Whether it's something we like or not, writing seems to be a common theme among academic bloggers in all disciplines. I admit to a personal fascination with the topic, so maybe I just tend to notice these posts more than others. What I find especially interesting is the variety of the approaches and strategies different people take toward writing. It's not all process, though. Check out what bloggers are writing, reading, and thinking lately.

Wanda Ball shares things she wrote in the margins of her notebook while at a writing conference.

Ancrene Wiseass talks about good blogs gone missing and coins a great term, "the Jack Kerouac approach to writing." She also points us in the direction of some good advice on procrastination from the Academic Coach.

Kathleen passes on advice for writing an academic book people might like to read, referencing an excellent post by AuntB. This might be the best quote I've read in a long time:

Also, let's talk about outside sources. Here is the unbreakable rule about outside sources (Don't even start with the "But my discipline is different" bullshit. If your discipline is different, they are forcing you to write unreadable books and therefore, they deserve to be relegated to the trash heap of history--meaning "the past" not the discipline. I don't know where History departments keep their trash heaps.): Either they prove you right or you prove them wrong or they don't get to be in your book.

For another think-y post, I must point you toward Oso Raro's post, The Devil Reads Butler. The comparison between the struggles for success in fashion and academia is fascinating. I re-read the whole essay a couple of times so I wouldn't miss any of the detail.

But why, I wondered, was I so fascinated by Miranda/Wintour and not so much by the academic glitterati that she so resembled? Was it because academics are always badly dressed (although the true PoMo crowd could give the fashionistas a run for their money)? Or was it because the material rewards of the fashionistas seemed so much more attractive than mere ideas, than the talented regurgitation of theoretical complexities and nuance that now, in our post-theory world, seem as quaint and archaic as the ability to speak Sanskrit

Kaijsa Calkins blogs about life and librarianship at Jag saker job.