When a former client emailed that she wanted to return to coaching, I was pleased and intrigued.
What might a client who had finished her dissertation and had been published in several journals want to accomplish?
As most academics have discovered, she had learned that finishing the dissertation is the key to the academic world, but it’s just the key.
The demands that face the new academic are enormous. Teaching may be a new experience, with the classes they have taken themselves being their only model or training.
What this one former client wanted was help in negotiating the writing of her book, the book that she had planned some time ago would come from her dissertation.
On the face of it, transforming a dissertation into a book would seem rather straightforward.
The dissertation is a draft, but that’s all. And a very early draft.
To submit a book for publication requires writing not only a proposal, but usually a sample chapter. To write that chapter may require a focused revision of the new and fresh idea from your dissertation plus a refocused view of the audience, one wider than just your advisor and committee.
Finally, and most importantly, to write a book while teaching requires that you decide how much of a priority this book will be. It will never get off the ground unless it is not just important, but urgent. If it is urgent, you will work on it when you are at your best. And you will write every day.
It is possible to fit the reshaping and rewriting of your dissertation into your very full life.
The pivotal choice for you is to decide that you will put this writing in the middle of your desk every day, first thing.
If you have a project that you’re trying to pull into view for yourself, I hope you will get in touch with me. I can help. And go to my website (www.nwcoaching.com) to sign up for my Smart Tips e-newsletter
