How I wrote some books
My way or the highway
Hello darlings!
How are you? Are you taking care of yourself? Please do!
First! I have a favor to ask. Can you take this three-question survey for me?
It’s AcWriMo and I am a busy little bee working on my busy little projects. Several big things for me this month are sending the copy edits back for my book on sheriffs that I wrote with Emily Farris and finishing up a full draft of a Cambridge Elements with Rachel Bernhard on women’s pathways to local office. I also finished a full draft of a solo book project on local appointed boards and commissions in early October. And I plan on sending a proposal in for another Cambridge Elements this month. And another book proposal is cooking in the background. That’s a lot of fucking books! What the hell, Mirya??
Someone recently asked me: how do I write a book? Or books? (Maybe someone should ask me why I do any of this. Answer: no fucking clue)
There are a LOT of resources out there that are far more comprehensive and curated than this little dingleberry of a newsletter, so please consult:
Raul, Professor is in, Laura Porterwood-Stacer’s entire substack, Kelly Clancy’s Substack, as well as a variety of books! I particularly like this advice from Lilah Sturges:
Step 1: I decided that I wanted to write books (exclusively)
I decided in January 2022 that I was going to focus on writing books as my primary vehicle for academic publication. If you want to write a book, you must decide that you are now writing books. So I did. And I decided that I would focus, at least for 2 years, on mostly producing content for books. Believe it, do it.
Now, obviously, I’m not just out here going “I think I can I think I can” and then books magically appear fully fucking written. That’s not really how this shit works. But I am strong believer that goals matter (duhhh) and so I set this as a goal for myself. I consider this a process goal rather than an outcome goal because it was about my daily work
Step 2: I focused on changing my writing style to better fit with books.
Writing a book is infinitely easier and infinitely harder than writing academic articles. You can stretch out, tell deep stories, pull in details, describe DESCRIBE DESCRIBE. You can make much bigger arguments about the state of world and tell (IMHO) far more nuanced stories. One problem is that most of us aren’t trained to do ANY of this so we are often flying blind, trying to figure out how to let ourselves loose in the text of our book.
So - how did I work to learn how to write a book? Well, I set goals for reading academic books to help me understand the cadence and style of writing a good book. I put together a list of academic books that had won prizes and sorta-academic books published with trade presses and books that I just wanted to read. I read all of and parts of (mostly introductions + 1-2 chapters) of ~150 books since Jan 2022 that were on this list.
Am I now a good ‘book writer’? Nooooo. But I do think I am better able to navigate the language and tone that separates a good book from a good article.
Step 3: I got help
I really don’t like working by myself! And writing books alone is particularly daunting for me. You mean that I’m responsible for all these words? Every single fucking one? YIKES.
So - my sheriff project is obviously coauthored with Emily. My Elements is coauthored with Rachel. And I hired Kelly Clancy to do developmental edits on my solo book. This was a game changer for me (sorry not sorry about using the term ‘game changer’). Not only did it mean that someone smart was reading my materials and making sure that I didn’t sound like a fucking idiot, but also, Kelly acted as external accountability by giving me some enforceability for deadlines. Also, I talked to my therapist a lot about writing books. (Sorry not sorry).
Step 4: I worked on it regularly
Like, every day. Looking back at my calendar, I have worked on a book project at least every non-vacation week and 3/5 work days since Jan 2022. That’s a lot of writing! But books (for me) require a very steady and regular stirring. I draw deeply from my writing mentors (they don’t know they are my mentors) Ann Lamott and Stephen King, each of whom advocates for writing habits:
Step 5: I also crammed at key times
I am sorry to say this, but I don’t think you can finish a book just working a little bit at a time. The ideas are too big. You can writing 80-85% of a book 30 minutes to an hour at a time, but at some point, you will need to have multiple full days in a row to a) work out major kinks or b) finish that shit. Maybe you are different! But I’ve recognized that I really need to cram at some point.
What helps me cram? Writing retreats! With my coauthors! Or with Kelly Clancy and the MEE-Centered group! Or by myself! These longer sets of times let me a) produce or edit a lot of content, b) not think about things like laundry and teaching and emails for chunks of time, and c) FOCUS. I tend to get a bit ‘absent professor’-y when I write a lot and a key block of time in late September and early October this year when I was by myself and just finishing a book meant that I didn’t need to come back to earth. I could just… think.
There’s a lot of privilege contained in the steps that I have outlined! Emily and I benefit a lot from supportive partners that are puzzled but okay with us going to random places to write together. I now have a job where I teach a lot less, meaning that I can set myself up to have blocks of time to write for days on end. I can fly to England to work with a coauthor for a week. And surely people out there write books without these fancy interventions! This is what has worked for me.
What books are you writing? Reading? Loving? Hating? @ me on Bluesky or Threads about it! Or, ya know, in real life! I’ve loved meeting so many of you on my fall trips and can’t wait to replicate in the spring! If you are going to SPSA in New Orleans, please save time on Thursday for a MHAWS happy hour!
XOXOX
Mirya