Episode 118: Writing is Hard

This week's episode is a special throwback episode where Marvette talks about her experience with writing during her dissertation, and how you can make writing easier so you can accomplish your goals.

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to office hours with Dr. Lacy. Hi, I'm Dr.Lacy, your dissertation strategist, where I help doctoral students finish their qualitative dissertations so that they can graduate and successfully become doctor. Let's get started with this week's episode. Guess what? I am hosting my very first writing retreat in November. I'm going to be at home in Chicago and I'm inviting a few friends along for a beautiful, productive, rejuvenating writing retreat right before the holiday. So we are going to be meeting in Chicago November 24th to the 27th, four days, three nights of writing scholarly pursuits, whatever that may be. Um, um, fun we are going to be talking about, so like for your scholarly self, we're going to be talking about best ways of organizing yourself, how to make a realistic schedule and a realistic routine. We're going to have some time to get some eyes on your writing to really help you flesh out those ideas and have a really solid plan for not only getting a significant writing done at the retreat cause there was nothing more, I find annoying that when you go to an event, you're all, you're all excited and you're motivated, you're like yup I'm going to do all the things and then you go home and you're like, I don't even know how to take the next step. So we're gonna make sure that when you leave you know what to do. 

Plus, you know I don't like, I can't just sit there and just work, you know, that's not my MO.So while we will have 20 hours dedicated to solid writing time, we will also have time to talk about things that are happening outside of writing. Like how do you keep your motivation, how do you stay productive, how do you manage your chair and your committee and keep everybody on schedule and on the same page? How do you manage your own self to that, you know, you can continue to show up and go after your goals? Plus so much more. Breakfast and lunch is included in the price and we have three different options for packages available. So please, please, please go over to MarvetteLacy.com. And then you're going to click the red button at the top right corner and it says, work with me And there, you will find all the information about the writing retreat. I'm so excited. I have so many surprises planned, we already have people signed up. And so please don't miss out. I would hate for you to miss out. Just go on over to the website or you can DM me on Instagram and we can talk there and I can tell you about it, but please don't miss out. Alright, we're gonna get onto today's episode.

Give the Gift of Writing

Welcome back everyone. We are in November. Can you believe that? Like we have just two months left, 61 days of if you're listening to this, I really think this was released on us November 1st so then there's that. But anyway, we just had two more months left in the year, left in a decade. And I've been doing a lot of reflection over, not only this year, but this whole decade, like the past 10 years. Everything that I have accomplished or how I've grown, the different places I have lived, just so much happened in this decade and I'm so grateful for this decade. I'm grateful for all the experiences, the good times, bad times, the in between times because it got me to this point and I am also so excited because I'll be going into a new year. So if you don't know, November is my birth month, my birthday is on November 23rd.

And if you are a part of the 90 day challenge, if you're not, you definitely should join. But if you're a part of it, then you know that for November I'm asking everyone to give me the gift of writing. And at first it sounded really, um, funny, like who am I to ask anyone to give me anything? But if you wanted to give me something, I'm asking that you give me the gift of writing that November you make it about producing writing. Like no more this like going back and forth diddly dallying, is that how you say that? Um, but I want some pages written. Um, and so you will notice as a result that every episode for November is the theme of writing. Um, because I don't want to just leave you hanging. Um, I'm asking for something. I want to give you some support and so I'm going to be talking about many of things.

Why Is Writing So Hard?: 

But today I'm gonna talk about why writing is so hard. Um, and why just it seems like it just takes so much energy to get it done. Um, I like just think back early on in my doc program and, um, some of you have heard me talk about this story, but, um, one of, one of the first things in my program is changing now, which is very interesting. But one of the first things, um, the first requirements, um, for doc students was to work on when it's called a publishable paper. The goal is for you to go through the whole research design process from start to finish with the end goal of you having a manuscript to submit for publication. And you do this part before you do your exams and before you can even start your dissertation. And so I remember when I first really got serious about working on my publishable paper and the first place that people tell you to start, right, is your literature review.

Literature Review as the Starting Point: 

And so I remember I downloaded all of these articles, tons and tons of articles, right? At least what I thought was tons of articles, but go with me. I was a first year. Anyway, downloading tons and tons of articles, um, that I would put it in a folder on my laptop. And then I just spent weeks and weeks and weeks reading all of those articles, reading in very detailed, making very detailed notes. I'm making a point to write down any citations that, um, came up in their literature review for me to have like more clues to go back to and to read those articles. Um, because really I was just trying to figure it out. I like no one had taught me how to write a literature review. And in my mind, everyone up to that point had described it as like a big, uh, I don't know, like a book report for lack of a better term, but like they said that you should read all the current literature that exists about your topic and then you should summarize that literature.

Um, and that's what a literature review was. And so the way I knew to do that was to read said articles, make very detailed notes on those articles and then write like a book report, like write a summary of all of those articles. And so that's how I started. I was reading them and I had like this yellow notebook cause like spiral notebook because I'm a fan of writing handwriting things, um, because it just clicks more for me than necessarily typing out, um, notes that that actually changed once I did my dissertation. But for the most part, that's what I liked. So I had this yellow spiral notebook like from Walmart or something. And I would write out the citation of the article and then I would just like make all these pages and pages of notes and I did that for all of it. And I remember the whole spiral notebook was filled and I was like, well that makes sense then maybe I should go and I should start writing. And so as I like pulled out my laptop and open up a new document and I'm like, okay, I'm going to write, nothing would come out. Like, I mean I'm like, I know I got all these pages and notes, but for whatever reason I don't know where to start. I just couldn't figure out where I needed to start like, what sections? And so then I would go back to other articles that I was reading and see like how they like outlined their literature review section and how they phrase things. And then it started turning into this very like plagiarized version of a literature review. And so then I scratched that and then I was trying to write it and I don't know, I just remembered that a whole summer went by and I didn't have anything.

And I know that I needed to show up for fall semester with something, um, because the goal was to defend it in the fall semester. Um, and so I somehow came up with something who knows, it probably was plagiarized but I didn't use it. So then there's that. But I'm telling y'all the truth: transparency. And I worked so long and hard on the literature review that I had to throw together the whole introduction background part and the whole like methodology, methodological section. Oh yes. Um, and I had some form of a proposal that I was ready to show. And I, I remember getting feedback. I gave it to my advisor and she was like, yep, it's fine. It's good. You know, like, this isn't the dissertation, so it should be fine. And then go into the defense. Um, and not talk about this story where I failed my defense, but like I failed the defense because not only was the literature review awful, but like everything was awful and I just needed to redo it.

That's so much about the failure part, I should look up the episode in which I actually go into more detail about that experience. Um, you're going to hear me moving around while I look up the episodes. Um, but yeah, this part of this story isn't so much about um, that experience but more about the writing part because I just remember sitting there and feeling so frustrated that I did not know what to write and I didn't understand why this was so difficult. Like if it was just supposed to be a summary of all these articles, why, why was I struggling so much? I mean I had all these degrees, right? I'm getting a PhD. You would think I could just write. At that point it was supposed to be like 10, 15 pages. I couldn't understand what to do. So, um, if you are curious more about the behind the scenes of that story it's episode 21 and you could go back and listen to that.

Um, I talk about that story and how it was so heartbreaking, um, and what I learned from it. Um, but today I want to really focus on that part of like why writing is so hard and it's something that I see with clients too. Like, so I know it wasn't just me and my story back then, but then I, I see it constantly of, um, I have clients who come to me and they also have their pages and pages of notes and all of their articles and I asked them to write something like a very clear instructions that this is what, you know, like maybe I say three paragraphs or like three pages and you would think that I asked them to do the most difficult thing in the world and I get it. Um, and even if, you know, they put something together or you managed to put some together, even me putting that literature review together, you basically come back like with the feedback from your chair or whomever, you have to turn it in to you and say like basically start over, do it over and that just makes you more frustrated and you'd probably just leave it, leave it at that point and just don't even write.

Thoughts and Feelings Are the Culprit

And just procrastinate doing other things. And so that's what I want to spend time talking about today. I want to talk about like more about the psychology of why the writing is difficult. Um, and I I want to be clear from the beginning that there is no magical mystery answer. I'm not about to sit here and just like tell you exactly what you need to do in all your worries and cares and writers block will be taken care of. Cause that's not, that's not what it is. Cause if it was that easy, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Like there'll be so many people who will be doctors and have their PhDs and finish their dissertations. There wouldn't be a big business of people who ghost write dissertations or books, et cetera. Um, there it just, it wouldn't be, but if I did have to give you a simple answer, like the magic answer, you're not gonna like it probably, but if I did, I would tell you that the reason why it's so difficult to write is because of how we're thinking and we're feeling and it leads to self sabotage. Simple. You probably like what? Yes. It really comes down to the thoughts that you're thinking and the feelings you're feeling.

Join Write Away!:

Hey sis, how is your productivity going? No, for real it's just you and me. Like tell me how is your productivity going? You feel like you're getting a lot done in a week or do you feel like you're just doing a lot and why you're feeling burnt out? Feeling a little bit lonely? Wishing you had people who were just as dedicated as you are and consistent as you are to showing up week after week to get things done. Then you have to join Write Away. Write Away is my weekly accountability group where we have people just like you showing up every week to get it done. We meet on Sundays and Wednesdays for three hours each. You can choose to come either Sunday or Wednesday or both. You can come in for some time. Um, we ask that people stay for the whole time but we also know like life is real. Life happens and sometimes you have other things to do and so we have people who come in for maybe the first 30 minutes and then they leave and they come back. It is there for you. It is there as a community of people to encourage you to support you. It is there to keep you accountable to what you say you're going to do week after week. And plus, we are always like holding each other down. We are supporting each other. We celebrate the small wins that like your family and friends don't get. Like they don't understand why it might have been exciting for you to find the perfect methodology or that perfect article that explains exactly what it is that you want to do for your dissertation. That's us. We do that. We, we're here to celebrate with you and then when you need someone to help keep you together, like call you to the carpet, we're there to do that. So come to the website, check us out, and join now. Um, you can go to marvettelacy.com. Click the red button in the top right corner, work with me and you'll find all the information that you need there. I love this group. We've been going for almost a year now. And you definitely, definitely should join.

And if you really want to know how to get past this, you have to first make the decision that you're will, you're willing and you're ready to do the hard work that it is to come face to face with these thoughts and feelings and work through them. Because that is a very, uh, it can be a very, uh, scary, difficult thing to really like. Look at your brain and look at how you think and feel. And, that is the main reason why you can't write because you're hiding from the way that you're thinking and your feeling. But I want you to just go with me on this episode. And if, if you're thing isn't writing, like you're like, it's not writing, it's something else. Just insert the something else into this. It still comes down to your thoughts and feelings. If you're new to me, if you hadn't heard earlier things, because I, I, um, I don't go into much detail about this with the podcast, but I do in my group Write Away and with my clients.

Shying Away from the Thought and Feeling Work

So we spend a lot of our time, most of our time talking about thoughts and feelings. Most of the time we're not talking about like writing strategy or like feedback. We're talking about what is going on in your life. What do you think about that? What do you feel about that and how can we talk through that? Because that really is the answer. But first I just, I want to be, let's be real because that's, that's how I know how to be. Um, it's, it's you, you will, you will, um, try to shy away from doing the thought and the feeling work, um, because it's, it's easier to say that you're overwhelmed and say you're confused and so essentially just be a victim. It's easier do that. Um, you may be saying it don't feel easier, but it is easier. It's easier to say that it's because of all of these external things, and reasons as to why I'm not writing. So the program doesn't support me. My chair doesn't give me good enough feedback. Oh, that's a good one. Like I have people when I'm doing like, um, so it's calls or like I'd do next step calls where I'm just like trying to get to know more about people. And a lot of times my favorite people are like, I just need feedback. Like I just need detailed feedback and I just feel like people are not giving me enough feedback. Um, and if I had that I would be able to finish. No, you're not writing or finishing because of your thoughts and feelings in really at the heart of that is you don't want to accept responsibility because it's easier to be the victim and say that it's everybody else's fault than it is to accept responsibility for how you think and for how you feel. And that's influenced in the way that you're showing up.

Y'all watch homecoming with Beyonce. You saw that playing, like why would someone need to give you any additional notes when you didn't apply their original notes? If they took out their time and their energy to give you feedback to begin with and you didn't address that feedback, why would they continue to give you additional feedback when you've already proven that you can't follow directions to begin with? So, no, I'm not gonna sit here with all my time and things and getting you to give you feedback when you didn't take the first set. That was a tangent that was supposed to be for later. But you know, it came out through way that it did, but it's true. And even if you stopped listening at this, um, to this episode at this point, that's really all you need to know is that it's very important for you to accept responsibility for you, for your dissertation or whatever manuscript you're working on or whatever goal you are working on because even, you're listening to this, all the peeps and the 90 day challenge, um, and all of you, you have to stop waking up like it's an accident.

Taking Responsibility for Yourself

You have to stop saying that it's everybody else's fault. You have to stop giving your power away, right? Like in some of you may say, well, like what about things like, um, racism or you know, um, oppression or things that I'll have control over. Yes, those things are real and you still have to make a decision. Are you going to take responsibility for you, your actions, your thoughts and your feelings and do what you can do, do what you can control to get the things that you want. I'm harping on this a lot and you're probably like, I'm not exactly sure how this has to do with writing. And it has everything to do with writing and it has everything to do with, and goal that you want to accomplish. Particularly, you want to be doctor, you enrolled into this doctoral program. And so you have to accept responsibility because when you've had those three letters after your name, people are gonna look up to you to be the expert in your field and your topic or whatever.

And there's no more saying looking to so and so or giving responsibility away. People are going to be looking to you as the leader and if you can't accept responsibility or even make the decision to say, I'm going to do whatever it takes to get what I want, then why should I be looking up to you as the expert? So really the first thing and the first reason why writing is so hard is because you won't accept responsibility for how you're showing up and how you're showing up has everything to do with how you're thinking and how you're feeling and that you think you don't have a choice in how you think and how you feel. At the basis of all my coaching, the basis of my philosophy, an old age principle is that your thoughts control how you feel. Your feelings control what you do, how you behave. And how you behave the actions you take every day determines the results you have in your life, the outcome in your life. So if the outcome is you are having writer's block or you can write anything, it's because you are thinking, feeling in a way that's making you show up and behave in a way that leads to you not having anything. So if I'm going back to myself when I was trying to do, um, that literature review, if I'm being honest, the things that were running through my mind is that this isn't going to be good enough. I don't know what I'm doing. 

I need to read more. All these thoughts that had, that I kept worrying about and indulging in instead of actually sitting down and writing and had I just sat down and write, like I, I eventually got to at the end because I produced something to go to that defense. Had I did that from the beginning and got continuous feedback throughout, I would have been in much better shape and I wouldn't have failed that, but I didn't take responsibility. And I'm willing to bet you're not taking responsibility if this is something that you are, um, trying to, you're struggling with or you're trying to navigate. So yeah, number one, which I probably went through all of them in that rent, but you get what I'm saying. That goes into, so not taking a responsibility goes into my second point is that you enjoy being entitled and you enjoy self-sabotaging because, um, you, um, and I say that and how, how um, you know, that you enjoy feeling like entitled and self sabotaging yourself is because you are engaging conversation that it's more about how hard the process is that you go and you talk to people. You talked their ear off, you complain to them over and over. Y'all are all in a bitch contest or commiserating over your misery about how hard this process is and everybody knows the PhD is hard.

Wanting to be Saved

Everybody knows the dissertation part is lonely and isolating and y'all just spend more time talking about that, talking shit about your program, talking shit about your faculty. You're doing all the like you're spending your good writing time quote unquote talking about shit that don't, that doesn't matter. Yeah, let me pull it back together. Like I do have a PhD but you know, you can't let the hood and just come out. Um, but yeah, it's just spending more time complaining than you are actually taking action, which leads to number three that you think someone is coming to save you. You think you're chair or someone on your committee is going to call you up and ring, ring, ring and sit you down and say, Oh, I noticed that you're having such a hard time. Let's sit down and go step by step and tell you exactly what it is that you need to do. And then you're going to magically do it. Because, let me tell you, there have been plenty of people I actually have sat down with and I've told them step by step exactly what to do. And when I say step by step, I literally mean take out your computer, open up your document, put your fingers on the keyboard, type X, Y, Z, like laid it out in very clear detail. And you know what? They still didn't do it, which has proven to me over and over that it's, that's not what you need. It's not that you don't know what to do because I'm confident. I am so confident that you know enough right now to write a full draft of your proposal or your dissertation or whatever you're working on. If you were to sit down, open up your laptop and start typing, you can get a full draft.

Lying to Yourself

Now let me, I'm being clear in my words, I said a draft. I didn't say that it would be perfect and I didn't say it would be finished, but I said that you could have a whole draft and it's something to work from. However you think someone's gonna save it and write it for you or you don't want to take responsibility or you're just more invested in complaining about it than you are actually writing it. And it goes to number four is that you're lying to yourself. Um, you're lying to yourself about actually the amount of efforts, quote unquote you're putting in or how much you're actually working. Because if you really did the work to collect the data about how long, like how long you say you were going to write how much of that time you actually wrote or like was in action. I'm willing to bet you'll be surprised at how much you're lying to yourself about the effort you think you're putting in. People will tell me, Oh, I've been working all day. I put in 12, 14, 16 hours. I mean, I used to say the same thing. Like I'm working so much and doing so much and most of the time you're answering work emails. You checking Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, you're talking to so and so you're texting back and forth. 

Oh, you were supposed to meet with this writing group, but y'all spending time talking shit or you're doing everything but writing or maybe like start writing and then you're like, Oh, I need to go look up something. So then you start reading the article or then you like, Oh, that reminds me of something that I wrote for this class. Or then you spend 20 minutes trying to go through your computer, your Google drive, Dropbox looking for that thing you wrote three years ago in that one class. There's one paragraph that you work, you wrote perfectly, but then when you find it an hour later, you realize it wasn't that perfect. So now you need to edit that before you put it in this current draft you're working on. But then it's like, Oh, that reminds me of this book. But you see what I'm saying? Like it goes, it's like it's been more and more time doing other stuff than actually writing the draft you're supposed to be working on.

Practice Makes Progress

Okay. And then one of the last reasons that I'll say is this goes into you think you're better than you are. Um, people don't want to practice. They just want to be performance ready. So if you have spent any time at any type of sports or anything where you have to perform dance music or anything like that? You know that you spend most of your time practicing, right? As a cheerleader in high school, we spent five days a week practicing and then there was the game and practice was two to three hours a day. Right? And then the game was two hours, but it took 10 hours of practice to be ready for that one game. I'm just using this as an analogy. Go with me. But you don't think that same concept applies to you writing. You feel like that you should be able to open up your word document and you should be able to type and it should come out perfect and you give it to your chair and they don't have any feedback. They're like, Oh, this is great. Let's go defend it right now. And that there shouldn't be anything in between and so you don't want to do the former practice that it takes to write draft after draft and get edits and get feedback and have to go back and forth because that's too much. And so people will say, well, I want to work smarter, not harder. I want to save time on the back end so I'm going to spend time writing and editing now so that when I give to my chair I will have less to do. Uh wrong! That's not how that works. You will always have edits. 

People who write like who are writers, like people who are your favorite, whoever who is, who is cranking out publication after publication, Book after book. They are not sitting down in one take writing it and they're all good.They have, they have a system in how they write. They have people who they give it to to give feedback and they go through different rounds of them for themselves individually, probably before they even give it to anyone else of editing and writing. It is a process for a reason and your dissertation is an intentional educational exercise. It is meant for you to learn how to be a researcher. So one: how to design a research project to like really be clear about how to design it and then to write it and just because you feel like you've been in school for quote unquote all this time and you've done all these things, it doesn't mean that you're about to crank out a whole dissertation perfectly because you don't know what you're doing, it's just your first time. 

And even if you have worked on other research projects, I'm willing to bet this is still the first time that you had to design it from your own like concept to the end and you have to practice. And practice means being humble enough to sit down, to write, to go back and forth with the mini drafts and edits, to give it to other people to give you feedback, to be willing to to see the like, you know, the way you wrote that, that wasn't the greatest, but you could write it like this. Because the other piece is the reason why I feel like a lot of people don't want to do it because they will say like feedback is hard. And I'm using the word humble because going, it goes back to that whole entitled piece. You want to indulge in being entitled and saying that it's difficult. Um, but that being humble to have someone give you feedback and not take it as a personal attack on who you are as a person. It is about writing and writing is practice.

And just because someone told you that you have to rewrite something or they marked up your whole paper doesn't mean that you're any, um, like your worth is any less because it's not. You are worthy of all the things. That's not what this process is about. This process is about writing. And academic writing is a whole other thing and the way that we're typically taught in the K to 12 system and even in undergrad. It is not the same type of writing that you have to do at a doctoral level, at a publishing level. So no, you're not going to know it all. You spent your coursework mainly focused on content. Rarely do you have classes dedicated to writing or having sole time focusing on writing and that is the dissertation and that is why it is so difficult or it can be difficult.

Final Thoughts: (32:57)

So my final words would be to encourage you to really examine one your thoughts and your feelings when you sit down to write. I would actually like take some notes of thoughts and feelings that are coming up. I would spend more time actually writing than I would complaining or doing other things and let my writing time be my writing time and then three I would just be willing to practice having a spirit and the attitude of like, I'm learning. This is a learning practice. That is all for this week because next week I want to talk to you more about what to do instead. I gave you a little bit just then, but next week I'm really going to go into my personal system and the system I share with clients about how to sit down and write, especially when you don't feel like it. Okay. But I'm curious to know did anything that I say today, did that resonate with you? Did anything, was there any ahh has. Please come on over to Instagram at Marvette Lacy and let me know cause I would be really curious to know your thoughts. All right, well until next week, do something to show yourself some love. Please. If you're still here, then I know that you're, you're with, you're with me on this and please be willing to give me a gift of writing and I will talk to you next week. Bye for now.