps in your day and filling them instead with productive activities, you’ll get more done in the day without changing anything else in your schedule. I recommend using this sheet to track your time throughout the day: http://getbuttonedup.com/tools2/free_printable_time_management_sheet_template.pdf
To-do lists are a must. However, sometimes to-do lists can be easy to ignore if you add too many tasks onto it. I recommend a to-do list that separates your tasks into quadrants based on importance or necessity. Throughout the day, you work through the quadrants, starting with tasks that are urgent and important, and eventually move down to tasks that are neither. Using this method, you are sure to complete the most important tasks of your day without wasting time on busywork.
Use a scheduling tool like Google Calendar to remind yourself of exams, due dates, and meetings. By adding these events to your phone immediately, you’ll be able to schedule reminders so that you’re sure to remember the important deadlines for the semester.
Don’t forget to take breaks! I often try to work for 30-60 minutes at a time, and then I take a 10 minute break to let the information settle in. Breaks not only give your brain a chance to rest, but they also increase productivity by ensuring that you don’t overwork yourself. If you don’t have a timer, you can use software to remind yourself to take breaks. Try a website like http://www.pomodoro.me/ that can give you desktop notifications.
Lastly, seek help when necessary. If doing your homework takes hours and you’re still failing, seek out a tutor who will be able to give you study tips. REACH offers a range of tutoring opportunities as well as workshops on other college survival techniques. If you never seem to be able to start a paper, schedule a Writing Center appointment for brainstorming tips or to go over a draft. Never forget to ask other people how they stay productive!

I hope you find these tips helpful as you go into the rest of the semester. Happy writing!

How I Write: Greg Wrenn — Poet

This week we feature poet Greg Wrenn. His first book of poems, Centaur, was awarded the 2013 Brittingham Prize and was published by the University of Wisconsin Press in Spring 2013. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in New England Review, The American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow and a recipient of the Lyric Poetry Award from the Poetry Society of America, he was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, and received a BA from Harvard University and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis.

How I Write: Greg Wrenn

Location: Oakland, California

Current project: An untitled essay on artistic vision

Currently reading: Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life and the Book of Revelation

What type(s) of writing do you regularly engage in?

I’ve been writing poetry for over twenty years, and my first book of poems, Centaur, came out in early 2013. But now I’m hungering to be more direct in my writing, to make arguments and bold statements that feel unsuited to the genre of poetry as I understand it. And to be much more autobiographical. I suppose, too, that writing an essay on artistic vision is a way for me to step back from my usual lineated lyrics and ask myself why I write at all.
When/where/how do you write?

I write in a white leather chair that resembles Captain Picard’s on the Enterprise. I face a large statue of the Buddha in the corner; a wooden windowsill lined with plants and a ceramic snail, which reminds me to slow down; and a framed poster from the 1915 Panama-Pacific Expo of Hercules using his brute strength to create the Panama Canal, reminding me to exert effort. I usually write in the late morning to the late afternoon, though I have been known to compose poems in my head while tipsy at a bar.
What are your writing necessities—tools, accessories, music, spaces?

I almost always begin by handwriting the draft with a mechanical pencil – I like that I can erase what I write, sharpening isn’t necessary, and the graphite marks are so thin and controllable. I write on a piece of blank computer paper placed on a large art book. I usually need to write in silence, at home.
What is your best tip for getting started and/or for revision?

To get started, write with your non-dominant hand. Have it dialogue with your dominant hand.
Revise in the bathtub. It works.
What is the best writing advice you’ve received?

freedom is daily, prose-bound, routine
remembering. Putting together, inch by inch
the starry worlds. From all the lost collections.
—Adrienne Rich, from “For Memory”