Finding my academic writing groove.

Some of you may be aware that, at least in certain corners of the blogosphere, November is celebrated as International acaDemic Writing Month. Indeed, in November 2007 I jumped onboard the InaDWriMo bandwagon.

This past November I did not, largely because my November usually turns out to be a ridiculous month for serious writing. There's Thanksgiving and the attendant food-related preparation activities, plus the run up to the December holidays. Also, this year my kids were still playing soccer into December (which is what you get for being too successful in your weekly games), so I was tangled up in that. And the days getting shorter and colder did not help one bit.

The holidays are behind us now, and there's still academic writing to be done. At ScienceWoman's urging (what is it with her?), I'm going to invite others who may have sat out the November frenzy of academic writing to join me in using February and March to try to establish some sort of regular writing groove.

My overarching goal between now and March 31 is to draft first, edit later! I'm sending my internal editor to the movies so I can generate pages to edit, and I'm going to let enough of those pages come into existence to build real momentum on my projects. (Editing has never been a big problem for me once I have something to edit.)

I'm also going to commit to putting in at least five days' worth of productive writing each week, where I'm generating at least 12 pages per day. Some days those pages might look more like detailed outlines than polished prose, but so long as it pushes me forward and gives me something to build on, that's what I'm going to do.

I'm not going to set too many specific goals before I've found my writing rhythm, but I am going to try like mad to finish a chapter I've been thrashing around with (maybe because it should actually be two separate chapters) before next Monday. Depending on how that goes, next Monday I may be able to set some tentative goals for other low-hanging chapters to bang out before April rolls around.

Who else is in?