Getting creative (or, publish or perish)

 

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Getting creative (or, publish or perish)

by Jen Davies, nerd

September 23, 2026

A significant challenge for me as a university professor is the pressure to write. I've never minded writing, I'm just not good at doing it on-command, you know, like "Hey, I have an hour, let me get some writing done." My motivation to do it is not on a switch, so I have so far struggled to get done all the writing that I have to get done. The expression we use in academic is "publish, or perish" - meaning, write stuff and get it into print (preferably peer-reviewed print in the sciences) or you'll lose your job.

One of many reasons I started this blog was to put myself on a weekly schedule of writing something. Anything at all, really. And it has been fun, and I don't plan to stop yet.

I also chose the blog format because it's a practical outlet: the occasions when I have written professionally the topics were meant to be very practical and hands-on, and that is my preference. So I'm hopeful that I can find topics that are publishable in venues that are practical. (Academic journals are neither very accessible nor practical - so although they would be good for my job, I rail at the idea of writing just for the 2 or 3 people who might read something I invest hours and hours to get into them.)

Staying motivated to write means that unless I want to bribe myself to stay in my chair and do it (and my waistline does NOT thank me for the potato chips I bribed myself with to get through the second iteration of my doctoral dissertation), I need to write about something that is interesting in itself to write about. (I loved my doctoral topic, but having to rewrite it for a variety of reasons sucked.) I have no shortage of ideas, but are they "complete" enough? 

And would anyone else want to read those ideas? The upside of publishing in academic journals is, it almost doesn't seem to matter if a broad audience likely wants to read your work. As long as the article you wrote is engaged in the ongoing high-level academic discourse that's going on passive-aggressively between and among academics, it's publishable. But call me selfish, if I'm going to go to the effort of polishing a piece of writing (I hate revising) then I'd like to think that at least a few dozen people will see it. Maybe they would even contact me to say they liked it (or hated it - that's fine too as long as they can tell me why).

So I really need to get my butt into gear. We'll see how it goes. I may be job hunting in 3 years if I can't make it happen!