When they first encounter it, many writers see my advice as a critique of their usual, habitual ways of writing. The approach I propose is very different from what they normally do; they think that I’m telling them they’ve been “doing it wrong” all this time, that they should stop doing the things that have been producing their texts. In some cases, to be sure, I identify some bad habits and barriers to progress, practices and prejudices that they would do well to abandon if they want to improve either the quantity, quantity, or pleasure of their writing. But much of what people tell me they are doing isn’t actually bad for them. It’s just that they should also try some of the things I propose.

The best example of this is the very common practice of writing to discover what you think. Writers are so used to seeing their ideas materialize in front of them as they write, that they can’t imagine what it would be like to have an idea first, and only then setting about to write it down. My favorite analogy, of looking at your hand, posing it in a comfortable position, and then drawing a picture of it, seems utterly foreign to them when they think about the problem of writing a scholarly article. They think I’m telling them that all the “shitty drafts” they’ve been “thought writing” all these years are a complete waste of time. They should just make up their minds and write their ideas down. They think I don’t know how their minds work; i.e., that my mind works very differently from theirs.

This is not the case, of course. I, too, know what it is like to sit down in front of a blank page (a white screen with a blinking cursor) and seeing what comes out. My point is just that, at some point, something does come out: an idea forms, and now I know what to say. And, in fact, those ideas were not created in the moment of writing. It may seem that way, but a moment’s reflection will reveal that those ideas must have been “in me” somehow before I began. Where else could they have come from between the time I started writing and the time they appeared on the page? Let’s say I was “capable” of them when I began. I merely showed myself what I was capable of.

That experience is a valuable one, and it is not one that I propose you abandon. I do sometimes suggest that there are plenty of other ways of finding out what you know. You can go for a walk and think something through. You can talk to a good friend or colleague. You can draw a mind map or even an actual picture. You can reread a book. You can listen to an inspiring piece of music or cook a good meal or drink a good glass of wine. These are all activities that might suddenly bring to mind some thought you are capable of, some fact that you are knowledge-able about. Sometimes (as a kind of provocation) I suggest you consider all these activities as being on the same level: “Thought writing is as little writing as a going for a walk or talking to a friend,” I say. Go ahead and do it, but don’t call it writing!

Real writing, I then suggest, is what you do when you have both an idea and a reader firmly in mind. It is what happens when you address yourself to a peer in a deliberate moment of composition. “In classic style,” say Thomas and Turner, “the motive is truth, the purpose is presentation, the reader and writer are intellectual equals, and the occasion is informal.” We can argue about whether “classic style” and “academic style” are exactly the same thing; there are aspects of academic writing that they might call “reflexive” and “practical”. But the basic posture of telling a peer what you think is true is worth developing, worth strengthening through exercise. Sit down (but up straight!) for half an hour and present one of your ideas in 200 words or less with the intent of helping them to believe it, understand it, or overcome their objections to it. Present it, not as one who is in the throes of discovery, but calmly, with poise, as someone who knows what they’re talking about and who they’re talking to. Address the reader in a familiar, informal tone. Stand comfortably before them. Make it clear and simple.