If you ask an academic what she does, she will likely list a dozen roles: researcher, lecturer, mentor, grant-writer, administrator, peer reviewer, institutional houseworker ….
Rarely will she say, "I am a writer."
Instead, we hedge. We say we write papers. We say we are working on a monograph, an article, or a tenure file. We treat the word "writer" as an honorific title reserved for novelists, essayists, or people with a desk overlooking a misty coast and definitely not for someone sitting under fluorescent lights frantically trimming 400 words out of a methodology section at 11:00 PM.
Why do we hesitate to claim an identity rooted in the very act we perform maybe not every single day but certainly more frequently than most of the population? Especially as accepting this identity is transformative to how you see yourself and the place of your research and scholarship in your life.
I know from my own experience that research and writing tend to end up at the bottom of a long to-do list. We wait for a space to appear when we can get down to it. And that sadly never appears. The result is irritation that service to others – the university, colleagues, students and your email box – always comes before what seriously matters to you. This is your passion for developing insights in your subject.
What I want to stress is that, at its most fundamental level, seeing writing as central to your selfhood means that you will actually make time for your writing because it becomes essential to who you are in the world. Too commonly, and sadly, so many of us other “being a writer”. We see it as a mode for those who are somehow creative. And weirdly we don’t think that that is us.
If you struggle to call yourself a writer, you are not alone. I have published twenty books and have yet to claim the identity of writer. I have got so far as saying I am an author as that feels more truthful. Yet clearly, how can I be an author if I am not a writer?
The Academic Imposter Tax
In academia, we are trained so well to police our own legitimacy. We wait for external validation such as an acceptance letter from a high-impact journal or a glowing book review before we grant ourselves permission to inhabit a creative or professional label. And far too often, we need this repeatedly as the one-off is so easily dismissed as luck or an anomaly.
Rejection of the identity of writer is also compounded through the conditions under which academic and scholarly work is produced. Written work has become a measurable output demanded through study leave and promotion applications and monitored through annual review. Under those conditions, writing stops feeling like a craft or a voice; it has become a KPI. When your output is constantly measured, graded, and critiqued by invisible gatekeepers, claiming "writer" can feel very risky indeed. It’s like putting on a costume that doesn't belong to you. And someone out there may well call you out.
But hear this. As the wonderful Pat Thomson notes in her work on scholarly writing, shifting how we view our practice changes everything. When you refuse the label, you keep yourself in a perpetual state of waiting. You tell yourself you are preparing to write, trying to write, or supposed to write instead of recognizing that the text on your screen is already your own.
The consequence is so often that the writing doesn’t get done.
Redefining the "Writer"
What happens, then, if we strip the romance away from the identity of writer? What we find is that “writers” experience comparable stressors and lows, doubts and insecurities to those of academics. This is from Miranda Smith:
Few people post about the empty audiences at events [read: just two people turned up for your conference session – and no, you are not alone in this[1]], the crushing defeat that accompanies low sales [read: low citation or downloads], or the panic that kicks in when you calculate how long it will take for your next royalty or advance payment to arrive [read: how you will ever get into that high ranking journal].
And this is from NY Book Editors:
… you’ll be huddled over your keyboard, frantically typing away on your first draft and lamenting the fact that it sounds like crap. [sound familiar?]
Redefining Creativity
But what of that magic quality we so readily ascribe to writers – creativity? Creativity is such a loaded word. Yet in practice is quite prosaic.
Creativity is often viewed as a magical, elusive quality possessed by writers. It looks like a timeless human trait that marks out those who are born with genius from the rest of us. If you asked me if I thought I was creative I would say a definite “no”.
But did you know that the concept has only been a regular part of our vocabulary since the middle of the twentieth century[2]. As Franklin notes
Strikingly, before about 1950 there were approximately zero articles, books, essays, treatises, odes, classes, encyclopaedia entries, or anything of the sort dealing explicitly with the subject of “creativity.” (The earliest dictionary entry I found was from 1966.)
Franklin’s argument is that creativity “emerged as a psychological cure for these structural and political contradictions of the postwar order. Psychologists developed tests to identify “creative people” based largely on the needs of military and corporate R & D, but they were also motivated by a larger desire to save individuals from the psychic oppression of modernity.”
Rather than being born a genius, creativity is a deeply structured cognitive process. Whilst creativity can feel like a sudden bolt of inspiration or a gift from the muses, it relies on specific habits, pattern recognition, and the brain's default mode network[3] and can be broken down into actionable layers:
· The Copy-Transform-Combine Engine: Writers rarely create in a vacuum. Most creativity comes from taking existing ideas, stripping them down, transforming them through a personal lens, and combining them with unexpected elements. I have a strong memory of having my wedding ring made for me by a jewellery designer in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter. Open on her bench were lots of historical and contemporary images of jewellery. She was certainly using these for inspiration and remodelling.
· The Default Mode Network (DMN): This is the brain's "daydreaming" circuit. It activates when you aren't focused on the outside world. Writers harness this by allowing their minds to wander, which is when the brain connects disparate ideas. Personally. I find walking the dog works when I am stuck.
· The Editing Split-Personality: True creativity requires separating the "generator" from the "editor." Writers who seem magically creative have usually learned how to turn off their inner critic – I’m tempted to put that bit in capitals - entirely during a first draft, allowing raw, unfiltered ideas to flow.
Moving from Hiding to Claiming
How do we cross the bridge?
Separate the voice from the rubric: Give yourself permission to write something that isn’t meant for an anonymous reviewer. You might find it liberating. I have found writing blogs has freed me up an awful lot. I have less voices in my head telling me I really don’t get that deep theory I am struggling with. On my Women-Space InkRise programme for supporting academic writing we do a lot of freewriting.
Reclaim the physical act: Notice the rhythm of your own thought. Acknowledge that the struggle with the blank page is not a personal failure; it is the standard, gritty reality of the craft for every person who puts ink to paper. I find that writing with a pen and paper helps me map out my thoughts. I really do think we should challenge the dominance of the computer as the tool for writing. Try diagrams, pictures, flow charts – anything that helps you get your mixed-up thoughts out of your head.
Reframe creativity as curiosity: Swap the heavy word "creativity" for simpler words like play, tinkering, or experimenting. Currently I am playing with trees as a framework for understanding the roots of an issue and how that surfaces in life. I have a large book that I doodle in and map out thoughts. It may go somewhere. It may not. The joy is the process not the output. Which leads me to ….
4. Separate art from output: Try writing just for yourself with no plan to ever publish, post, or share.
Say it out loud: Next time someone asks what you do, try substituting or adding the simple truth: I research, and I write. My suggestion to participants on my Women-Space InkRise programme is to use the term “writer” on their LinkedIn profile as a route to adopting that identity and just see how that feels. I’m currently trying that out!
If any of this chimes with you do let me know.
With the warmest wishes,
Christina
Professor Christina Hughes is Founder and Chief Executive of Women-Space Leadership Limited. She is a widely published author – and writer! – and has held executive roles at the Universities of Warwick, Sheffield Hallam and Kent.
[1] This is such a common experience that when I ran Gender & Education conferences we would have a team checking all rooms to ensure there were audiences for our presenters. If not, some of us went along.
[2] See the article by Samuel W Franklin https://behavioralscientist.org/the-surprising-origins-of-our-obsession-with-creativity/ which explores how this term came to prominence in the mid-twentieth century. The fuller version is here: The Cult of Creativity: A Surprisingly Recent History by Samuel W. Franklin, published by the University of Chicago Press.
[3] According to Wikipedia, the brain’s default mode network is an interconnected system of brain regions that includes the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and hippocampus. This activates when a person is at rest and not focused on the outside world. It governs introspection, daydreaming, memory recall, and social thought.