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Archive for the ‘acting as if’ Category

Writing is not for the weak of heart.  Writing is often a dangerous act, requiring all of the mental toughness and grit you can muster. And no one knows that more than my clients—those writing dissertations and those who are now pushing on with writing their books or writing grant applications or articles. Some of [...]

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Have you heard of a “showrunner”? Writers in the TV industry are now expected also to manage—or to have the skills and strengths that would allow them to manage.  According to John Wells, Writers Guild of America West president and writer/producer of E.R., Third Watch, and West Wing, it is virtually impossible to be just a writer [...]

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How inspired are you by watching the Winter Olympics?   What a thrill to see the moguls skiers come down the slope so fast it seems as if the screen must be on fast-forward.  Smoking fast, the commentator says. We figured, without hearing the commentator say it, that these skiers are “on the edge of out of [...]

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Dissertation writers are largely self-taught academic writers, and the learning process can be a bold and daring adventure. Over the years many of my dissertation coaching clients talk about the challenges in writing academic discourse.  Academic writing is its own special discourse, with its own particular conventions. My dissertation coaching clients largely learn this discourse [...]

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What are the possibilities if you wrote under the assumption that you could not fail? Some blogs tell you in bulleted points what’s best for you if you want to finish your dissertation. Other blogs share golden nuggets in more reflective ways. Yesterday a colleague mentioned an incident in the news that sounded to me [...]

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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”       —Aristotle How are you doing with building your writing habit? Are you writing your dissertation? It’s easy to play around on email or to read and even respond to blogs, but sitting down and starting a writing session is hard.  [...]

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Mental toughness as the way to finish a dissertation is all well and good, but what if you’re just not feeling particularly tough?  Is “powering through” your work not realistic for you right now, given how even the phrase “power through” makes you snarl?  What would help you lean into your work? What can you [...]

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Writing can be like rowing a kayak. This past week-end my husband and I visited long-time friends at their lake house.  In the early evening, when it was a little cooler, they suggested it would be a good time to go out on the water.  I hadn’t really noticed that the only boats available were [...]

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Have you turned up the heat on your dissertation now that summer is here?  Is your summer writing starting to take off yet? What are you using as an incentive? One of my clients has a new powerful incentive—one that she says has given her a sense of purpose about finishing her dissertation. Let me [...]

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Getting some writing done this week will happen only if you let people know that you’re using every spare minute to write. You need to go public and let others know that you aren’t kidding.  Then throw yourself into your writing. One person I know says that for her status on Facebook this week, she [...]

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