shine choi, Cristina Masters, Swati Parashar, and Marysia Zalewski: the (academic) writers – the ‘Writing Saved Me’ special edition
shine choi, Cristina Masters, Swati Parashar, and Marysia Zalewski are the editors of the Creative Interventions in Global Politics series with Rowman and Littlefield, and recently released their co-edited volume, Writing Saved Me: When the International Gets Personal. In this special edition of the (academic) writer, I asked them all my usual prying questions as well as how they went about working with words (both authoring and editing) together…
Do you see yourself as a writer?
shine choi (sc): no, mostly as a reader, though i scribble a lot. i write in my mind a lot and in my notebooks (i have one in every room in the house, in my bags and in the office that my employer, for now, provides). so i guess scribbling for me is where and how i think, and increasingly, i don't know how to approach writing other than a collection of scribbles, so help me god. will i ever be able write an academic anything again? every time i do it, it feels like the last time... and yet, i keep writing.
Marysia Zalewski (MZ): I can’t say yes to this. I do want to – I have written and it is a place I do find some solace, though it does always feel like the past tense is right: ‘I have written’. My handwriting is so bad (does everyone say this?), and I’ve taken to writing at a slant across the whole of the page – very messy! I like to stay with words – though I’m faced with SO many words in bureaucratic documents at work, I feel like I’m drowning in them sometimes! (They’re usually ‘bad’ words though….). But working with words really closely – I like that.
Cristina Masters (CM): Not at all. Like shine, I see myself as a reader first and always. Reading has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. Writing came much later and has always been a struggle, mostly because I don’t think I’m very good at it even though I love words and language and love what writing can/not do. I’m in awe of people who do it well (psst, the people writing here…). Writing is also not my preferred mode of being in relation to others. I’d rather express myself through my body/embodiment. And I really see myself as a dancer way before seeing myself as a writer. In a parallel universe, this is what I am/do and I’m probably happier for it. There’s a sensuality in speaking through my dancing body that I find difficult to find in words, and for me is so key to being in relation. But I do like the thinking, learning, teaching – the ruminating on things – that comes with writing too much to give up on academia.
Swati Parashar (SP): Yes, I am a writer at heart. Words flow and I believe I even overdo the writing, over-communicate through words. Writing these days, especially since the pandemic, is my reaction to everything around and within me. But here’s the catch: I have lost my skill for academic writing. Because I don’t care about the appropriate words, the tone, the audience, the style guide, the citation. I just write now because my words are a substitute for tears, rage, joy, love, laughter. I write at random places – I scribble on my email, computer, diary, a random piece of paper somewhere, the back of a cigarette packet, in a book, on the bindi packet, on random receipts, tissue paper... anything I can lay my hands on. Words are comforting to me. So, yeah, it’s a huge change from when I was younger and thought – and was also made to believe – I couldn’t write. I don’t write now because I can write but because I cannot do without writing.
Do you have a writing routine that works for you? Is there a particular time of the day or place you write best?
sc: i often think i do and then i stop keeping to that or this routine... mostly because i love sleep. the routine i’m in love with right now is waking up at 4.45am so I can be at my computer at 5am to write (= type) before the baby wakes up at around 6am or 6.30am, and i try to return to my computer by 8am and see if i can continue where i left things. when i can’t, i read, scribble, and collage on my collage/composition notebook that is always open beside my computer. is this too much information? sorry, i told you i was in love with this routine at the moment... i think it is also because i'm trying to finish a book before things implode work-wise for me personally. i feel like things are falling apart around me, and who knows how long i can keep to this routine/work life that involves writing?
MZ: Noooooooooooooo! Should I have one? Though I often wake up and there are words streaming through my head… That’s a kind of writing I guess.
CM: When I was doing my undergrad I had to work full-time to support myself, so I developed really terrible writing practices because I mostly had to write my essays in the middle of the night. I hung on to this for a long time because I convinced myself I needed the absolute stillness of the wee hours of the night (and many packs of cigarettes) to properly think. When I quit smoking, I stopped writing for a long time because it was never the right time or the right conditions. Now, I still like writing when it’s least hectic and I’m most at peace, which is first thing in the morning. But writing is also not something I can do every day. It’s been hard to accept that and not beat myself up about it. Some mornings I can write and others I can’t because I have a million other things to do that are sucking up my mental and creative energies. It’s also interesting that this question seems to beg a particular kind of writing and so I try to remind myself that I am writing all the time – lectures, emails, notes, to do lists, reminders – so much stuff that doesn’t count as ‘writing’, but still matters to someone (me, for instance) as writing.
SP: Yes, early morning is my favourite time. I wake up from fragmented/disturbed sleep and try to write about my dreams, which describe a fragmented/disturbed subconscious story. In fact, my dreams are so vivid sometimes that I have to write. Then I write a letter to myself, every single day. Okay… out of 365 days, maybe I write 350 letters! They are my musings about everything and anything, including some thoughts on a new book, article, a new project, self-love, relationships, whatever. There is, however, another kind of writing I do under pressure. When I am committed to a writing project – a book, chapter, an article – then I write last minute and those are also my best pieces of writing. Something about the last minute, the pressure situation brings out the best in me. I feel like the text, the words, contain the urgency of my own heart and its pace… the restlessness and chaos I feel is captured in that last-minute urgency. There is an everydayness to my writing and there is an urgency to it as well.
What’s the hardest part of writing for you?
sc: editing, having a narrative and having one legible/compelling story to tell.
MZ: Oh – all of it. Starting. Editing I kind of like – that’s when I get to really be close to words… so it’s not really ‘editing’ in the traditional sense – it’s just more writing…
CM: Definitely all of it! But letting go is particularly hard. I never think it’s good enough, so I dwell on/linger over it which doesn’t make it better, just painfully drawn out.
SP: Revising… I am not good at that… I think words spoken are already out, so fixing grammar or citation will not dramatically change the text. Someone once told me about a very well-known scholar in politics and IR, who does not revise his text too. I was not happy when I heard it and found it symbolic of arrogance and entitlement. I complained, but now I know why. If you write from your heart, it is very difficult to change the narrative, alter the words, rethink the expressions. So, reading and revising my own writing is the hardest for me…
What do you do when you get stuck?
sc: go to my notebooks, my collage notebook if i am very distracted (and feel like a cigarette or a scroll-session on my phone or feel like cleaning and doing house chores). sometimes i do these other things in parenthesis but when i’m actually trying to get things done and feel so distracted/unmotivated/overwhelmed/lost, i just let loose by going through my scrap paper box to collage, or do calligraphy of the phrases swirling in my head (or that i read and wrote down somewhere) with my cheapo kiddie watercolour paint and brush that i have been meaning to upgrade forever… but they're so cheap and work well enough.
MZ: Panic, worry, go to books… eat… Try to remember I need to go to books.
CM: Clean the house, do emails, make myself otherwise busy. This is what I do to procrastinate, which isn’t entirely the same as ‘getting stuck’ but maybe it is…
SP: I move to another genre if I get stuck, and also return to my music and reading. So if I am writing a blog piece and get stuck somewhere, I come back to it later… Instead, I move to writing a song, or a poem, or a philosophical piece. So I mostly use writing to get out of writing situations when I get stuck.
How do you feel about the blank page when you’re starting a new project?
CM: … Like the blank page is calling me a loser and telling me I have nothing worthwhile to say.
MZ: Blank page? I don’t think of things like that – or of new projects – they all pile in on top of each other…
SP: The blank page is there only in my mind and heart… I don’t necessarily see the blank page as a blank page… The words might not be visible on the page, but they are in my mind – I can see the words. So there never is a blank page as such.
sc: i don’t actually have a blank page like that, i think. i start titling documents first as notes on this or that reading, and then notes on all the readings in one file, then notes on a draft, and then a draft 1, 2, 3….10 (!)
Is there any writing software you use?
sc: no. i really should, but i think i might just stick with being artisanal about writing and see what happens… in the age of AI, surely there will be attraction to things handmade even in academic publishing (after all, this is the case for bread and every other ‘industry’...)
CM: Nope. Very old school. I like a good old pen and paper and/or a Word doc. I hate writing on Google Docs. The aesthetic offends me.
MZ: No software (eioww…). I agree with Cristina that Google Docs is not nice – it’s so jumpy!
SP: Writing software just jars in my mind… but these are times of AI. I am a technophobe, so software doesn’t excite me. It annoys and scares me.
How do you fit writing into your schedule?
CM: It really depends on what’s going on. When I’m teaching, it mostly takes a backseat. It’s the only way for me not to feel all over the place. But I’ve learned to squeeze it in more and more and that’s helped me feel less precious about my words. Like right now, I’m writing this in a 30-minute window between teaching and meetings. I can do this, I think, because I feel as though I’m in conversation with shine, Marysia, and Swati, which makes it easier. Less angsty.
MZ: Hmmm, writing is so often the thing to be left…
SP: I don’t fit writing into my schedule, writing fits me into its schedule 😊 I fit everything I need to do to get by in the day into my writing… It wasn’t always like this, as I wasn’t a writer then. But now, writing is all I have and I would be impoverished and terribly lonely without it. Much of what I write will not see the light of day in terms of being published work, but it is very important for me. I also think my friends here with whom I write make it easier. Look at this blog writing! It has been effortless… we didn’t have to work too hard, everything just fell into place… even with our answers to these questions…
sc: i do and feel (and like) both of these things Cristina and Swati say, though I do a lot of notwriting, or maybe it is what Hélène Cixous calls ‘prewriting’, when I start feeling like I have to think about balancing my schedule. i need to empty out my hours and do no-things first to get to a point where the writing debt/world/responsibilities matter.
Do you enjoy the writing process?
CM: Hmmm, mostly not. I do love reading and thinking, but I don’t always want to make it digestible for others partly because I resent the instrumentality of academic writing for simply hanging on to our jobs. Writing journal articles feels like a particularly suffocating form of torture – it’s too cookie cutter and I don’t want to be a cookie or a cutter.
MZ: ‘Enjoy’ is a big word, and I’m not sure writing is a ‘process’ – it’s too organic for that. And sensate. And imaginative. Though the stages of writing – well there are so many really … thinking, musing, worrying, reading, typing (badly…), shifting words, paragraphs, reading, close reading/thinking, shaping, structuring… and more (!).
SP: Yes, I enjoy everything that comes with it… the sadness, the melancholia, the joy, the euphoria, everything is part of being who I am. I am a compulsive writer now, so, I write all the time to save myself. Other things have to fit into my writing schedule. Yes, I ‘enjoy’ writing, including the melancholia it brings with it.
Are there any tips you have for writing or editing your writing?
SP: Keep writing, keep reading but DO NOT DELETE… always leave stuff on the main document. Do not edit out words that don’t appeal to you then… you will never regret it. Do not delete, just write. Just as you cannot erase every emotion out of your experience, writing and words sit uncomfortably too. They stare at you, and you wish they were not there, but they have enriched you in many ways. So, be grateful for writing you are not happy with, or not proud of. It nevertheless makes and unmakes you.
CM: Write with people you adore and admire. It helps to show up and feel held when writing. And I try to remember that writing is hard when you’re trying to make sense of (all kinds of) violence (as all of us here are). Be gentle with yourself. As for editing, try to become less precious about the words you’ve committed to paper. They are fleeting and malleable.
Are there any books on writers or writing that you have particularly enjoyed and would recommend?
SP: I like different genres of writing… I love biographies, poems, history books, short stories… fiction a lot less now. I finished a book manuscript recently – it’s a biography of a Belgian priest, Camille Bulcke, who lived in India. He was a translator, writer, lexicographer, Indologist, and Christian missionary all rolled into one. I loved to learn from different sources how he learnt a totally new language and how he would painstakingly write, choose correct words… and eventually compile a dictionary! Now, how many of us would do that? I loved his story of how he became a writer; my co-author and I wrote about how he became a writer and what he wrote. 😊
sc: i’ve already mentioned two in this conversation – Kathleen Stewart’s short essay, Writing, Life and Hélène Cixous’s book, Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing (terrible title, and no, it is not a self-help book).
MZ: Oh my, not books on writing. They are so often very instrumental, dull – trying to get people to squash their writing into… well, whatever shape is deemed appropriate. No, but loads of other books have been influential, inspirational, though! Too many to mention here (though they’re probably mostly non-academic).
CM: Katherine McKittrick’s Dear Science and Other Stories.
Is there anything you know now that you wish you’d known about (academic) writing when you started out?
MZ: It’s hard to ‘know then’ what you ‘know now’. When I started out, I was a whole different person (well, kind of), though now, the sense of feeling my own permission to not obey ‘academic writing rules’ is good (mostly). So trust yourself I’d say… trust your gut.
SP: Now there is so much space to publish non-conventional stuff… I felt terribly claustrophobic in the early days when you had to follow only conventional academic writing. There was no space then, but now the space for creativity and experiment exists – and we are making that space too. That is where this book series we edit with Rowman and Littlefield is so special. Look at the books we have managed to publish, and we continue to get proposals that capture a gamut of creative expressions.
CM: I wish I knew how little time one would have to write. That is, unless you are willing to work all hours – which I’m not! The PhD lulls you into this false sense that research and writing is your job, when it is simply not the case anymore (unless you have big research grant buyouts and even then, you’re spending so much of your time managing things). One of my PhDs spent a few days marking in my office and they were gobsmacked at what my days looked like. This is not to say they were completely unaware of this but because most of what we do is behind closed doors, it isn’t obvious how little time there is left in a day during the semester to do things like read and write.
How did you navigate different writing styles and routines, both in Writing Saved Me and Ripping, Cutting, Stitching?
sc: i don't think we/i ever thought differences in writing styles in ourselves and our contributors in Writing Saved Me were things to be navigated, i.e. dealt with. i/we just took differences in styles as a given and, in fact, just what the projects were actually about. this is not to say there weren’t tensions in what we each wished to say as authors, or what we wanted the contributors to wrestle with. my memory cannot be trusted, but i think we were quite upfront about the tensions and flagged these up as things to be worked out on the pages in the case of Ripping. in editing Writing Saved Me, we gave contributors our reading notes that pointed out what we thought the text was evading... but it was important that ultimately the authors just wrote what they could/wanted at the time; there was zero pressure (i hope) to address our editorial concerns. here, i guess i’m thinking more of thinking styles and less about writing styles – i don’t think i even registered writing styles as things we/i needed to mess with. in terms of routines... i’m not sure if this really mattered, it was more about timing and differences in people’s schedules and ability to return drafts to a collective schedule. both books took much longer than they ‘should have’... then again, we really did not have an agreed upon timeline to start, but the pressure to wrap things up definitely got stronger as time passed. that’s my memory of things.
MZ: Different writing styles weren’t a thing I thought about much – and our different routines we just figured out on the way, though it did mean the books took a long time to ‘get there’, especially Ripping.
SP: Different writing styles and routines and time zones, yes… but somehow when writing needs to be done, it gets done. It has a life of its own. The Ripping book took ages because we were all on different emotional planes and the book – well, it is a bit of all of us. But I think writing as collaging worked… meaning making occurred on its own. We did not have to work too hard to make things work. As we wrote, our thoughts started speaking to each other. I must mention, I have not worked with these co-editors/co-authors before, but we really didn’t put in hard labour to work with different styles…. we managed to retain our individual styles and weave a narrative together, a bit like ‘worldism’ that Ling and Aganthengelou talk about. ‘World politics as a site of multiple worlds… the various and contending ways of being, knowing and relating’. These multiple worlds are not only about chronicling differences but how these differences produce multi or trans subjectivities; self and other that reinforce each other; syncretic engagements that enhance accountability and empathy. So in that sense…we are DOING worldism through these collaborative projects.
CM: Because both projects were so much about writing differently/different writing about International Relations and global politics, navigating different writing styles wasn’t a thing we worried about. For Ripping we explicitly worked against writing in/as a ‘singular voice’. Writing collectively was not at all about erasing the many ‘I’s’ (or many ‘we’s for that matter). Readers might sometimes be able to identify who is behind a particular chapter in Ripping, and sometimes not. I do think that writing as a collective/collectively afforded us a boldness we might otherwise avoid for fear of backlash/repercussions. And for Writing Saved Me it was all about different writing styles – writing IR/global politics and ourselves otherwise.
One of the hardest things about both projects – but also what is so fundamental about/to both – was managing time zones and making space for life circumstances. Both projects took a long time. They spanned Covid and so many other things. Time was both of the essence and superfluous. At different times I was convinced that neither of the projects would ever see the light of day because something in our lives made it impossible to prioritise them. And, ultimately, they were both projects of profound un/learning for me – about being a better collaborator and communicator; cultivating generosity when you feel at your least generous; trying to embody and practice feminism; and sometimes just getting out of the way of others to make space for them to do their thing.
Logistically, how do you work on collaborative drafts together?
MZ: A bit of everything really – though I think we stopped doing track changes early on as it was too much… we kind of just trusted …
SP: I love Google Docs and writing together. I am a big fan of Pomodoro sessions – writing intensively for short periods and then taking a 5-minute break and then writing again, with other writers around you. This technique is amazing… and I got some good stuff out through this community process. I also co-wrote on Google Docs the various intros to the Handbook of Feminist Peace Research with my co-editors. It was a marvellous experience of writing together. We do little track changes now, and we write and overwrite into texts… I haven’t seen a lot of deletions.
CM: We tried Google Docs and it failed, partly because a few of us hated working with it, but more because it made it easier for one person to work on it at a time. This helped us manage our time and keep track of the many (many) drafts of things. For many parts of both projects, we also took turns with different parts of the manuscript. It meant if you had capacity, you would work on it, and if you didn’t, you would pass it on. This kept things moving and, crucially, it kept us in conversation with each other. For me, Google Docs simply didn’t keep us connected because we were interfacing with a document, not each other. We couldn’t say – as we often did on email – ‘I have a few spare days this week, because I’ve finished x’ or ‘I want to, but I just don’t have it in me because I’m struggling with x…’. I think this made a big difference in keeping us tethered where, otherwise, we would have been flapping around on our own.
How do you navigate all being located (literally!) around the world as author/editor teams?
MZ: Many Zoom calls at our different times of day – some of us were in the dark, some in the light!
SP: Zoom and then WhatsApp chit chat, calls and rant sessions… Crying, bitching, laughing together…
sc: yes, a lot of early morning or late night meetings and i also remember a couple of unscheduled calls... Swati also leaves voice messages on WhatsApp, which i really liked. this was new to me.
CM: shine has had so many late nights on both projects, poor thing! I’m not a night owl so I was happy to mostly do early mornings. Working across 4+ time zones was one of the most challenging parts of the projects, but worth the effort. Thank goodness for Zoom and WhatsApp.
What are the highlights/tricky parts of collaborative writing/editing?
sc: highlights first: shit gets done, which i can’t say is my contribution to the collaboration. i try not to get in the way of shit getting done and also try my best to do as i’m told so i don’t hold back the group/project. i honestly don’t know what i contribute to our collaborative writing/editing specifically. i read, sometimes i share with the group what i’m reading. i rant. i listen. and i read every word that everyone is writing and i have ideas about them that i share… so i share.
MZ: Oh my, the sharing – I have learned SO much! shine sends links to things I’d probably never just ‘come across’ – amazing work – one even came yesterday!! I always feel a shiver of joy whenever something comes through cyberspace from my co-writers here…
SP: Sometimes, co-writing can hit a roadblock if your intentions are different. I wouldn’t say it’s all been smooth always. You have to mentally, emotionally connect with those you write… but honestly, in times like this we are all vulnerable, we need each other, so it’s powerful and cathartic to write together.
CM: The highlight is that, for better and for worse, it brings you closer together. There’s a necessary vulnerability, as Swati points out, to both these writing projects that meant we were much more exposed to one another. This wasn’t always easy, but I feel much closer to this lot than others – maybe that’s because I now feel like I need them for my sanity.
Do you write differently when you write together?
sc: yes. i think collaborative writing keeps us/me too close to the social though and i don’t know how i feel about this. i recently read this description of the social in Kathleen Stewart (sorry, going through my KS phase at the moment. i read in phases – do others? I just go down and down into someone’s body of work for months at a time, just reading them in main): ‘The social is under so much pressure it has an attitude problem about its own existence, and in more and more ordinary situations people find the existence of other unbearable’ (from Writing, Life).
SP: Collaging… texts get collaged into meanings. So I think difference makes meaning out of itself… I think trust matters where you can mess around with each other’s texts by writing into it… no deletions – I repeat, NO DELETIONS, ERASURES.
CM: Collaborative writing makes possible a more radical accountability. It also makes moving through the hostile territory of academia more bearable and joyful.
What would you tell others looking to embark on a project like this one?
sc: slow down, time is a funny thing
MZ: Just go with the flow – honest! And keep trusting in the work and in the writing. Collaboration is so creative in the end, and there is so much great learning that comes from it…
SP: Collaboration is great – it keeps you sane. In fact, I don’t want to write alone any more; sole-authored monographs are a thing of the past. I would embark on several of these co-writing projects again. But, as shine says, SLOW DOWN… let the ideas flow… and be kind to yourself and each other.
CM: Do it with your eyes wide shut. It’s not easy but what it gives you back is invaluable. You’ll also find out shit about yourself that will surprise you. And yes, slow down. Academic time is an asshole. Resist it.