Becoming the Writer You Already Are helps scholars uncover their unique writing process and design a writing practice that fits how they work. Author Michelle R. Boyd introduces the Writing Metaphor as a reflective tool that can help you understand and overcome your writing fears: going from "stuck" to "unstuck" by drawing on skills you already have at your fingertips. She also offers an experimental approach to trying out any new writing strategy, so you can easily fill out the parts of your writing process that need developing. The book includes a number of helpful features: Real Scholars' Stories provide insights into overcoming writing barriers; Wise Words from other scholars capture the trials of writing as well as avenues through those trials; and finally Focus Points highlight important ideas, questions, or techniques to consider. The book is ideal for dissertation writing seminars, graduate students struggling with the transition from coursework to dissertation work, scholars who are supporting or participating in writing groups, and marginalized scholars whose write struggles have prompted them to internalize the bias that others have about their ability to do exemplary research.

About the Author
Michelle Boyd, PhD is the founder of InkWell Academic Writing Retreats, a transformative, retreat-based training program that teaches scholars to overcome their writing fears. She is also a self-described "struggling writer" whose success as an award-winning, former tenured faculty member belied the challenges she faced throughout her career as an academic. Scholars who work with Michelle call her coaching "magical," but it's not magic-it's science. Her coaching programs are rooted in research showing that each scholar has their own natural writing process, and that many of their struggles come from external barriers that prevent them from recognizing, accessing, or trusting that process when they need it. Michelle has been leading retreats since 2012, when she cofounded and coached her first retreat as a faculty member. The only thing she loves more than writing is helping scholars who dread writing develop a calm, confident, productive writing practice.

Reviews

Wisdom and kindness emanate from every page of this revelatory new guidebook, where renowned academic writing coach Michelle Boyd shows us how to find our own unique approach to living the messy, rewarding process of creating scholarship. I can't recommend this book highly enough!

-- Margy Thomas
This book is an attempt to acknowledge the struggles of academic writing and propel confidence through the development of sound habits. It offers a friendly and intimate companion to the varying emotional and circumstantial challenges inherent in the writing process, and provides a specific process by which to develop more competence and confidence as a writer. -- Raymond Blanton
If you are struggling with academic writing, you've already read the other books, and you still can't figure out how to "fix" your problem,
this book may help you understand. -- Christine Colwell
I recommend this book to doctoral students and colleagues who are dedicated to writing and scholarship as an addition to their reading on the craft of writing for publication, and as an extension of their efforts to constantly enhance their research and writing productivity. -- Marilyn L. Grady
This is a book on the academic writing process that helps to demystify that process and provides concrete strategies for dealing with
the emotional side as well as the practical side of writing. -- Kevin P. Lyness
This book helps the reader understand that writer's block happens to all of us, and that it is not something to pathologize or internalize in a negative sense. It moves the reader to an appreciation of their vulnerabilities, but also understanding that those personality quirks can be transformed into a strength when faced head on. -- Barbara L. Pazey
A helpful guide to brainstorming and conquering the blank writing screen. I love the examples and the conversational writing style. -- Robert Dennis Watkins



Book Information
ISBN 9781483374147
Author Michelle R. Boyd
Format Paperback
Page Count 168
Imprint SAGE Publications Inc
Publisher SAGE Publications Inc
Weight(grams) 260g