#42: The Three Systems That Scholars Writing Academic Books Need to Thrive

In this episode, Jane breaks down the three systems that every scholar writing an academic book needs: a system to manage your writing process, a system to manage your planning, and a system to manage your mindset. 

A writing system will help you get ideas out of your head and onto the page in clearly-written, structured prose. 

A project management system fit or establishing your publication timeline, setting milestones to keep on track, and turning those milestones into daily tasks.

A mindset system is invaluable if you want to manage your fears and concerns about writing, including your self doubt that you're capable of writing a book, fear of negative feedback, and worries that you won't complete your book on time.

Tune in as Jane explains each of these systems and how you can incorporate each of them into your writing process

Further Listening: 

#33: The Three Pillars of Successful Book Planning

#22: How Academics Can Make a Summer Writing Plan That Actually Works

If you want to work with Jane to write your academic book, check out Book Brilliance: rightprose.co/book-brilliance

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello, hello. I hope you're all doing well. I am really excited about today's episode because I think it is quite timely as we are getting into the summer. And I know that I'm recording this in early May. And I know that this is the time where a lot of academics begin to think seriously about working on their books for the summer. And it is not a lot like controversial to say that. It's obvious, I mean, to say that right now, academics have a lot going on. You know, like there are attacks on academia every day. You're being forced to publish more than ever. There are such productivity demands, you have such high service demands. You know, there's just so much on your plate. And I think with that, it becomes even more important to have really strong systems for writing. Because if you're listening to a podcast like this, you probably enjoy writing and you probably feel some sense of urgency or excitement to write your book. And you want to make sure that you either enjoy the process or get it done quickly, or both, right? And the way to do that is to develop systems, to develop a systematized approach to the process of writing your book, because there are so there are certain parts that can't be systematized, right? Like there is a level of creativity and idea, you know, creating ideas and just sitting down and thinking, right, that are not as easily like put into a rigid structure, which is why we need systems around everybody, everything else, so that we can create the space for that creativity. Okay. So today in the podcast, I'm going to teach you the three systems you need to thrive in your book writing. And they are the three systems that I teach people in my book Brilliance program. We go through all three of them and we do various lessons and exercises to really drill in the skills that you learn through each system. So these are what the three systems are. Get a notebook, take notes, because you're going to want to use these systems in your writing. There's a system to manage your writing process, a system to manage your planning, and a system to manage your mindset. Okay? So writing, planning, mindset. I'm going to go through each one of them and give you some examples of what you would need to do in each system. So let's start with a writing system. And this is a system to manage your writing process. It's not a planning system. Sometimes when I say a system to manage your writing, people think manage, like put my writing on the calendar. And that is not what I mean. We'll get into that, but that's not the system. So when I say a writing system, what I mean is a system that helps you transform the ideas in your head to prose on the page. I'm going to repeat that. A system that helps you transform the ideas in your head to prose on the page. In book brilliance, I teach this through something that I call the O4 method. Not the number four, O F O R, the O4 method, where we teach you an overview, a framework, an outline, and a roadmap. Right? So one of the ways you organize your thoughts is through first getting them down on paper in a kind of messy way, like that's the overview, right? What is the big idea of this book? Then the framework. Who am I in conversation with? Why do I want to be in conversation with these people? What is the big concept or theory that I want to introduce or challenge or discuss in this book? And then what is the organization of the book? What are the chapters going to say? Why do they need to be in a specific order? What is the logic underlying my argument? Right? So OFO, overview framework outline, and then the roadmap, because you can't figure out like, how am I going to write all of this until you have an idea of what you're going to write? Okay. So that is the writing system. Okay. And the example would be like, how do I write an overview for my book? That would be a skill to cultivate to manage your writing process. And then you can use that overview for each chapter, right? Like, how do I explain like the main point of this chapter? Who am I engaging in this chapter? How am I organizing this chapter? Right? So that is the system you use to get the ideas from your head to the page. So that's system number one. Then we have a project management system. And that's where you manage the process of writing your book. Right. So this is where we get more into calendar work, right? And task work. So how do you establish writing timelines? How do you figure out how long you need to write each chapter? How do you create milestones? Right? If my book is due, if I want to submit this book to the publisher two years from now, when does chapter three need to be done? When does chapter four need to be done? When does chapter five need to be done? Right? Like creating milestones along the way. And with those milestones come tasks. I have to complete this set of tasks in order to meet this milestone. How do I create those tasks? How do I figure out how long those tasks are going to take? And then how do I take that information and map it onto my calendar? Where, like, how do I map my tasks onto my calendar so I can see if this idea I have that I need three months to write this chapter is actually accurate. Right? So building that project management system. So going into your outline, which you created through your writing system, and figuring out what you need to do to finish a chapter. What do I have to write? What do I have to read? What evidence do I have to incorporate? When am I going to revise it? How long do I think those things are going to take when I break them down? That is the project management system. Okay? It's not just looking at your calendar and being like, okay, you know, the book's due in two years, so let me just, you know, set aside 10 hours a week. Like that's one step. But then you go even deeper than that. What am I going to do with the hours that I have? And if I can't do everything I thought I was going to do, how do I course correct? Which is a really important part of project management. And then finally, we have the mindset system. And I always hesitate to call this one a system. It's definitely a set of skills you have to cultivate. And I don't mean, you know, like this woo-woo thing. Sometimes when you hear mindset, you're like, oh, where are we going with this? Nor do I mean something you should work on with a therapist, because if you need to work with a therapist, you need to do that. Like a program like this is not a substitute for therapy. So when I say a mindset system, I mean thinking, coming up with ways, and this is what we do in the program, to address some of the self-doubt that you have about your writing. The uncertainty, right? Because there's a lot of uncertainty in writing. Will I get this done on time? Am I really explaining this concept well? Will people buy my argument, right? So addressing that type of uncertainty, learning how to come back from negative feedback of all sorts, right? So learning how to identify which feedback is negative but helpful. You know, maybe it was delivered in a rude way or not even delivered in a kind way, but it still was, you know, incisive or harsh, right? And recognizing, like, hey, that person had a point. I do need to revise that, versus feedback that's just negative and harmful. Which as a coach who works with a lot of writers who write about race, who write about gender, who write about sexuality, there are some ad hominem comments that are really not helpful. And when I say really not, I mean negatively helpful. So how do you deal with that as an academic, right? Like if you are compelled to address it, for instance, if it comes up in peer review, what do you do? And when I say address, I don't mean do what they tell you, but push back and advocate for yourself. Like, how do you do that in regards to your book? How do you recognize that I can process this feedback and then I can make a plan to move on and continue with my writing, right? Because if you don't have that system in place, you can get very demoralized, right? And that can slow down your writing in ways that will be even more demoralizing, right? Because you feel bad about the feedback, then you feel bad about not making progress, and then you feel like you want to give up. Right? I've seen this happen with people who end up in my program who are like, you know, I wasn't able to write for a while because, you know, somebody said something about my book or someone made a comment and it just really shook me. And it took a while for me to come back from it. And when you have a system in place, like this is how I'm going to deal with this, when it happens, because it's inevitable that it will happen at some point. When I get ill and can't write for a while and feel guilty, when I get feedback, when I just question myself, what kind of protocol can I develop to deal with those instances so that they don't completely deplete me? Right. And that's a really important and I think underappreciated part of the writing process is learning how to navigate like the emotional roller coaster sometimes that is writing a book. So to summarize, because you know I like to keep these episodes brief, three systems writing system, project management system, mindset system. Those are the three systems you need to write your book. Right? And they are systems that I teach in Book Brilliance. So if that is something you are interested in, it is a six-month coaching and editing program for women and non-binary scholars in academia. And we are, if you're listening to this when it comes out, which is May, we're enrolling right now. So you can look at the link in the show notes to learn more about the program. Well, you'll get coached on all three of these systems and get your writing edited, which is a really big perk of the program that we read your work and give you editorial feedback. So you're building your skills and also practicing your skills. It's not just learning and then going off. It's learning, practicing, strengthening your skill set. So I hope this was helpful. And as always, thank you so much for listening. And I will see you in the next episode.