writing process | Dr. Abigail Leigh Phillips

In case you missed it, I’ve been writing quite a bit since the beginning of summer. Some of which has actually been published! Here’s a round-up in case you missed them.

June

I contributed a bit to Julia Skinner’s post for Hack Library School “Why We Decided on the PhD“. Just a couple of sentences from me about (obviously) why I decided to pursue an doctoral degree. There are many reasons NOT do go this route. Julia is a doctoral candidate in my program; and she’s very knowledgeable about so many things!

July

I wrote a guest post for the Letters to a Young Librarian blog called, “Politics Schmolitics! What Does Politics Have to do With Libraries?” My first librarian position was in a small rural library system. My MLIS program didn’t prepare me for the amount of politics (local and state) involved in public libraries. Only working in a library can teach you that.

September

I had an article published in Public Library Quarterly called, “Systematic Marketing Facilitates Optimal Customer Service: The Marketing Audit of a Rural Public Library System”. This actually began as a final paper for Dr. Koontz’s library marketing course I took as a masters’ student. The full article (pre-print) is available here.

October
I published an article in Journal of Education for Library and Information Science entitled (that’s a nice word), “What Do We Mean By Library Leadership: Leadership in LIS Education”. You can check out the pre-print article here.

November and Beyond!!

What am I up to now you ask? An article I co-wrote with an iSchool faculty member, Dr. Lorri Mon, has been accepted to Advances in Librarianship. This article, about successfully effectively using social media in public libraries, should be published early next year.

I recently submitted an article to a major LIS journal. Something I’m very very nervous about. This could either end in tears or more tears or happy tears. I wrote this article as a kind of part one about the small exploratory study I conducted this past summer. I presented this paper at the Library Research Seminar VI back in October. More on that experience in a later post.

But what has recently been consuming the majority of my writing time is my prospectus. In October, I completed and passed my preliminary exam. Now, I’ve officially advanced to candidacy. Go me! The next step is writing my prospectus. In the doctoral world (or at least my corner of the doctoral world), a prospectus is the first three chapters of a dissertation. Basically, these chapters say, “Here’s what I would like to do for my dissertation!”. While the rest of a dissertation says, “Look at what I did!” I’m expecting to defend my prospectus mid-spring. I’m ambitious I know, but it’s worked for me so far.

If all this sounds a bit braggy, it’s because I am being a bit braggy. When I began the doctoral program in 2012, I never thought I would get an article published. It seemed like this unattainable dream, especially when I compared myself with other doc students. I still struggle with insecurities and anxiety over my writing and ability to conduct research. I know I always will. But somehow I survived the writing process, peer review, editing, and the long long wait till publication. When I feel these doubts and fears, I try to remember that a few people out there value me as a writer and believe what I research (and have to say) is worthwhile.

Plus, my parents are super proud.

Since I officially submitted my first manuscript for publication on last week, I feel the need to blog about writing and writing related activities. The knowledge that my poor, sweet little paper is awaiting review by anonymous researchers who may (or may not) tear my writing and research apart is terrifying. For me, the entire writing process is filled with a mixture of excitement, dread, and stress. The stress comes from the blank page on my screen, especially when writing that first paragraph. At that point, everything I writes sounds trite and unimpressive. Usually I push through, writing down whatever comes to mind and returning when I’ve written enough that the pressure to perform is slightly less intense. The dread comes from completing a research paper, article, or blog post and knowing that I have to come up with something else to research and write about. Even with something as simple and informal as a blog post I still feel a slight anxiety about what to write next. Additionally, I worry whether or not what I blog will be interesting to my audience. (Eh. Probably not? Maybe?)

Asking others to proofread my work is a bit of a nail bitter as well. Sometimes it feels physically painful. It’s uncomfortable to give up the work that you stressed and slaved over to the criticisms of a friend, colleague, etc. But it’s a necessary evil. Hopefully, the criticisms are constructive and helpful. After a long period of nervousness about proofreading, I’ve reached the point where I’m asking my (very kind and giving) proofreaders to give my writing a serious ripping apart. It can only benefit me in the end. If they don’t do it, someone else will. (On a side note, getting undergrads to understand the concept and importance of proofreading may be impossible or at least really, really, really, hard and disappointing.)

Generally what I look like while writing.

How did you learn to write without fear? How did you overcome the fear of knowing others will read your work? What does you writing process look like? What do you do that makes you comfortable while writing? Unless I’m the only person who has writing nerves, which is very possible.

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Dr. Abigail Leigh Phillips

Tag Archives: writing process

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