Laura J. Shepherd: the (academic) writer

Laura J. Shepherd is a Professor of International Relations in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney. Laura is current President of the International Studies Association, a former Australian Research Council Future Fellow (2018–2022), and has been a Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security in London, UK, since 2016. She spends too much time on Twitter, where she tweets from @drljshepherd.

Do you see yourself as a writer?

I have always, and never, thought of myself as a writer. I have, however, always been writing. As I wrote in my recent book, “I’m not sure I even know who I am if I’m not writing”. As a child I wrote endless short stories and terrible poetry; I created newspapers and magazines, and I enthusiastically completed school projects in which I wrote thousands of words about horses, or the music of the 1960s, or the evidence for the existence of ghosts and other supernatural phenomena (I was undiagnosed autistic so the opportunity to infodump about my special interests was honestly bliss, even if I couldn’t articulate why at the time).

It didn’t occur to me as a child that I would end up in a career in which I get paid to write, but I suspect Past Me would have been over the moon to find out this was the case. So I have always brought this sensibility to my writing: the joy in language, the ease of expression, the ability to edit myself and try precisely to convey meaning - these are all reasons why I find writing so much easier than talking most days (that and the autism, possibly).

Do you have any writing tips or tricks?

It’s hard for me to give “advice” on writing, as it feels a little like trying to coach someone on how to breathe (although I suppose people do that too). I’m not sure I have any sensible words on the mechanics of writing either (luckily Cait has you covered there!). But one of the things I tell my students when we start working together is that they have to pay close attention to their own process: we all have our own rhythms and ways of getting into that beautiful flow state where whatever you’re working on feels effortless and you lose hours, and over time we can learn to create the conditions that enable flow.

What does your writing process look like? Do you have a routine?

I’m a binge-writer. I need to set aside whole days – or at least stretches of 5–6 hours at a time ­– to write new words. I can edit, revise, and polish existing words in fragments of time between meetings, but if I am crafting a new piece of writing I need to block out the time in my calendar, switch off my email, put my phone in a drawer, and give myself over to the process. But before I start writing, I will have made a plan. I’m a big planner.

For something like a journal article, once the research is complete, I will draft a one-page plan that breaks the article into sections (usually introduction/literature review, theory and method, discussion and argument, conclusion) and allocates a word count to each of the sections depending on where I want to send the article (which I always know before I start writing, because that way you can use the house style from the beginning which means less frustrating reformatting of text or references at the end). And from that initial one-page plan I will develop longer plans for each of the sections, including key points of argument I want to make, key literature that I want to bring into the discussion, and key pieces of evidence that I want to include. This time spent planning rigorously means that when I sit down to write I am mostly just connecting the dots, which is why it feels like I write quickly and can write a lot in one go. (I use this same planning approach for chapters of book projects and advise my students to do the same or similar for each chapter of their PhD dissertation.)

Obviously, this might not work for you. Take what feels good and incorporate it into your practice. But, most of all, pay attention to how your mind is working, and what your body is telling you. If you’re tense and you’re having to fight your brain to extract every word, today might just not be a writing day. I always have a stack of other things I can do – tasks like formatting bibliographies, or collecting literature, or reviewing or editing other people’s work – when I can’t get into the flow of writing. When I’m starting a new piece of writing, I have a soft rule that encourages me to give it half an hour, or a paragraph or so, and if it’s feeling too hard, I set it aside and move on to something else.

This isn’t going to work for you if you’re someone who doesn’t need to write like I need to write, because I know I’m never going to set it aside for too long. If you’re a reluctant writer you might find more utility in short, structured writing sessions every day; this is the case for many people I know who write brilliantly, so don’t be afraid to experiment with different arrangements of writing time. But write, and keep showing up for your writing. Throw words at the page and see what sticks. You might surprise yourself.