Clarissa's Blog

I now reserve a room at the library to write. What with teaching 4 courses with the cumulative number of 92 students (and no teaching assistants, you understand) and chairing the department, opportunities abound to weasel out of writing. If ever there were an excuse not to write, I’m in full possession of it. One of the courses I’m teaching, I didn’t know I was teaching it until a week before classes began. A content-heavy course (meaning, not language), and it’s not in my area at all. I’ve got to prepare. Plus, I need to grade. And the GAs don’t supervise themselves, do they? Budgets don’t miraculously materialize on my desktop. I got to do all of that. Ten languages that I’ve got to manage.

So I found a great way to defeat the opportunity to weasel out. I go to the library and sit in a room alone, three hours twice a week. I write in-between, too, but these writing-only sessions are great.

This is a great strategy that I highly recommend.