Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write

by Helen Sword

From the author of Stylish Academic Writing comes an essential new guide for writers aspiring to become more productive and take greater pleasure in their craft. Helen Sword interviewed one hundred academics worldwide about their writing background and practices. Relatively few were trained as writers, she found, and yet all have developed strategies to thrive in their publish-or-perish environment.

So how do these successful academics write, and where do they find the “air and light and time and space,” in the words of poet Charles Bukowski, to get their writing done? What are their formative experiences, their daily routines, their habits of mind? How do they summon up the courage to take intellectual risks and the resilience to deal with rejection?

Sword identifies four cornerstones that anchor any successful writing B ehavioral habits of discipline and persistence; A rtisanal habits of craftsmanship and care; S ocial habits of collegiality and collaboration; and E motional habits of positivity and pleasure. Building on this “BASE,” she illuminates the emotional complexity of the writing process and exposes the lack of writing support typically available to early-career academics. She also lays to rest the myth that academics must produce safe, conventional prose or risk professional failure. The successful writers profiled here tell stories of intellectual passions indulged, disciplinary conventions subverted, and risk-taking rewarded. Grounded in empirical research and focused on sustainable change, Air & Light & Time & Space offers a customizable blueprint for refreshing personal habits and creating a collegial environment where all writers can flourish.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Academia, Academic, Productivity, Reference, Education

266 pages, Hardcover

Published April 17, 2017

Reviews

[Judd Street · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Air & Light & Time & Space" is a freeing guide to writing. Where most handbooks on writing are highly prescriptive ("you better have imposter syndrome as an academic and writer unless you're up at 3:05am and writing every single day of the week!"), this book is a book of permission. Throughout the chapters, Sword catalogues the multiplicity of writing strategies that successful academics use to achieve their writing ambitions.

Often these strategies are contradictory. For every writer who starts at 3 in the morning, there's another that only begins at 10pm, and another who sneaks the time in on the bus or between meetings. As such, the strength of the book is also its greatest weakness: it encourages you to be okay with whatever habits and practices work for you, but can hardly recommend an exact path forward or best approach to try.

Ostensibly Sword's contribution is to argue for the "BASE" approach to writing. Successful academics, she argues, write with attention to their Behavioural, Attitudinal, Social, and Emotional habits. Yet, this is something of a weak framework: while it provides a structure for dividing up the book, it's not immediately clear what the framework offers beyond "reflect on what works for you and try many different approaches."

The other key challenge in the book is its disjointed nature. Sword is perhaps one of the best people to be writing about the practice of writing, having based the book on a hundred interviews and over 1,200 surveys of successful writers. As such, she draws heavily on quotations to illustrate the points - which do a masterful job of highlighting the contradictory habits, but continue the challenge of not pointing to specific promising practices of writers. The least useful components, however, are the page-long insert text boxes with multiple comments from individual writers. I found their interjections (always mid sentence) to break up the flow of the book and emphasize the catch-all nature of each chapter.

That being said, it's hard to fault Sword for documenting so effectively the challenge of writing guides. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Reading this book as I wrote my dissertation and settled into a faculty position was freeing and appreciated. Sword gives you explicit permission to write in a way that works for you. And, her exercises each chapter are helpful for thinking about just that question. It's not a book for someone looking for a magic pill of writing advice - but Sword demonstrates clearly why there's no such pill.

[Paul Silvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helen and I don't agree on everything (as you will surely notice when you read this book) but I always enjoy reading her writing. This book proposes an expansive approach to the practice of academic writing. In a broad sense, the book seeks to give people permission to try new things, go with what works, and not get hung up on the "oughts" of academic writing.

(PS: I went to college in Los Angeles in the 1990s, soon after Charles Bukowski died, and every disaffected young man in LA was writing Bukowski-style confessional verse. It was a fun surprise to see a book title based off his work. I probably like his book Mockingbird Wish Me Luck the most.)

[Pallavi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book whilst I was writing my thesis. It felt like a good companion with wise, well-versed advice.

[Kerynnisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am pretty sure that my career path in academia
is the right one, but I have greatly doubted my worthiness in that world, an uncertainty that revolves tightly around writing and publication.

This book loosens the shackles of fear of writing with the elements in the title: Air and light and time and space. It is gracious and discerning, generous and instructive. It is the most loving and encouraging writing about writing, and I am so glad it exists. Anecdotes from successful writers from all over the world and at various stages of their academic careers reveal similar questions about worth, the same vulnerabilities and hurts, and yet and still the resolve and resilience to write anyway, to keep writing. Their stories give me hope and courage to write anyway too, to keep writing too.

Helen Sword also provides some things to try at each chapter’s end, and these are experimental and playful and, for the ones I’ve tried at least, quite helpful.

Highly recommend this to academic writers and readers.

[Samuel Bierig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book on writing. Was useful on many levels.

[Alecia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very different book for academic writers. Focused more on the how and why of writing. Included data from interviews/surveys of academic writers and shared so many good, practical ideas! Highly recommend for all writers, but especially for people who write academically like I am right now.

[Eren Buğlalılar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitap ilginç bir araştırmaya dayanıyor: Helen Sword Batı dünyasındaki üretken, bazısı çok tanınan onlarca akademisyenle mülakat yapıp "nasıl yazıyorsunuz, yazarken neler hissediyorsunuz, daha çok yazmak için ne yapıyorsunuz?" gibi sorular sormuş, anketler doldurtmuş. Sonuçta, ortaya çıkmasını beklediği "altın formül" yerine, mülakat yaptığı insan sayısı kadar farklı çalışma tarzı, duygu durumu, yöntem, metafor çıkmış.

Sword üretken yazarlık konusundaki kişisel gelişim kitaplarının, zaman zaman okurun kendisini tembel bir pislik gibi hissetmesine neden olabildiğini söylüyor: Tanınmış, çalışkan X yazarının uyduğu o üretkenlik kuralına uyamıyorum, neden? Çünkü ben tembelim, çalışma ahlakı denen şeye sahip değilim. Oysa Sword çok farklı çalışma tarzlarının yazarı üretken kılabileceğini düşünüyor. Yazara kendi yolunu bulmayı tavsiye ediyor -tabii dürüst olması, bunu yeni erteleme bahaneleri üretmek için bir fırsata dönüştürmemesi kaydıyla.

Kitap 4 genel başlık altında topladığı yazarlık stratejilerini, araştırmaya örneklem oluşturan akademisyenlerin kendi sözlerinden bolca alıntılar yaparak açıklıyor. Yalnız bu kitap Booth ve arkadaşlarının "Craft of Research" kitabı gibi bir araştırma yöntemleri metni değil. Araştırma sorusu, argümanın formülasyonu, kanıtların sunulmasından ziyade, oturup bir şeyler yazmakla, yazma eyleminin kendisiyle ilgili bir deneyimler derlemesi.

Kitabın başında anlattığı BASE konseptine kendi çalışmalarımda bir şans vermeye karar verdim.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 / 5 stars. Read and discussed with colleague Betsy Hose, some of this review was born out of that conversation.
.
Compared to other books on writing, this book definitely takes a holistic rather than a prescriptive approach for how to write successfully. Filled with quotes and anecdotes from numerous "successful" writers, I believe that all academics from all stages can relate to some portion of this book. Overall, Sword's words were comforting and optimistic and I envisioned curling up with a cup of tea at a snowing ski chalet to write. Worth the read for those seeking inspiration to write!

[Rockwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every one of the strategies described in these chapters has worked for some writer somewhere; at least some of them are bound to work for you.

It's refreshing to see a book about writing that's descriptive, rather than prescriptive, while still making useful suggestions.

[Cassandra C · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is somehow about everything and nothing but it is beautifully written. As an academic, I find it sustaining to read how others confront the same writing challenges that I face and inspiring to learn new methods of mastery.

[Helen Power · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review coming soon!

[Matto Leeuwis · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A participant at a writing workshop once told me that she labels her folder of rejected sentences and paragraphs "I Still Love You," acknowledging the loss and guilt that authors can feel when they usher their fondest creations off the dance floor."

The main writing advice from the book is to not take advice at face value, which seems counterintuitive but is also the way to go. The collected interview and survey data only really get presented as a whole by the fourth quarter. I would have liked to see some more trends and high level insights rather than mostly examples paired with counterexamples.

[Wagner Floriani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. Inspiring. Really enjoy her prose.

[Jacob Ogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful. I especially enjoyed the first two parts. This will likely be something I consult throughout my writing career.

[Joanne Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helen Sword generated 100 interviews with 'good' (according to a range of criteria) academic writers and gives a lot of the space in the book to their words on their thoughts and feelings about their successes, challenges and failures. There are tips in each chapter but the main intention in my eyes is to demonstrate that there are many ways to be a successful academic writer, not a single path. If writing every day is not possible for you, ok, that does not make you a failure. Other aspects are how to find pleasure in writing, how to take risks, how to write well, whether to edit as you go or later, whether co-writing is best, how to consider your audience. The book then encourages reflection on writing practices - with a foundation or base of behavioural, artisanal, social and emotional practices and needs.

If you have a journalling practice then this book may offer reflection prompts. In short, there's not this mystery way of being a writer that you just cannot emulate, as here are 100 writers to show us their experiences.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. I didn't necessarily learn anything earth shattering that will change my writing process, but this was still fascinating, affirming, and well worth a read. I like how the advice is less prescriptive and more thematic and collegial. I greatly admired and appreciated the methodology of drawing insights from interviews with 100 writers recognized as prolific or otherwise successful, as well as survey results from about 1200+ writers who considered themselves less so and were taking a writing workshop to get help or improve. Fascinating to see the significant overlap in perspectives between those two groups when it comes to writing, almost always, finding writing both frustrating and enjoyable. The BASE summary is, of course, on point, that writers need to have solid behavioral habits to find the time, place, and rituals that work for them to write; artisanal habits to write well, despite the fact so few academics are formally taught to do so; social habits for writing for our intended audiences, with co-authors, and among others in writing groups and networks for accountability and social support; and emotional habits that help us to find joy and pleasure in writing, to develop resilience, and to take risks, especially to expand what is stylistically possible for academic writing.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a great title. And I’m a big fan of Stylish Academic Writing. But, unfortunately, this book doesn’t live up to either its title or predecessor. Part of the problem is that Sword’s strengths as a researcher get in the way of her attempts to write advice. For every sure-fire writing strategy reports an academic writer as employing, she interviews another successful academic who does the exact opposite. So the only real advice she has to offer comes down to something like, whatever works for you. . .

She does suggest that the habits of successful academic writers involve some combination of a BASE (god, how I hate acronyms; I wonder if an editor talked her into this one): Behavioral, Artisanal, Social, and Emotional practices. I was a little relieved/affirmed when she admits that her own BASE is less of a square than a triangle—that she’s fine with the Behavioral,Artisanal, and Emotional aspects of writing, but not so much with the Social. Me too. My impulse is to say, let it go. I admire Sword as a researcher and writer. I wish I learned more from this book.

[Ekmef · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a grad student who is currently stuck at writing their dissertation. Of course I have several perfect excuses such as being a medical doctor during a pandemic - but in the end there is a thesis that needs to be written and it still isn't finished. This book was perfect for me. It is not your typical put-butt-in-chair-and-hands-on-keyboard book that guilt trips you into wondering why you wasted the past four years. Rather, it helps you examine all the things that are important to writing, the preconceptions you bring to the table. Sword creates a framework that you can use to reflect on your own practice and find ways to remediate parts if necessary. Above all, this book makes you remember the joy of writing. It really inspires to start writing again.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bureaucrats breeding bureaucrats. How uninspired paper pushers can push themselves to produce uninspired papers and climb the academic ladder even with nothing to say. Immoral too.

[Daniel Fuentes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bro block quoted way too much. Great book anyway tho.

[Keegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the interest of full disclosure, I wanted to give this 3.5 stars. It was closer to four than three, but neither of those numbers quite fit.

Helen Sword sets out to inspire academics not to write more or to write in a specific way, but instead, she hopes to inspire you to *consider* your writing habits. For those who don’t know, the concept of a “writing process,” or the steps taken to move from idea to final draft, is a relatively new one. Popularized in colleges and universities in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this groundbreaking compositional theory suggested that written work does not happen in a single shot, and that there are teachable best practices that can help a student become a more intentional and productive writer. Even the most uninitiated writers knows of the planning, drafting and revising stages.

Since then, books that suggest the “right” way to write have flooded the trade and academic book markets. But since the late 1990s, academics have begun questioning the notion that all writing processes are the same. There are loads of cultural, gendered, economic, and systemic reasons why people might write or not write in a certain way.

In my role as an instructor of First Year Writing, I make every effort to avoid prescribing a process for my students and instead try to help my students become more intentional in their own process. But, like an oncologist who smokes, my own practice is riddled with many of the anxieties I try to help my students with. I want to get my dissertation into publication shape, and this year seems to be a good year for it. But since I am plagued with doubt and impostor syndrome, I went looking for inspiration.

This books was, without knowing it, exactly the inspiration I needed. The book is an examination of successful academics who write and publish. Sword conducted hundreds of interviews and thousands of surveys looking to see what makes successful academics so successful. Happily, the answer is that there is no one process. No two prolific academics tend to write in the same way, even those academics who have made a career out of collaboratively writing.

Instead of distilling down The Process for Successful Academics, Sword identifies four categories of habits and asks the reader to consider their own habits and how they might become more productive. She provided loads of potential working solutions, but few are held in higher regard than others (she does tend to lean toward the Write Every Day model, though she freely admits that it isn’t for everyone).

My two issues are this: 1) this is mostly anecdotal. There are studies done that could have bolstered some of the claims made by these prolific academics, but this more scientific evidence was largely missing. Because it was so anecdotal, some chapters felt repetitive. The thrust of each chapter was “You need to figure your process out” and I’m not sure that argument needed 12 chapters to make. 2) there was only one passing mention of how the precarious nature of most academic positions (at least in America) will necessarily complicate the productivity of many scholars. In the chapter about finding time, there were several scholars who carved out time to write, setting aside hours or days to devote to writing. That’s all well and good, but I assume most of these people academics get paid for that time. As an adjunct, the work of writing is uncompensated, and the teaching work is not paid a living wage. So many academics are left with a choice: carve time out of my time to spend with my family and loved ones, or carve time out of working hours when I could be picking up classes to pay the bills. Some acknowledgement of the privilege that allows for these writing habits would have gone a long way to help underemployed academics feel less responsible for their own lack of productivity.

In the end, though, I was inspired. And with the semester starting soon, I am hopeful that I can find the time to get something written.

[Ryan Denson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helen Sword’s book takes on a topic that causes a great amount of stress for many people: how to be successful at academic writing. The best thing about this book is that, unlike other ones in the format of “how to become better at x skill,” it does not attempt to lay out a universal pattern that supposedly guarantees improvement. Sword recognizes that every writer is different and that there are many pathways to success. For this book, she has conducted scores of interviews with a wide range of academics from multiple fields and career stages. The book is broken down into four sections based on aspects of writing: Behavioral Habits (setting routines, finding the right setting for writing), Artisanal Habits (editing, flow, tone), Social Habits (writing to your audience, collaborative works), and Emotional Habits (how to handle criticism, taking pleasure in writing).

The format of the book relies heavily on the interviews. Most of it is quoting from the interviewees to get a variety of viewpoints on different topics. One-page vignettes on interviewees’ stories are also frequent. No doubt, some people will be turned off by this style as it becomes somewhat tedious after the first chapter. However, I think this was the best way to handle the topic. It really drives home the point that writing styles and habits are immensely varied. We must all forge our own writing habits rather than trying to emulate others or hoping to find some magic strategy for writing. I think many who are just beginning their academic careers will also be relieved to read about how so many others have been through the same struggles and anxieties as them.

[Marie Kelleher · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bit of a strange writing guide: less "how-to" manual than a meditation on the practice of writing. The author breaks down writing into four sets of habits -- behavioral, artisanal, social, and emotional -- that she calls "the base," and then offers three short chapters on how to develop each. For each, she had conducted interviews with academics across several disciplines, and come up with a wide array of answers to the "how to write" question. At times, this is frustrating: it is anecdotal, and the argument seems to be "there are lots of ways that successful academic writers do it; pick the one that works best for you." Did we need a book to tell us this?

Well, maybe we did. There are tons of writing guides out there that can provide you with lots of prescriptive advice for the trick to getting the writing done: write in the morning, write every day, write messily, write with a plan in mind, get lots of feedback, write in isolation... And as anyone who has ever tried any of these will know, what works for the author might or might not work for the person reading it.

So sure, the interview-based "evidence" is anecdotal; the prescriptions are replaced with a seemingly infinite menu of choices. But is it any better to read a guide where the anecdotes all come from one perspective? And sometimes, you need to look at the menu to decide what you're hungry for.

I'm going to take this one for a test drive with my grad students next semester. Will post an update and let you know how it goes.

[Stephanie Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sword took a different approach in this writing self-help book for academics. This is not a prescriptive book like the others out there because, as Sword argues, are some academics who can't follow the "just sit down and write everyday" type of approach. This is a more fluid and "customizable" approach loosely based on Sword's BASE framework. She argues that academics need a foundation of behavioral, artisanal, social and emotional approaches to picking up a writing schedule and habit. I do appreciate the more positive--almost joyful--approach to writing and that it is normal to feel frustration. I also appreciate presenting a variety of writing styles, schedules, and habits. For me, I prefer a prescriptive writing book rather than Sword's approach, which is like throw everything--and the kitchen sink--and figure out a writing schedule for you. I wish there was more structure rather than reflective exercises and a seemingly hodge podge of quotes from her hundreds of interviews. I wish she actually analyzed her interviews and presented common themes and patterns. But that wasn't her methodology as she said in the book. This book, overall, is for writers who need a different approach to finding writing habits that stick.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved reading the interviews that Sword did with successful academic writers around the world. Indeed, one of the great things of the book was that I kept looking up universities that I'd never heard of in countries that I don't think about often -- loved this! I wrote down some of the quotes to go back to later, and in general this was a great book to read one chapter of daily as I was working on an academic piece of writing of my own.

I also loved Sword's approach to the "best" way to write as "whatever works best for you." Some people are daily writers and some are not; some write "shitty first drafts" and some carefully craft from the beginning. Don't get hung up on this; just experiment and find what works for you.

But only three stars because I didn't find Sword's own writing about her interviews to be so great. I mean, it was fine, but nothing particularly insightful. And I didn't find her foundational metaphor -- create the BASE (Behavioral habits; Artisanal habits; Social habits; and Emotional habits) of your writing house -- so helpful.

[An Te · Rating 4 out of 5]

A helpful guide for developing a good mindset for academic writing. There are many pit-stops for self-reflection along the way.

I loved the chapter on false starts which demonstrates the process of bringing writing fragments into a coherent whole. (Personally, I tend to throw it all in and then edit, polish and revise; that is with academic work at least. (Yet, that is not entirely true as I must engage fully with new material regularly to stop me from feeling dull and deflated... the material is endless and fun); Yes, the PhD is content-based training and less concerning style, however, this has begun to come through when trying to land an impactful publication.)) My reflections here.

There are plenty of reading resources within as the reader respects that books are themselves materials which will inspire writers. The book was right on the money for me as I obtain a lot from books. Those who gain more from direct advice and suggestions, there is more than enough to see you through the toughest writer's block.

[Titus Hjelm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Academic writing guides are, to me at least, a bit like cheap therapy sessions. You get to have a conversation (inside your head) about how you do things and how they could be done. The problem with many guides, as Sword also points out, is that they only tell how things _should_ be done. I can't keep track of how many writing regimes I've tried to follow, only to fail on day two and then forgetting about the whole thing--a bit like dieting, right? Sword's book is different in that it does not offer a prescriptive programme. Rather, it is based on interviews of 100 academics and shows the variety of approaches to better and more productive writing. This book will not be your personal trainer in the same sense that some books, but it is a encouraging companion. Is that enough metaphors for one review?

[Kellynn Wee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gentle, mischievous and encouraging book on writing. Descriptive, rather than prescriptive; funny, meandering, suggestive, and inspirational. Sword interviews a number of academic writers to put this together--it's almost the opposite of the usual "how to" book about writing or craft. It doesn't actually give any structured advice or say that any one way of writing is "best", but is a warm portrayal of the writing habits of academics from various disciplines (and working at different levels, including non-native English speakers, PhD students, tenured acads, people who have left academia, etc). Its basic tenet is that writing is frustrating but also pleasurable; a craft, in many ways; and that we should be kind to ourselves, recognise our successes, and build a community/solidarity with others within academia.

[Julia Lich · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what I was expecting with this book, but was somewhat surprised with the format yet the writing exceeded expectations. The book is mostly a list of questionnaire answers by academics on writing followed by reflection/insights and organized by topics (chapters). There are also many full-paged features expanding on a person's particular method of writing. The theme is that there are all sorts of ways successful academics write, from where and when people write to what emotions people feel about writing.

Naturally, once I realized how this book was structured, I worried that I might loose interest quickly fearing that it'll be dry. But I enjoyed the writing and finished the book rather quickly. I tried to translate people's approaches to writing to other healthy hobby habit formation (in my case art) and found that the insights found here can easily be generalized.

Since I also write academically, I'm now looking to read other books by Dr. Helen Sword.

[Sporeling · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was helpful and encouraging, especially from the perspective of an early-career researcher. It is also, of course, stylishly written. However, Sword suggested at one point that most academic experiences of luck were actually an outcome of perseverance, risk-taking etc – the luck of being, for example, white, male, and/or from an academic family were not acknowledged here. There was definitely a lack of intersectional discussion throughout about how issues such as class background, ethnicity and socio-economic status (gender was touched on briefly) limit certain academics but this section was particularly annoying. Nevertheless, I recommend this as a useful addition to the academic writer’s toolbox.