This podcast episode gives book authors a formula of five ingredients necessary to successfully complete a book manuscript without burning out.
How you can work with me this year~
1) Private book coaching through my signature Your Words Unleashed 6-month coaching program. Finally publish your book!
2) Personalized career coaching through my one-semester Career Reset Program for overwhelmed academics. Gain clarity and renewed purpose.
3) Group workshops on a range of writing and career-related topics. Leave with a transformed relationship to your own work.
I’m booking for the fall, so if you’re interested, email me at Leslie@nullYourWordsUnleashed.com or set up a free 30-minute consult!
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Hey there writers!
We are finally moving into summer! Hallelujah!
I don’t know about where you live, but this past winter in the Northeast was brutal. It basically lasted from December until late April with no breaks.
I felt drained of life force from the lack of light and intense cold. And then we had about one month of spring and seem to have moved straight into summer. I am not complaining!
I’m about to leave the country for a couple of weeks for a family vacation.
But before I do, I wanted to address a topic I’ve been mulling over in my mind for years now: which is, what creates writing success?
Meaning, what are the specific qualities that allow someone to finish a long-term project like a book?
This topic is at the heart of almost every conversation I have with my clients.
People come to me at very different stages of the writing process. Some are just at the beginning. They have incredible ideas and a lot of enthusiasm, but usually very little written.
Others have been working on their project for a decade or more. They are sick of their topic and just want to get the thing done so they can get promoted.
But regardless, they are all working towards the same huge goal of completing and publishing their books with the highest tier press possible.
Like you, everyone’s juggling writing with other responsibilities like teaching, advising, service work, other research projects, caregiving, etc.
It becomes a huge temptation to stop writing during semesters.
Then people try (and typically fail) to catch up on breaks and holidays that should really be spent resting, recuperating and socializing!
When I first started coaching, I assumed that progress was primarily about time management.
I thought that people weren’t making progress because they didn’t have enough hours in the day or they weren’t using those hours in the right way.
And certainly, time constraints are very real and even more so now. I’m not denying that.
But the longer I’ve done this work, the more I’ve noticed that time management alone doesn’t explain why some authors steadily move forward while others get stuck.
I’ve worked with people with extraordinarily demanding jobs and tons of personal responsibilities. Their schedules are ridiculously packed and yet somehow, they’ve continued to make meaningful progress on their manuscripts.
I’ve also worked with people on sabbatical or research fellowships who had far more flexibility and time and fewer responsibilities but still found it hard to gain traction.
What I’ve found is that successful writing progress does not come down to any one single factor.
And it’s definitely not a matter of intelligence. Because if it was, then every academic would have published multiple books.
It’s damn hard work that’s not for the faint of heart.
After coaching hundreds of scholarly authors, I’ve learned that consistent writing progress happens when five different, equally important factors are at play.
These five things allow writers to navigate obstacles and recover from setbacks. They help them continue moving forward, even during difficult times.
I’ve started thinking about this as a kind of formula.
I bet you want to know what it is, right? So keep listening!
Ingredient #1: Direction
So I’m going to present these ingredients in a certain order but remember they’re all equally important.
The first one is direction.
And by that, I mean you know where you’re headed and what steps are necessary to get there.
In particular, you have decided what you’re doing next and you also understand the reasons why you’re taking this path.
A lot of writers think they lack motivation but it’s actually often an issue of lacking direction.
Let me explain.
Many authors are constantly working on their book, yet that work doesn’t result in progress on the manuscript.
Some are stuck in a cycle of reading and taking notes on endless sources. This one’s tricky because reading is necessary.
But everyone reaches a line where they have crossed over into procrastination on writing, which is something you just feel in your gut.
People get stuck on things like writing and rewriting outlines or revising paragraphs. When I wrote my first book, I could easily spend an hour fixing just one or two paragraphs.
In my head, I couldn’t move forward until it was “perfect.” The result was that I made hardly any progress for years and it all felt really arduous. Because there is no perfect!
A lot of folks present their book ideas at conferences. So they’re doing a lot of talking about their book which doesn’t correlate to words on the page.
This is because effort and progress are not the same thing.
Let me give a pretty obvious metaphor: imagine that you’re on a road trip in an unfamiliar area but you decide not to use GPS (or a map, like in olden times). Remember those Thomas guides? I do!
You are going to spend hours driving, which will take a lot of effort and focus.
But you’re probably not heading toward your destination. You may even end up going in circles.
Book writing is the same!
One book project requires hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller decisions and tasks.
You need to write chapters, reread your data, format citations, strengthen your theoretical framework, figure out what’s going to go into your introduction and conclusion.
Somewhere in there you need to write your proposal too! The list goes on and on.
So without a clear sense of priorities, everything starts to feel equally important and pressing. When this is truly not the case.
In fact, I’ve come to believe that a significant amount of writing-related overwhelm is actually decision fatigue.
If you don’t have a plan, then every time you sit down to work, you have to decide what deserves your attention in the moment.
Should you revise Chapter Two or Chapter Three?
Should you read more sources or work on strengthening the argument?
Or is it better to work on the proposal?
The sheer volume of choices is exhausting and something that can feel easier to avoid altogether or push off until a break.
This is why I spend so much time helping my clients develop project roadmaps that do two things: they create feasible goals that won’t cause burnout and they break those goals down into much smaller, manageable chunks.
Because making big decisions ahead of time reduces your overall cognitive load.
When you know exactly what you’re going to be working on next and why, then writing naturally becomes easier to do.
Let’s be honest, even with a plan, there’s a lot of decisions to make. But at least you’re not wasting your precious energy and time trying to figure out what to do every time you sit down to work.
And perhaps even more importantly, direction helps you identify what can wait until later or maybe even what ideas you can leave out altogether.
I can’t tell you how many authors I’ve coached to reduce their total number of book chapters.
So when they say their book has 8 chapters, I always ask if it can be done in 6.
Most people can take out one or two chapters, which in itself is a huge relief. I mean, it’s less work! Who doesn’t want that?
Let me remind you that your book does NOT have to be the be-all, end-all of a topic.
In fact, the more focused you can make it, the better it will probably read.
At its core, direction is about making big decisions ahead of time.
You’re prioritizing what’s important so you can reach your destination with the least possible effort.
Ingredient #2: Momentum
So this brings me to the second ingredient of my formula, which is momentum.
Once you have direction, the challenge becomes about maintaining progress over time.
Because knowing what to do and actually doing it are two very different things.
As we know, many academics try to binge write their books during shorter periods of time off from teaching like holidays or writing retreats.
But in my experience, that is just not how most books reach the finish line.
More often, it comes down to doing hundreds of ordinary writing sessions that don’t feel particularly significant in the moment.
You might do something like revise two pages of a chapter or draft part of a new section of your proposal.
But when you have a plan of action and work consistently, these small things naturally add up into something much larger.
Momentum develops when you maintain an ongoing and active relationship with your project.
The ideas stay in your mind and you’re more easily able to pick up where you left off.
When I was writing my dissertation, I got into a terrible habit of reading all week long and then trying to write for an entire day.
I wasted so many good hours just trying to figure out where I left off the last time. Plus, my expectations of productivity for that one day were way too high so I would end up dreading it all week.
Now I can see how much of my discomfort with writing was because I didn’t maintain momentum.
For this reason, I encourage authors to focus less on time and more on consistency.
You might not write every day. But maybe you can do 2 or 3 times a week.
When you’re consistent and know where you’re going, you will start seeing progress.
Even if it’s slow, the important thing is to keep moving. That movement in itself provides motivation to keep going.
This is why doctors always say that healthy weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week through consistent habits.
Versus a crash diet where you can drop 20 pounds quickly but then put it right back on.
It’s the small wins that create momentum.
Ingredient #3: Accountability
Okay, so now we get to the third ingredient, which is accountability.
Although I talk about this all the time, it really is pivotal to accomplishing any big goal.
By this, I simply mean having structures in place that help you follow through on your goals.
Accountability is truly one of the biggest predictors of someone’s writing progress.
Obviously, a book is a long-term endeavor. It’s not like teaching a class or presenting at a conference because there’s usually no real consequences if you don’t work on it.
Deadlines are mostly self-imposed, so it can always be pushed back to next week or next month—or even next semester.
The problem, of course, is that people often end up postponing the work for years.
I’ve had numerous clients who got book contracts 3 or 5 or even 10 years earlier that they never finished.
This is because life happens, and even the best-laid plans get derailed.
So this is where external accountability becomes extremely critical.
It means having another person or a community that knows your goals and expects you to keep working towards them.
This could be a coach, a developmental editor, a writing group, a colleague. What matters is that someone else is helping you maintain focus on your stated intentions.
Many of my clients have said that they wouldn’t have gotten a contract or finished their manuscript if we weren’t working together.
Now, that is honestly giving me too much credit.
They definitely could do it on their own. I mean, these are high-achieving PhDs we’re talking about! They are amazing.
BUT—and this is with a capital ‘B’—they might not have chosen to do it. They might not have been able to keep it as their top priority.
Or, it would have been a much longer, more painful process without the expectation of regular meetings where we would discuss drafts of their work.
It’s just a basic fact that people are far more likely to accomplish something when they feel responsible to someone else.
At the same time, external accountability can only go so far. You also need internal motivation that pushes you to honor your own commitments.
Because I can help authors create a kickass writing schedule and feasible goals. I can talk them through the mechanics of putting together a strong proposal.
But ultimately, they’re the ones who have to follow through. And, not everyone does.
For some folks, life is just too complicated and it’s not the right time. For others, it’s more about internal blocks that are too engrained to overcome.
Internal accountability comes from continually fanning your own inner flames about your project.
It’s about reconnecting to your original motivations and the deep curiosity you once had about the topic.
Authors who make the most consistent progress tend to cultivate both external and internal accountability.
This support and structure ensure that your book remains a priority even when life is really hectic, which is pretty much always!
Ingredient #4: Commitment
So this leads us into the fourth ingredient of the formula for making writing progress, which is commitment.
Because once you have direction, momentum, and accountability in place, one question still remains:
When it really comes down to it, what are you willing to say no to in order to make space and time for your book?
Pretty much everyone genuinely wants to write their books. They believe in the project. And it usually could make a big difference to their careers.
But making the long-term commitment to actually write it is no easy feat.
Commitment comes down to your daily decisions and practices.
Every academic is presented with tons of opportunities that seem exciting and intellectually stimulating.
There are committees to serve on, conferences to attend, collaborations to join, students to mentor, grants to pursue, etc., etc.
The problem is that these short-term opportunities compete with your book, plain and simple.
This is where commitment becomes critical.
Every time you say yes to something, you are implicitly saying no to something else.
Because time, energy, and attention are finite resources. No matter how productive or organized you are, there is a limit to what you can realistically accomplish.
And people who keep on saying yes end up burnt out, resentful, and oftentimes physically ill.
At some point, you have to become ruthless in your boundaries to keep the book at the top of your priorities.
Some of my clients spend an entire year clearing their plates of other obligations and saying no to anything new to make the space to focus solely on book writing.
This requires making difficult trade-offs and deciding that certain opportunities need to wait until later.
Will this piss some people off? Yes! But it is not their book or their career at stake. It’s yours.
So stop asking yourself if new requests sound interesting or useful, because more often than not, they will.
Also, have faith that even if you decline certain opportunities now, other good ones will still come in the future.
Be aware of when your scarcity mindset is driving your decisions.
Ask yourself instead: “what will saying yes to this cost me in terms of my book?”
In committing to your book, you’re investing in your own career and growth as a scholar in ways that will pay you back many times over.
Ingredient #5: Self-Compassion
Okay, so we’ve arrived at the fifth and final ingredient, which is self-compassion.
Because no matter how much of the other things you have, your plan will inevitably fall apart.
And this will happen over and over again.
You will have semesters that are overwhelming. You and your loved ones will get sick.
You’ll have family responsibilities and emergencies. You might have a baby. You might switch jobs or move to another city or country.
Like I said, sometimes weeks or months or even full semesters will pass without you making any progress on your manuscript.
This is not failure! You are just human.
So let me repeat: you will get off track. That is a given. What matters is how you respond to it.
Academics tend to be extraordinarily hard on themselves. Their negative self-talk can be vicious.
But I’ve learned from experience that self-criticism does not help you write more. Instead, it creates cycles of guilt and shame that make it even harder to return to the project.
So self-compassion is about giving yourself grace and recognizing that you are doing the best you can under the circumstances.
Trying to write a book while managing a demanding career and personal life is ridiculously hard. And some times of life make it even harder than others.
So accept that progress is not linear.
This is something I tell my clients all the time.
You will have productive and unproductive times. The most important thing is starting again.
To be a successful writer, you must work on giving yourself grace and restarting after long periods away.
Summing Everything Up
So there you have it! My formula for making steady writing progress that will allow you to finish a book manuscript.
Let me sum them up again quickly:
#1 was direction—having a roadmap for where you’re going and what steps you will take, and in what order, to get to your ultimate destination.
#2 was momentum—maintaining progress over time through consistent, ordinary work sessions rather than binges or spurts of inspiration.
#3 was accountability—having both internal and external structures of support that help you maintain focus on your goals.
#4 was commitment—keeping your book at the top of your priority list by ruthlessly saying no to other good opportunities.
#5 was self-compassion—giving yourself grace for when you inevitably fall off track and just starting again.
If I had to add another one, it would be openness to doing things differently.
Because a lot of progress only happens when people leave their comfort zones.
When you can keep an open mind and continually innovate and try new things, the end goal becomes much more reachable.
Like I said, I’ve been thinking about these ideas for years now.
I’m actually really proud of this episode because it symbolizes how much my own coaching process has grown and evolved!
But of course, I couldn’t do any of this without my amazing clients.
So if you want to reach your goals this year, reach out soon. I can’t wait to help you create your own personal formula for success.
Enjoy the summer!
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