Beta reading relationships are a great way of being held accountable in your writing practice. In this first part of a series on how to shape a beta reader relationship, we look at critiquing partners and talk to a pair of writers who met on a writing course – and have been reading and giving feedback on each other’s writing ever since.
Expert advice
You might think you have a publishing plan for your PhD but what if it’s the wrong one for you and your academic career? Academic publishing expert Simon Linacre, director of international marketing and development at Cabells, argues that being strategic is about where, how and when you publish your research – and this makes all the difference between scholarly success and failure. [click to continue…]
Have you ever start a challenging writing routine or a new fitness regime only for it to fail a few days later? If so, don’t blame yourself – blame your brain! When you take on something that’s too ambitious or too complicated, you can trigger your brain’s fear centre – and this leads to overwhelm. But you can control your brain using two simple methods, both harnessing the power of neuroscience… [click to continue…]
Writing is never going to be something you do on autopilot – it’s way too difficult for that. But there are some simple methodologies based in neuroscience you can use to make you, and your writing brain, feel more positive about finding a regular time. But first, you need to get to know your hedonic hotspots… [click to continue…]
Brian Clegg is a highly prolific author of 68 fiction and non-fiction books. Yep, you heard me, 68 – and counting. Now one of the world’s top popular-science writers, Clegg first cut his teeth in journalism after a corporate career. We interview him about his motivations, his writing process and how he keeps going. [click to continue…]
We’ve just launched a major study into academic writing practice. It’s research that we hope will give anyone who needs to write evidence-based guidance on how to develop a writing system that works for them. Here’s why we’re doing it and what’s involved. [click to continue…]
Helen Sword is a guru in scholarly writing circles. She’s spent a decade finding out what makes academic writers tick and publishing evidence-based books and articles about various aspects of scholarly writing and publication. Whilst her research has focused on academics, it applies to any writer wanting to smash their writing goals and strike a more balanced relationship with their muse. [click to continue…]
Prolifiko is a coaching platform for writers. We offer a range of services such as this blog, online courses and our digital coaching product to help you achieve your writing goals and find a writing system that works for your life. [click to continue…]
If you’ve ever missed a deadline the planning fallacy may well be the culprit. It’s the tendency we have to underestimate the time it will take us to complete something – whilst knowing full well that similar tasks have taken longer in the past. It’s based in an innate biological bias towards optimism – but if you want stop missing your deadlines and start hitting them, it’s something you need to master – here’s how. [click to continue…]
How do writing scholars – people who write about writing, teach writing skills and research writing behaviours – get down to write themselves? To find out we spoke to academic Christine Tulley, author of a new and original Paris Review-style book on scholarly writing, How Writing Faculty Write. [click to continue…]