Today, the annual Blogg100 challenge begins in Sweden. I first joined last year, and the blog quickly turned into a place where I could express my feelings and frustration following my father on his cancer journey. As the journey ended on sunny day in May, so did my blog writing. I just couldn’t find the energy or will to do it anymore. There have been some sporadic posts since then, but not at all as much as it could have been.
So I have been hesitating whether I should join again – is it really for me? But I do so enjoy writing, and yet somehow I’ve found that it always gets down prioritized as the work load grows. I have numerous research paper “in the pipe-line” but not much gets produced… (perhaps I’m a bit unfair to myself now – but I know I have so much more to publish). My theory now, is that writing inspires writing. I will use the upcoming 100 days to explore this. Will writing 1 blog post every day also increase my research productivity? Or will it steal more time from me?
Are you with me? I will of course need to set some realistic goal for how much academic writing I will produce during this time. But what is a realistic goal? Here’s some ideas from a quick online search:
- Lazette Gifford recommends 500-1000 words/day as a realistic goal.
- Jennifer Ellis’ post is not on academic writing, but still sets daily writing goals.
- And my all time favourit blogger the Thesis Whisperer of course has many posts on academic writing, but here’s on how to write 1000 words/day and not go bat shit crazy.
Sounds good, right? There seems to be overwhelming agreement that 1000 words/day is a good aim, but 500 words should be the minimum. So, for myself, I will set the following goal:
I will aim for writing 1000 words/day at least 5 days/week (yes, I’ll take weekends off. Or rather have weekends as a back-up to catch up). I realize that there will be days when this is impossible, but at least 500 words/work day = 2500 words/week minimum. That should add up to a few papers in the upcoming 100 days – right? I’ll set up an excel sheet and keep track, and of course I’ll make weekly updates on this blog!
Some of you may argue now, that it’s not the blogging that will inspire academic writing, it’s the tracking and setting of goals. But hey, I won’t be submitting this little project for publication – so the lack of methodological rigour can surely be excused.
Let the writing begin!
[post 1 in the #blogg100 challenge]
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