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.

Facing fears leads to an academic win!

On the 1st April of this year, I posted the following to the ‘Women in Academia Support Network’:

Hello everyone*. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a rather long post, but I want to make this year, ‘the year I face my academic fears!’ I passed my PhD with very minor corrections in 2016 (I got 2 weeks for the corrections) and I had always planned to turn it into a monograph. The perfect book series was launched right at that time and I got in touch with the editors and asked if they would be interested in a monograph based on my PhD thesis. After getting the ok, I created a proposal, re-shaped a couple of the chapters, acted on feedback given from colleagues and sent it in. I was so happy to get a positive response from the commissioning editor who sent it out to readers.

I didn’t get a response for almost a year. After a few chasing emails, I finally heard back in October 2017 that my proposal had been rejected. The commissioning editor’s email was apologetic and tried to provide constructive criticism, even suggesting a way forward. The initial read of the email confused me, as it seemed she was trying to apologise for something other than only being able to provide one reader’s report…

Well, as soon as I opened the single reader’s report, I was met with such nasty, negative comments it still makes me sick. This came as such a shock. Up till this point, comments had been positive and I falsely thought things were moving in the right direction. Even since this experience, I have had so many people who have read my thesis ask when the monograph will appear and I have no answer. Clearly, there are people out there who want to see more of my work and I continue to question ‘why?’

Since 2017, this review made me hide from my thesis. I put it away in a digital box and seriously questioned my ability to research and write. I still get really nervous writing and don’t think my work is good enough. Up until this review, I felt productive and didn’t struggle to articulate my thoughts. Now, every piece I write is an up hill battle.

Not this year! This year, I plan to turn my thesis into a monograph. This year, I will take a deep breath, get my head down and shape it into something I am proud of. This year, I will submit a proposal elsewhere and if it gets rejected, I will act on the comments and send it out again. This year, I will grow from the negative experience of 2017 and turn a resounding ‘NO!’ into a ‘Yes!’

I hope you don’t mind me sharing this experience, and I know many of you have had negative rejections as well. I hope others can learn from my experience and are not faced with the complete shock I experienced. I know it has made me better at research and writing in the long-run, but I didn’t need to drown to learn how to swim!

*Edit to remove ‘ladies’ as a recent request was made to use a more inclusive term.*

I received so many kind and encouraging comments on this post that it inspired to commit! I even received a PM from an editor who encouraged me to send her a proposal for the series she edits, which I did.

This post didn’t come out of no where. Turning my thesis into a monograph had plagued my mind since the viva and the sickness only got worse after the first rejection. Despite thinking about it non-stop I avoided finding the time to write a new proposal.

At the 2019 American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conference I visited one of the ‘Doctor is in’ volunteers and I spoke to a wonderfully supportive academic, who sympathised with my struggles and offered to turn the negative comments from the reviewer into kinder action points so I could more effectively work on the new proposal. I am so grateful to her for taking the time to do this and for telling me the proposal only need a little bit more work and certainly wasn’t as bad as the reviewer made it seem.

In the end, I didn’t use the old proposal as a template, rather I started with a new rewrite of the monograph introduction and from there I realised the new direction the book had to take. I worked on the rewrite while doing the Wendy Belcher task, which I posted about on here and got some feedback from my writing group colleagues on the chapter abstract. In truth, this chapter took about 3-4 months of work and I rewrote the opening several times, but what came out in the end really worked.

My writing group also gave me support with the proposal, with one very kind member sending me a copy of their successful book proposal. This was another month of work and thereafter I sent it to 5 wonderful colleagues who gave me comments on how to make the proposal and chapter even stronger.

And I can now say that I successfully have a contract with Routledge for my first academic monograph. This process was so different from my last experience. It was quick. The decision was clear and I felt supported by the series editors the whole time.

In respect of privacy, I have not included the names of those who helped me along the way but the intension of this post is to demonstrate the number of kind people who offered their free advice and time to help me throughout this journey and I am so very grateful to each and every one of them!

It took me 6 months from articulating my goal on #wiasn to actually achieving it and I am proud to go into academic year 2019-2020 with a contract under my belt. Fears are real and facing them is hard. But, with a little help from our friends it both possible and worth it!

Once again… Where have I been?

The last few blog posts were many months ago and I realised I jumped from regularly posting about Wendy Belcher’s Write Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks to a brief post about my adventures in Australia. I really wanted to post more, but instead I spent the summer actually writing. And I worked, and I worked and when I felt like I had had enough, I worked some more. In fact, by mid August I was feeling pretty burnt out and pessimistic about the whole academic thing. Seem strange? Why would I feel down and out after working so hard? Well, there are a few reasons and it is only after taking a step back (and following some much needed advice).

1. There were pieces I wanted to write, pieces I had to write and pieces that I probably should have written but didn’t…

Unfortunately, I am one of those easily distracted workers… Not in the sense that I get easily distracted from a task. I will work until I see a project through to completion, but I am interested in so many things (and I have worked on so many different projects) I now have a very diverse skill set. I tend to get asked to do more and I like being able to say yes and see that project through efficiently. The only problem is I say yes to more than I should, the projects don’t align, which means there is no logical, progressive pattern and while it may give me the satisfaction of finishing something, it’s not giving me the long-term momentum I need to establish myself as an expert in one particular field. Cathy Mazak describes this as building an academic brand and to my surprise, my line manager asked me this very question in my annual progress review. What is my brand? What do I want to be known for?

To be perfectly honest, I have lived for so long, desperately building a diverse skill set in the hopes of securing a permanent academic post, I never thought about what came next. Even after I got the permanent job, my mindset never changed. I have spent the last two years living as if I still need to prove myself to everyone, rather than decided who I want to be. That is a subject for a different post, but it explains why I worked so hard throughout the summer, but didn’t feel like I have benefitted much from it.

In my past posts I have often talked about following Cathy Mazak’s academic writing programmes, and she had recommended setting up a Trello to help see projects through from idea to completion. I started my Trello board at the start of the year and it has been really useful to see how much I am actually completing. It is more than I thought, which is great, but once my line manager pointed out my lack of a brand, I was able to go back to the board and see just how much my work varies from project to project.

I have a long list of ideas on all different subjects. Similarly, my completed pieces of work are also diverse. A range of funding applications – all different subjects, blog posts, conference papers also on a diverse range subjects, and pieces I have been asked to write, again mostly different subjects. All of these pieces of work have one thing in common – external deadlines. They need to be done because someone else depended on me to do it. There are only two pieces I have written of my own volition and this was partly because I got in touch with editors and had deadlines in place. In effect, these pieces became work I needed to do for someone else rather than work I should do for me. In these two cases, the end result was mutually beneficial but that won’t necessarily work for every future project.

So the real question is: can I work without an official deadline? The answer is yet to be determined…

That brings me to the next reason why I felt done…

2. I worked solidly every day, rarely took breaks and barely had contact with anyone other than my husband and my virtual writing group.

My virtual writing group are a wonderful bunch of academics. They provide support and encouragement and while I checked in with them and worked alongside them doing pomodoro sessions, and longer co-writing sessions, it isn’t quite the same as engaging with live people. On the other hand, it takes me a long time to get into the writing flow. A a result, I was reluctant to schedule anything other than writing days to ensure I got through all my projects. It worked, but at the cost of my physical and mental health. I stayed in and wrote all day, every day and such seditary behaviour caused me to put on a few pounds (which I hate and I am now working hard to correct). Mentally, I was frustrated, angry and emotional. I lacked confidence in my work and replayed past blows on my mind. I still feel uncomfortable when I receive praise and internally question I the person giving the praise is just being polite. Imposter syndrome is a hard condition to cure. I have experimented with a couple of writing styles to help with flow, so I don’t feel like I need to write all day, every day to finish writing project. They have helped and I will share that experience in another post as well.

3. I know change is in my future, but I’m terrified to move into the driver’s seat and take control of my own career.

An academic’s life is odd. Years are spent in training, and even after graduation is over and hopefully the student moves into their first post docs or lectureships, it still feels like driving with P plates. (I am going to continue with a driving analogy for while…) How does an ECR know when it is time to go the distance alone? To upgrade from their parents’ hand-me-down car –you know, that car that’s safe and reliable but fully expected to get a few dings– to a BMW or a Mercedes. It’s risky to do it too soon and maybe some never want to make that kind of investment, but if you are that person, if I am that person that does want the upgrade, when is the time?

Well, if I understand my line manager correctly, now might not be time to buy the Merc, but it is time to start saving and by saving I mean mapping my own path. It’s time to soul search and figure out exactly what I want and then to have the courage to go for it.

I didn’t come to these conclusions right away, in fact, it has taken me a good few weeks to get to where I am and I still have a long way to go in terms of work-life balance and understanding who I am as an academic, but at least it’s a start.

#facingfears: The year I learn to swim…

I initially posted this on the ~WIASN Facebook group, but I decided to make it a blog post as well. This is partly to give me more accountability, but I think it is important to share negative experience as well as positive. I also want to make this year, ‘the year I face my academic fears!’ and here is the reason why.

I passed my PhD with very minor corrections in 2016 and had always planned to turn it into a monograph. The perfect book series was launched right at that time and I got in touch with the editors and asked if they would be interested in a monograph based on my PhD thesis.  I was fully aware the monograph would need to be different from the  thesis and had a clear plan of how I wanted to do this that still allowed it to meet the aims of the series. I had also attended a number of seminars on how to change my thesis into a monograph, though I must admit I didn’t read up on how to do this. It was after this experience, I decided to read about turning a dissertation into a book and it inspired a number of blog posts, which you can read here. After getting the ok, I created a proposal, re-shaped a couple of the chapters, acted on feedback given from colleagues and sent it in. I was so happy to get a positive response from the commissioning editor who sent it out to readers.

 

I didn’t get a response for almost a year. After a few chasing emails, I finally heard back in October 2017 that my proposal had been rejected. The commissioning editor’s email was apologetic and tried to provide constructive criticism, even suggesting a way forward. The initial read of the email confused me, as it seemed she was trying to apologise for something other than only being able to provide one reader’s report… This email only made sense after reading the reader’s report.

 

Well, as soon as I opened the report, I was met with such nasty, negative comments it still makes me sick. I have tried to look at the comments sense, but it makes me so angry I find it difficult to transform the comments into useful feedback. Clearly this is what the commissioning editor had tried to do for me, but the suggestions just aren’t helpful (even now).

Obviously, this came as a shock. Up till this point, comments had been positive and I falsely thought things were moving in the right direction. Even since this experience, I have had so many people who have read my thesis ask when the monograph will appear and I have no answer. Clearly, there are people out there who want to see more of my work and I continue to question ‘why?’ Whenever I start to feel a little confident about my work, something will happen to shatter my lacerated ego and it really is because of this experience. While I am aware that the industry is tough and not for the faint hearted, my colleagues continue to assure me this experience is unusual and should not have happened. 

 

Since 2017, this review made me hide from my thesis. I put it away in a digital box and seriously questioned my ability to research and write. I still get really nervous writing and don’t think my work is good enough. Up until this review, I felt productive and didn’t struggle to articulate my thoughts. Now, every piece I writing is an up hill battle.

 

Not this year! This year, I plan to turn my thesis into a monograph. This year, I will take a deep breath, get my head down and shape it into something I am proud of. This year, I will submit a proposal elsewhere and if it gets rejected, I will act on the comments and send it out again. This year, I will grow from the negative experience of 2017 and turn a resounding ‘NO!’ into a ‘Yes!’

 

I hope others can learn from my journey and are not faced with the complete shock I experienced. I know it has made me better at research and writing in the long-run, but I didn’t need to drown to learn how to swim!