Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write

you—there is no “right” time for writing. The best time to write is any time you do.

productivity and pleasure as commodities that supplement and enhance each other’s value—or, to return to Bukowski’s architectural metaphor, as complementary features of the same building.

I went through a William Blake phase as a graduate student, and I like to think that my writing at least makes gestures to—well, beauty is such a big word—a grace that is not just academic, a gracefulness that is not just academic.

Writing together forces you to make explicit the kinds of conversations and ideas that you only have internally or implicitly when you’re writing by yourself.

It feels like it will never come together—and then it does. Just hanging in there through that development phase, that messy phase, is so important.

practicality and beauty can be soul mates rather than enemies? What happens when we invite positive emotions and language into our writing practice—and encourage them to make themselves at home?

think many academics confuse good thinking with good writing.

emotional ambivalence about writing is the norm rather than the exception for most academics.

Some have learned to write from reading well-written academic books and articles: