On Writing That Paper You’ve Been Avoiding
Two words of advice that might help you get started.
First, a word from Henry Bugbee: Get it down.
Don’t worry about what it will add up to, Bugbee says. Just begin writing. If you don’t know what to write, then write that. And see if you can explain why it’s hard to write.
Bugbee didn’t publish much in his lifetime, but his book The Inward Morning is one of my favorite books. Right at the beginning of his book he talks about how he doesn’t know what to write or how to write it.
So what does he do? He just begins. And in describing the difficult task of writing, he winds up writing some brilliant advice for all writers.
Second, a word from Charles Sanders Peirce: Write like you love your reader.
When we write a paper, it can feel like typing words into the void. What’s the point?
But if we re-imagine our paper as a letter to someone we care about, the paper becomes a letter.
And a letter is almost always part of a conversation with someone we know.
Finding your voice
If you can think of your writing as a conversation with someone you care about, you’ll be able to find your “writer’s voice” more easily.
