Chris Bulman talks about writing
Summary of video content
Chris Bulman is based in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, and teaches adult nursing.
She draws on Bob Dylan to show some key ideas around writing.
Perspiration
When people ask about writing, Chris says it’s like sweating blood: don’t get away from the idea that it’s not about hard work, because it is, and it’s important to think about where you’re going to work, and to pay attention to your working environment, to think about getting the right space, not just physically, but emotionally too.
Preparation
Make sure you are doing your reading before you start, and make really good notes so you can delve back in to the thinking and ideas that your reading has inspired. Key tip: think about mind mapping to link up different concepts, ideas and issues that occur when you’re reading. Look up Tony Buzan’s work on mind mapping. Discuss ideas with colleagues: one brain and set of ideas is helpful but you can stretch and develop that with colleagues. They can be helpful to bounce ideas off, use as a sounding board, get your thinking going.
Inspiration
Important to have thinking time. There can be a temptation to think grab pen and paper or keyboard and get writing straight away, but if you resist that you can get space to do inspiring thinking, and can drive enthusiasm, passion and interest in the subject you want to write about. It's about thinking about where inspiration comes from and what messages you want to get across and being passionate about getting that message across in whatever form it takes.
Stepping back
When you have done the piece of writing, try and leave it for several days and come back to it and reconsider. You can get immersed in your writing and it’s more difficult then to have a clear judgement on how it’s progressing. In rereading consider that reading on the screen can be very different from reading in hard copy. Chris prints off hard copy of fairly well-developed writing to look at in a relaxed environment, and she sees different things in the hard copy than on the screen. Feedback is also useful in stepping back.
And don’t forget what you learned at school for grammar and expression. Showing that you’ve got good command of grammar and expression can make huge difference.
Know your audience
Think about what the purpose of your writing is. Journal articles, books, assignments, pieces of research: all have slightly different audiences and different ways of presenting the material. A postgraduate supervisor of Chris’s told her that reviewers will always have their say, which has stuck with her, so remember to think about the review process when writing as well as the audience generally: write with reviewers in mind.
Know yourself
Do you write well under pressure? If not, make sure you choose timeslots where you can develop your thinking and writing. What strategies do you use to inspire you and get you started? Use colleagues to help you - do you do joint writing with colleagues, do you wrk better on your own or might want to move between? There are pros and cons to writing in collaboration. Remember, how you work may not be the same as someone else.
Enjoy the rewards
You can get great satisfaction from completing a great piece of writing. It’s good to get comments back, maybe from your assessors in some way but if you’re writing for publication you’ll find you get comments from students or other academics who’ll email and give feedback. There might be money attached - always good inspiration! Maybe even travel - Chris's writing has led to travelling to Japan with her fellow writer. There may also be some prestige - ability to be seen as an article writer.
