First week of January 2021 -complete

Hello avid readers and congratulations. We have survived the first week of January 2021 and what a week it has been. If you are working in academia, perhaps your week has started with teaching, teaching prep or jumping back into research. Perhaps, you have had to significantly change your plans because of the evolving pandemic situation. This first week of the year, has probably felt exhausting and overwhelming, for more reasons that just work. We have already experienced riots that shocked the world, threats to democracy and constitutional rights, calls for impeachment, calls for leadership, orders to stay at home, more threats to industry, mental and physical health, and work-life balance. In the midst of all of these global events, many of us are just keeping our heads down, powering on, and trying to keep our own, individual worlds turning.

This year, moreso than other years, I feel the need to reflect on what I have achieved and focus less on what I need to achieve in the future. Such thinking has definitely been inspired by Petra Boyton’s #researcherrenew challenges, which I have engaged with for the last few years, and her book Being Well in Academia
Ways to Feel Stronger, Safer and More Connected. I was so grateful to receive the book as a Christmas gift and it is packed full of self-check tasks and resources to help with a variety of issues.

Being Well in Academia, 2020 by Petra Boyton

So far, my circumstances have privileged me to work from home with little distraction, but I have definitely struggled with researcher’s guilt and overwork. There have been moments when I have felt absolutely exhausted, but also guilty for not working when I am “doing nothing”. I did have a big project to work on throughout last year and certainly in the second half of the year I devoted all of my attention to it. Unfortunately, after it was complete, I experienced similar feelings as I did when I finished my PhD. I couldn’t let myself rest. I was upset and agitated, rather than happy and satisfied. So, in a bid to reset my tired mind, I am trying to recenter myself and focus in on the little and the big things I have managed to accomplish.

Last summer, I started bullet journalling, with a particular focus on goals. I have always had a “to do list” and take pleasure in scoring off completed tasks, but the bullet journal was a way to focus on a small number of large tasks each month. Unfortunately, the months when I didn’t achieve every goal I felt a little deflated, but it did help me re-evaluate what I can do in a month.

July goals

August goals

September goals

October goals

November goals

December goals

This year, I am continuing with bullet journalling, but I am also writing a list of things I have achieved. Some are as simple as reading a non-academic book or finishing a game. Others, are much larger achievements, such as organising and successfully delivering an online academic conference. If you want to know more about that see https://www.bsecs.org.uk/conferences/annual-conference/.

January 1-9th achievements

If I have taken anything away from the events of 2020, it’s that I spend too much time sprinting from day-to-day, month-to-month, with little reflection on where I have been. Academic goals are what drive me, but in a year of so much turmoil, which is unlikely to calm in the near future, it is important to take a step back, to slow down, and appreciate what has been possible in difficult circumstances.

An end of year review: 2020

Hello blog readers! Have you missed me? Once again, I went on hiatus from posting, but I have a very good reason. I have devoted most of this year to completing my book, which I am pleased to say I handed in to my editors yesterday. The plan for today was to rest, but I have felt a restless need to reflect on the year. So, here we are.

At the start of 2020, I set two goals:

1. I want to complete and send in the manuscript for my first monograph.
2. I want major grant funding for my new project, which will lead to my second monograph.

I can put a big tick next to goal number one. As for goal number two, the answer is a bit complicated. I have a much clearer vision for the project I imagined last year. I have a more detailed idea of what I need to do before preparing an application. I have a clearer idea of the questions, the outcomes and even who I want to be on my research team. These are aspects of a project I never really put a lot of thought into before. I naively thought I could do most things myself, or that funding would give me the time to work out the particulars, but that isn’t how this works. I have learned funders like to see a project is viable before they make a firm investment and that means knowing, for the most part, all the cogs are in the right place. My planning is far from over and now the manuscript is in, I plan to devote research time to developing the idea further before writing a funding app, but plans are in motion.

How did I learn this? Well, because I did get funding this year and for a project I never saw on the horizon in January 2020. This project emerged from a conference I helped to organise in May, and from there clear research questions and a research team fell into place. This time round, I wasn’t writing the application for me, it was for my team. I had to convince both them and myself what would work and what wouldn’t and I could almost see the project through a funders eyes. I have never felt so confident about a funding application going in before. Nevertheless, it didn’t stop me jumping for joy when we heard we had won the funding!

So, let’s talk about what I have done this year:

1. I wrote four articles, two are published, 1 rejected and 1 still pending.

2. I spoke at four different events – from my living room (organised by various universities across the world).

3. I completed and graduated from another Master’s.

4. Ran two extremely popular staff/PGR student workshops and received overwhelming excellent feedback.

5. Helped to organised an online conference

6. Currently organising another online conference.

7. Helped to organise an online seminar series.

8. Got funding.

9. Finished my book.

10. Got two beautiful kitties!

And I did it all during a global pandemic!

That last part is very important. Not everyone will have been as productive as me, because not everyone has the same circumstances. There were times when I felt I was failing, when I didn’t think that what I was doing was good enough, and times when I desperately wanted to escape the confines of my home and work. There were also times when I felt really lucky to have space, time, and few distractions! 2020 has thrown so many curve balls, but looking back on the year makes me feel so grateful that I have a patient and understanding husband, stable technology, a quiet home, space to walk, and my health. All of these things (and much, much more) have allowed me to committ so much time and energy to my work and to achieve dreams I didn’t think I would ever see come to fruition.

Personally, we have been effected by the pandemic. My husband lost his job, but gained a new one. Family members have struggled with their mental and physical health. But, we also felt we had the time to get a friend for our cat, Nimueh. We are now a two cat family and they have given us so many precious moments this year. I have also spent more time talking to family, especially my brothers, who often work and study away from home. A pandemic is awful, but the multiple lockdowns and limited ability to travel does have its blessings.

I have no idea what 2021 will bring, but I am committed to getting funding for my project idea. That is my one, and only focus for the year. That doesn’t mean I won’t do other things. Of course, I will, but focussing on one thing only feels manageable and exciting.

Finishing a second master’s degree

Today, I submitted the dissertation for my second master’s degree and it is an odd feeling all round. I feel calmer and more certain about its outcome than any other degree I have completed, even though I have no idea what mark it will receive. There are many reasons why I feel this way. For one, I have a PhD and I work in academia, so I am familiar with the HE process. For another, this degree is lower stakes. My career doesn’t rest on its outcome…yet… Even so, I have invested time, energy and effort into it. I have done everything I can to make it the best project it can be and I have learned a lot. If I were to compare the two master’s experiences, this one has been much more pleasant, despite working full time, writing a monograph and… Covid! So, I thought I would take this time to reflect on the differences.

Time

The first time round, I did a one-year full-time master’s. My work was seasonal so I spent most of my days just working on my master’s project. And yet, I never felt like I had enough time. I fretted more than I studied. I spent more time figuring out basic problems, like how to devise and manage a project than actually working on the project. My ideas didn’t feel big enough, and yet, I had no idea how to achieve any of my goals. I finished on time but I worked right up to the wire. And guess what… I hated every minute of it.

Second time: I am employed in two intensive roles at two different institutions, I have a book under contract with a hard deadline in addition to the PT master’s. But, early on, I already had a clear idea about what I wanted to do and how I was going to do it. I mapped out peak times I could work on the project: November, December, February and June and even during these times it was a few hours a week, not every day. The project had one, focussed research question. I was slightly worried the idea was a little too narrow but I resisted the urge to make it any bigger. I only had so much time to do the research and write up after all! I decided on a timeline, got my ethics in early, and made sure each goal was met and carefully documented. Slight anxiety crept in as I reach each goal deadline, but I just took a breath and kept going. I finished writing the project with a month to go, so I sent it to different readers to give me edits. I finish the edits with two weeks to go, so I sent it to my supervisor. A few days before the submission date, I got all the documents in order and quickly double checked the submission details with the course convenor. It was submitted a day early and I know I have worked hard, and avoided killing myself to get it done…

Devising a project

First time: I remember I had a big question, a medium question and several little questions connected to my project. I wanted to explore them all but every book and article I read led to more questions and few answers. I am sure my supervisors advised my to narrow the focus, but I can’t really remember if they told me this specifically. It took me a long time to settle on something for the dissertation and even then I wasn’t sure how I would investigate it. I wrote the dissertation once, twice, heavily edited it a third time and finally turned in the fourth rewrite. I re-read it recently and the writing is so unclear, the direction unsure. Questions are asked but not answered. It’s a series of meandering vines that don’t have a structure to cling on to. It passed, so it can’t have been as bad as I now think it is but still…

Second time around: like I said, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and the idea was narrow and focussed. I know the whole point of a master’s is to learn something new, so perhaps selecting a research-focussed dissertation was a bit too close to what I am already trained to do. In my defense, it is in a completely different area of research and it gave me an opportunity to devise new research skills while excising the old. After sending it to my colleagues and my supervisor, they commented on how clear and focussed the writing had turned out. It reads like a coherent project, despite a dispersed working pattern. I will probably hate what I have written in a few years, but this time I have colleagues validating its clarity.

Supervisor relationship

First time: I had no clue what to do and I leaned on my supervisors for support. I needed their validation. I needed them to tell me everything was ok and I did not like it when they pointed out my errors. I was working hard and I wanted them to validate time spent, rather than the quality of the project. I thought I was listening but I wasn’t. I thought I had it figured out but I hadn’t. I thought I was asking for help, but I asked the wrong questions.

Second time: I spoke to my supervisor at the start and the end of the project. It was useful to run ideas past her and make sure it was following the correct recommendations, but I didn’t need constant validation. I tried to avoid taking up too much of her time and when I needed answers to questions I outlined them in a very clear and specific way. If I was unsure about how to go about a piece of research or if the format was typical for the subject area, I read articles and books instead of running to my supervisor. This meant I learned for myself, rather than relying on others.

Final thoughts

I’m not upset at my past self for not knowing what to do, for not managing time, devising a coherent project or working effectively with supervisors. She was new to all of this and just trying to find her path in a dark forest. She didn’t have all the tools at her disposal and often got lost. But, there are perhaps a few things her supervisors/superiors could have done to guide her through so she didn’t feel so anxious all the time.

This time round, I had a map, a lamp and a working knowledge of how to get from one end of the forest to the other. But this is after years of learning the tricks of the trade. I now know what it feels like to be unsure and to be sure and I can pass this onto my students. I can explain that learning what the tools for research and project management are is just as important as getting a project done. I can explain why figuring out which questions to ask is so important and that even a single question can result in a 15000-word dissertation, so long as the research is thought about in detail. But most of all, it has reminded me what it feels like to do a degree and this might be the biggest lesson of the whole process and the thing that will help me grow as a supervisor. So, even if you have a PhD, there is always value to doing another master’s, or even another course. Don’t forget how difficult it was the first time round and use that knowledge to help the next generation!

February outcomes

Ah good old February. The shortest month of the year and what a hectic month it was. In fact, I have found this term challenging, partly because it has been difficult to get into a rhythm. Teaching has been up and down with it either being all go or no go. I was getting my writing done but in more of an ad hoc way and as I push to squeeze in more time, it feels like less is being achieved. I did finish a chapter of the book, but I haven’t copyedited it. I started the next but was side tracked by an article that needs major revisions and has a deadline. But the wheels aren’t turning – there just spinning in mud.

I told my husband yesterday I needed to just get cracking on the article. You see, while the reviewer comments are helpful I couldn’t see how to move forward with it. Even now, I think I have a plan but I’m not sure if it is the right plan and it’s preventing me from working on it. And because this has an upcoming deadline, the book is stalled as well (sort of). So, in the words of Buffy Summer’s ‘where do we go from her?’.

The plan is to work on it every night for 2 hours this week. I have a direction carved and I just need to walk it. There is no other way and the stalling is unhelpful and productive.

I have kept up with my visualisations so here is when I managed to write in February. This does help my motovation as I can see I am working on things every week. I just need to keep at it!

Work-crastination

I realise I haven’t posted in two weeks, but rather than make an excuse I will just wrote the real reason. I didn’t feel like I had much to say. Plenty has happened but I didn’t have the motivation to post about it until now.

The good news is I have been writing and I decided to create a visual representation of how many days in the week I am committing to writing. In January, I started slow, but I did write regularly. Towards the end of the month I picked up the pace:

A month of writing

I even achieved a win at the end of January! I found out I won an internal application for a grant that would let me take sabbatical next term. This means some of the pressure to write my book is off. After finding this out I was obviously elated but I have also found myself procrastinating with other work projects or ‘work-crastinating’ as a fellow colleague on the I Should Be Writing Facebook page said.

I have all these other ideas but I know I need to focus on the book. Serendipitously, as I was wrestling with this I can across an article that pointed out procrastination is not about time but emotions. I don’t feel bad about the book, actually I am quite excited, but because it takes a long time to work on each chapter and I am not getting that instant gratification, I am searching for other ways to feel that boost that comes with pay-off.

The other side of this is that I received a major rejection on an article I submitted to a journal. It’s not bad news and I know plenty of other academics who have received major revisions on their work, but that seed of doubt has been planted inside, so much so, I struggle to see a way forward with the article. At the same time, I see others producing similar work and it makes me angry that I can’t move forward with my own idea. This sort of feeds into the book as well as I start to doubt the validity of my thoughts. Gah!

What do I do to feel better?

Well, not what I did today, which was submit an abstract to a conference and work on another project. To be fair, I did intend on working on the article but my printed ran out of ink so what I planned couldn’t be done today. I should really be working on the conclusion or references for chapter 5 but I am just not motivated at the moment. I need to write a funding application but again something is holding me back. And then there is my master’s project… All of these things seem enormous – the task is too big and I will need to work on them for a long time to get them done.

Instead, I should try to break it down. Small tasks, small pay-offs and just keep swimming. Because moving is progress!

Writing habits: why procrastination is necessary

This blog has offered a space for me to really analyse and improve my writing practice. While I have embedded new techniques to develop a more positive approach to writing, including a regular writing schedule, creating a practice that works for me and careful editing, I have also observed a few unconscious habits. I don’t think these need to be expelled from my practice but it has been an interesting exercise working out why and how these developed.

This month my writing task is to work on chapter 5 of my book and each week since the start of the year I have been spending between 3-5 hours reading through the old version of the chapter, gathering new reading, working out the new argument, outline and structure. All of this seems very positive BUT I have really struggled to get words on the page. I have been writing, but the words felt awkward, almost like the final season of Game of Thrones. The words are functioning exactly as I want them to, but rather than gently directing the reader through the prose, they were being grabbed and jerkily pushed through each sentence. Now, this is a 0-draft and editing time still needs to be spent, but I was frustrated that the organic flow was missing. This hampered my desire to see what would happen in the next section and ultimately was encouraging procrastinating behaviours.

In the past, this is where I would give up on the manuscript for a time or I would angrily press on and not want to re-read and edit the thing later. I didn’t realise that editing-avoidance was a common issue and is linked to procrastination. The Writing Centre at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has written a detailed hand-out all about editing-avoidance and procrastination with some tips on how to beat the problem. I have developed a much more positive approach to editing by calling my initial ‘idea binge’ a 0-draft – basically, an idea draft that needs more work and attention after all the ideas are on the page. However, I have found I still need a sense of flow to be able to progress with the manuscript. If there is no natural flow, I really struggle to know if the piece is working or what to do next.

This is where reading and re-reading can be helpful but also a hindrance. Working in academia, I read to support and improve my work but if I feel unclear or uncertain, reading is an excuse I use to not write. Yesterday, I felt this overwhelming fear that maybe someone had already made this argument, maybe I was missing crucial information and maybe what I had to say was invalid. My inspiration for the chapter was slipping a way, an experience which was quite different to what April Davis described in her article on ‘Why writer’s procrastinate‘. It then hit me. Maybe the problem was with the overall chapter structure of the book, and maybe if I reorganised some things I would find it easier to begin this chapter. Annoyingly, a colleague had already pointed this out to me before I sent in the book proposal, but I had a very clear vision of the book at that point. Now I am writing it, that vision has shifted and I will likely need to do an overall re-edit of all chapters further down the line so that whatever structure I choose works throughout. As soon as I reworked the overall structure, I finally found its natural flow. It only took me 40 minutes to write 800 words I was happy with, and to chart a plan for the next section.

While procrastination is not always a positive aspect of writing and there are plenty of articles on how to avoid procrastinating, I have realised that it is often necessary. It alerts me to a bigger problem. To relook at an issue and work through it. Paying attention to why I am procrastinating rather than giving into it is a really powerful skill and I hope it will make my work much stronger overall.

BSECS 2020: the short and long game

This is the third year in a row I have attended the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies annual conference at St Hughes College, Oxford and in past years I have left feeling newly inspired, newly invigorated and ready to relook at research, which had too long languished in a digital draw. This year was a little different.

Don’t get me wrong, I felt really inspired by the conference – the amount of quality research from diverse scholars at a variety of levels is truly amazing – but I didn’t feel that need to deep dive into forgotten research when I got back. In actual fact, for the first time, I felt solid in my research trajectory. I shared my ideas for current projects and a future project and I received some really positive feedback. Also, for the first time, I didn’t feel like I was on the lookout for a new project. In past years, my ears have always keenly pricked to hear of large-scale projects, or potential collaborations – heck I have even devised a project within 5 minutes of hearing a new funding opportunity. Not this year though.

Of course, I still get excited by new opportunities and I am still keen for collaboration, but I am trying to move from a “short game” where I work on lots of short-term projects, to a “long game” where I work consistently on one or two large projects for more than a year. This gear change is definitely a sign of me becoming more comfortable with my current employment status, but I think I also recognise the importance of working on larger, more prestigious long-term projects. Not that short-term projects aren’t prestigious, but they are unlikely to result in a monograph or to take that top spot on a CV.

With that being said, potential collaborations still came my way. I met so many wonderful scholars and we shared details. Even though I don’t have a project immediately in mind, staying in touch with scholars who are interested in my work and I am interested in theirs is really important, particularly for the long game.

I remember attending my first BSECS and it wasn’t the most enjoyable experience. I was precariously employed, I didn’t know anyone and I really regretted buying a ticket to the conference dinner. I may be extroverted but I really don’t like going to an event where I know no one. Well, I attended the dinner and met a wonderful post-grad called Jack Orchard. He was on the BSECS committee and after a lengthy dinner conversation, he suggested I nominate myself for the committee. Four months later I was invited to the board and I attended my first meeting. Two years on, I have made so many friends and it is a joy to catch up with regular BSECS attendees. I can say with utmost honesty, I get so much more out of this conference partly because I know a few people and I don’t feel awkward attending the receptions, the dinners and the pub where our conversations can really blossom.

If any readers have never attended a conference or who have only gone to a conference for a day, can I encourage you to find at least one regular conference to attend in its entirety. Make a few acquaintances and catch up as much as you can. You may see both professional and personal payoff as a result.

2020 goals

At the beginning of 2019, I avoided setting a specific goal. In academia, setting a professional goal is difficult – after all so many things are out with my control. I can tell myself “I will publish more” but that is largely dependent on peer reviewers and publishers. And if they do accept the publication, major revisions will take up more time than anticipated. At least, this is what I told myself. Now, I can write more and push more out the door, but is more better? These are the questions I struggled with for all of 2018 and at least the first quarter of 2019.

Then I had an epiphany! In April 2019, I made a promise to myself. I would write a book proposal and I would keep sending it out, getting feedback, editing it, and sending it again until it got accepted. The key thing here was committing to one, single project and telling myself rejection would not knock me down. I worked hard on the proposal and put measures n lace to make sure it went in: I gave myself a hard deadline, I sent it to trusted colleagues for feedback, and I made sure to make it clear, targeted and something I wanted to do, not something I thought I should do.

While all this was going on, a new fellowship appeared and I casually thought ‘Hey, I have an idea so let’s go for it’. I told colleagues I had nothing to lose by applying and at this point I genuinely thought all I was doing was casually throwing my hat in the ring and I wouldn’t feel too bad if I didn’t get it. The project was clear and linked to my research, but I wasn’t passionate about it. I’m sure if it got funded I would have enjoyed doing it, but I had put up a protective wall in my mind. I didn’t want to receive a rejection for something I was passionate about, but therein lies the problem. I dedicated a lot of time and energy to the application and even though it wasn’t my dream project, I had still poured myself into it.

Well, if you haven’t guessed by now, it didn’t get funded.

When I received the rejection email, I didn’t feel angry or sad, just disappointed. But, as the months went on my mood became darker and darker. I poured myself into the book proposal and I think if it had been rejected too I may have just given up entirely.

Here is the thing though, funding is tricky, and much trickier than publishing. There isn’t enough to fund every project. Even if a really convincing case has been made, even if it ticks all these boxes, it still might not be enough to get over that final hurdle. There are so many unknown factors and since I didn’t get feedback, I will never know why this project didn’t meet the mark.

What I should have done was found another fellowship and applied for it with the same project, but I didn’t. Instead, all that hard work has been pushed aside, and I probably won’t go back to it again. Why? Well, what I came up with was something I thought the funder wanted, and not something I was trulypassionate about. Maybe that came through in the application…

Meanwhile, I have been working on yet another project #allthethings. It stems from a previously-funded project, but I had been developing another grant application. I have literally poured months of work into it and after receiving so-so internal feedback I realised that, once again, I have developed a project that suits others and not me. So what to do…

Well, after several weeks reflection, I have a very clear idea of what I want to do next. The grant I was applying for doesn’t suit what I want to do, but the time spent developing it has helped me figure out the key research questions. By focusing more on what I want to explore, everything falls into place. I have even identified three other grants I could apply for by taking this new direction.

I am extremely passionate about this new project and I have written a couple of articles in this area. I really, really want funding to make it happen. This feeling is scary but exciting, but it is an idea has been forming for about two years and now feels like the time to take the next step.

So, in 2020 what do I want?

1. I want to complete and send in the manuscript for my first monograph.

2. I want major grant funding for my new project, which will lead to my second monograph.

These two projects are huge, but it is time to be bold. It is time to stop using rejection as an excuse. It is time to do things the way I want to do them. This is not intended to sound egotistical as feedback from senior colleagues is important and should be taken on board, but my problem so far is thinking too much about what I think I should be doing based on others opinions rather than developing something I want to do.

In the words of YouTuber Justin Scarred, I may not be able to control [funding outcomes or publication outcomes], but I can change my reaction to them. 2020 is my year to work on these two projects with clarity and focus.

It’s 2020! Quitting SM?

Welcome to the New Year and a new decade!

I was on social media (SM) and YouTube this morning and so many were reflecting on their last 10 years, highlighting personal and professional gains but also losses. I even did this myself. In the last few months the craze ‘the 10 year challenge’ had been around multiple SM platforms, and allows everyone to share with the world how much they have visually changed between 2009/10 and 2019/20. I was surprised to see just how many were able to pull photos from SM. After all, these platforms have been with us for the past decade and now dictate most of our personal and professional lives. This morning, I woke and thought about what it would be like to delete my Facebook account. But, I use it for so much professional interaction, the thought of deleting it or even deactivating it for a short time feels impossible. Instead, I have opted to uninstall the app from my phone. Now, I will need to actively log in via a browser, which I am hoping will break my habit of hitting the “F” button and scrolling whenever I feel bored or disengaged from “real life”.

Why do I (and many others) feel the need to disengage from digital socialising?

I use social media to share the inner workings of my own mind. I find it easier to clearly articulate my thoughts in writing and in the past SM felt like a safe space to reveal my struggles without having to talk about them in day-to-day life. While I am an outwardly confident person I tend to overanalyse and I am quick to anger. In “real life” I have learned to temper my anger, but this does mean I often shy away from confrontation entirely and internally over analyse the situation. It’s not a healthy way to be and Facebook had been a place to get some of my feelings out in a call and considerate manner.

Professionally, my blog has become one of key places to do unload (particularly about writing, publishing and more generally about life as an early career researcher). I still feel regular written reflection is important – after all, I credit blogging with improving my writing overall. Twitter I reserve for professional reflection as well, but Facebook was a mix of personal and professional and herein lies the problem.

In the last 10-years Facebook has developed into a very complex community. Friends, family, colleagues, all these people I wouldn’t normally see interacting with one another are. Sending out personal messages now requires conscious attention, more often than not carefully worded to avoid tension – at least this is my experience, but this is not necessarily the opinion of others.

Even as recently as the last few weeks, I have found myself getting angry at posts, or writing a snap comment in response to a post I do not agree with. Face-to-face, however, I would never dream of doing such a thing unless I was really pushed. I have complained to my husband ‘why don’t people realise they cannot post whatever they want?’ while also getting upset if I am called out for sharing incorrect information. The community of Facebook is still somewhat supportive, but more and more, it is becoming an environment where some treat it like their personal living room, sharing their opinions to a community they assume will all agree. Then there are others are trying to be more conscience of their message (with varying levels of success). A recent BuzzFeed article even spoke about how complicated running a community group on Facebook has become noting:

Local Facebook groups increasingly serve as a local area’s town square, classifieds section, Neighbourhood Watch, and emergency information centre all rolled into one. But, for the most part, they are run by volunteers who in 2019 are devoting huge chunks of time figuring out how to enforce rules, referee disputes, and avoid getting sued in the process.

These issues come out of the massive growth of Facebook, where everyone and anyone including Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Parents, siblings, Children, Friends, Cousins and everyone in-between are on Facebook and are interacting with each other. Those casual, outdated comments said by Uncle Sam over dinner that the family past off as inappropriately funny are not as easy to dismiss on a public network, where the wider community disagrees. And then who is responsible for telling Uncle Sam, ‘hey, I’m sorry but it’s not ok to say that on SM’? Well, since #cancelculture became a thing, everyone feels they can and should cancel behaviour they disagree with and here’s where it gets really tricky – what if others disagree with the cancelling? Sarah Hagi recently wrote an article about Cancel Culture in Time Magazine noting:

The problem with this perspective is cancel culture isn’t real, at least not in the way people believe it is. Instead, it’s turned into a catch-all for when people in power face consequences for their actions or receive any type of criticism, something that they’re not used to.[…] This applies to not only wealthy people or industry leaders but anyone whose privilege has historically shielded them from public scrutiny. Because they can’t handle this cultural shift, they rely on phrases like “cancel culture” to delegitimize the criticism.

No wonder anxiety, stress and general tension is on the rise. Personally, I want to be more mindful, more understanding and more open, but I feel increasingly frustrated and angry at those people who disagree. This is a juxtaposition I struggle to cope with -surely I should be mindful of everyone, even those people who have a different social or political position than I do? In “real life” when friends or family disagree we can either choose to ignore it or engage in debate for a short time, but then we all get to walk away and move on. In the SM community, there are a lot more people weighing in and it is much harder to walk away from the situation! Shanna Trenholm likens it to a dopamine hit we crave:

Using apps to limit your time or straight up willpower are no match for the dopamine hit you get when scrolling through the socials.

In researching this blog post, I discovered article after article recommending the top 5 or 10 ways to wean ourselves off SM and why we should. Several writers who have deleted their SM accounts note the benefits of a SM-free life, but almost all liken it to coming off a drug.

So, I opened this post saying I was deleting the Facebook app from my phone, but I am also going to be more mindful of my activity. How exactly? The short answer is treating it like my other SM accounts. Facebook will become a space for my professional work and nothing else. While I had hoped to begin the year with a more positive blog about what I hope to achieve this year (which will be coming next week), I want to start 2020 by purging something in my life that has cost me far too much time and energy.

For more articles on quitting social media see:

John Paul Aguiar, WHAT I LEARNED BY WALKING AWAY FROM SOCIAL MEDIA FOR 5 DAYS, Money Dummy Blog, https://www.johnpaulaguiar.com/what-i-learned-by-walking-away-from-social-media-for-5-days/

Akshata Shanbhag, What Happens When You Quit Social Media? 6 Things I Learned, Mud, https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/what-happens-when-you-quit-social-media-i-found-out/

Lisa Valder, Life after social media: What I discovered after deleting all of my accounts, The Salon, https://www.salon.com/2019/01/19/life-after-social-media-what-i-discovered-after-deleting-all-of-my-accounts/

Marrying fiction and fact: experimental writing

If anyone is a regular reader, you may have noticed I didn’t post a blog last Wednesday. To be perfectly honest, I am so surprised that I have managed to consistently blog every Wednesday since the start of the academic term and before I beat myself up about breaking the cycle, I want to congratulate myself on this success. This is a feat I have never managed to achieve before, especially in term 1! Last week, however, was the final week of term 1 lectures, which means the dreaded marking is starting to roll in and I have an article deadline on the 31st December. I am not too concerned about getting all my work done, but it does mean time and brain space are at their limits, and I decided to take the last weekend to rest, rather than carving out a blog post.

That being said, with lectures now over, I find myself inspired by a myriad of new ideas and projects. My mind leaps from thought to thought, tricking me into thinking I could add a ton of extra work into my already full winter break. For the record, I already have an article to finish, a couple of funding applications I need to complete, lectures and seminars to write as well as making a start on the next chapter of my book. And yet, I somehow want to add updating this blog site, writing a series of short stories, creating ECR resources and starting a brand new major research funding application. Why am I doing this to myself?

This is probably down to how I have been trained. I have spoken before about “quick achievement payoff“. In short, I like the feeling of seeing a project through to completion, the only problem is it can take months if not years for most academic projects to “pay off”. I am in that situation right now. I have lots of projects I am working on, and though I have minor, self-imposed deadlines, I don’t feel the instant satisfaction. I run the danger of trying to find that satisfaction in other short-term projects, which ultimately distract from the work I should be doing. Then I end up in the vicious cycle of doing lots of things for others, but not the things that will propel my academic career forward, as is discussed in this article by an anonymous academic.

What do I do to resist the urge?

Well, this is where I need to find the balance of doing something I enjoy that will give me the short-term satisfaction without it eating into the time I need to achieve my long-term goals. I started this blog to improve my writing and it has now become a place where I share my deepest insecurities about my life as an academic. But, at the same time, it has allowed me to engage with a community, to document my desires, my achievements and to track just how far I have come. As I prepare my end of 2019 round-up blog, I am once again shocked at what I have managed to do in 12 months (more on that in a couple of weeks time), but I have also felt a real change in how I feel as an academic. I am slowly moving away from that unsure, uncertain, self-doubting person I used to be and I am starting to see what can be achieved with not just hard work and dedication but also a shift in mindset. This blog is not a distraction from my main academic work, rather it is key to my development.

So what do I do next that will help me personally and my academic work?

I have often thought about writing fiction. In fact, I have a 3/4-finished novel and a whole bunch of short stories that have never (and probably will never) see the light of day. As soon as I started my PhD, I put fiction writing to one-side and focused on academic writing instead. That was until I came to writing my book proposal. I found it really difficult to construct the introduction but became inspired to create a fictional reconstruction of the event I was describing. The starting point was a real-life letter, which gave a brief account of what had happened, but I couldn’t articulate the importance of the letter without imagining everything the letter didn’t say. Now, I know I can’t repeat this trope throughout the whole book (that would probably be very jarring) but I now find myself thinking about my characters 3-dimensionally and it is helping me to assess what I know, what I don’t know, but should, what I don’t know and will probably never know and, what my reader needs to know. So far, this thought process is in the mind and not on paper, but what if I turned this into a fictional, episodic adventure? This may sound like an academic pipe dream; how novel, turning your research into… well, a novel! But, I think this approach will benefit my writing overall. In fact, Addison Lucchi suggests using fictional writing techniques as it can benefit academic writing and KCL have actually created a course all about ‘finding the story in your research‘. In the last 6 months, I have found that listening to BookTubers such as Kate Cavanaugh and implementing some of her writing techniques, such as zero drafting and figuring out story beats has allowed me to find my flow as a writer.

Though I am not committing to writing a novel, this space may become a place where I experiment with different kinds of writing. After all, academia is hard-work but maybe I can implement a little play too.