Balancing Summer Writing by Erika Romero

During the school year, I tend to focus so much of my attention on lesson planning, grading, and creating new resources for my students to use when they seem to struggle with an element of my courses. Unfortunately, these activities tend to push writing my dissertation wayyy into the background of my academic life.

Now that summer has arrived and I’m no longer teaching any classes, I’ve given a lot of thought to how I want to set up my summer writing routine. During the academic year, I’ve been able to maintain my blogging schedule, but not my dissertation writing schedule. Now that my schedule is so open, it’s time to find a balance that works for me.

What’s my plan?

Alternate “fun” writing with “serious” writing on a day-to-day basis.

It’s summer, so I do want to make sure to take plenty of time to replenish my energy reserves. For me, this means only writing during weekdays.

Since I tend to get tunnel vision when writing and designing my Ever Educating blog posts, YouTube video scripts, and Instagram content, I’m planning on using these writing tasks as both catalysts and rewards.

Two days a week, I’ll start my writing routine by working on these “fun” projects. After I complete my set tasks for the day, I’ll move on to my dissertation writing. Hopefully, the writing spark that thrives when working on the former projects will keep me going through my often anxiety-inducing academic writing.

Three days a week, I’ll start with a set time of dissertation writing, knowing that my reward for completing the day’s goal is a transition to my Ever Educating work. On these days, I can take as much or as little time working on these latter tasks as I’d like, since the only one making deadlines for them is myself.

Inspiration Sparks.

Rewards.

What better ways to perceive my summer writing tasks?



Erika Romero is an English Studies PhD candidate at Illinois State University, where she has taught children’s literature, young adult literature, and first year writing courses for the past five years. When she’s not doing teaching-related activities, writing her dissertation, or reading fanfiction, she’s blogging about teaching tips, tools, and resources on her blog, www.evereducating.com/blog. You can also follow her across social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube with the same handle, @EverEducating.