The spring semester has just wrapped up or is about to conclude for most academics, which means that finally, everyone is going to tackle those writing projects that they have set aside during the stressful grading season. Summertime is when a lot of us, graduate students or professionals, tackle our most intense writing goals. How to approach this task wisely and reasonably? Is it possible to get things done over the summer without getting utterly overwhelmed?
This was the topic of historian Thomas Kidd’s substack post last week, “Summertime Is Prime Time for Writing.” His recommendation? Set a daily writing goal—in a number of words. Considering his remarkable productivity, this method clearly works for him! Here’s what he says:
Say for example you are working on a dissertation that you hope to defend in time for May 2025 graduation. A horrible goal is something like “I need to work on my dissertation this summer.” No, you need to get much more specific and tangible than that.
Let’s say that your dissertation will be roughly 80,000 words total, and you have written 10,000 so far. You have about three months of relatively free time for writing this summer, or about 60 writing days (minus weekends and holidays). How many words would you ideally write this summer?
Well, if your schedule gets a lot busier during the semester, you might want to shoot for 40,000 words total. That would mean you need to write 667 words on average (666 would be weird) on your 60 writing days this summer in order to meet your goal.
This is also a better approach than “I want to write four chapters this summer.” Chapters can be different lengths, of course, but more importantly, breaking your goals down by chapters doesn’t tell you how much you need to get done each day. I find it extremely helpful to know how much I need to write each day to stay on track.
While I personally don’t set daily writing goals, the general principle that has allowed me to write a lot over the past few years is largely the same as Kidd describes. For the third summer in a row, I have a book deadline at the end of the summer—this year’s deadline is August 1st. This book, a survey of Greco-Roman Classical literature for Christians (under contract at Zondervan Academic), consists of twenty chapters of ca. 4,000 words each.
I just finished writing chapter 12, which means I have eight more to go, plus a conclusion. My goal is to write two more chapters in May, which would leave the remaining six for June and July. Writing one chapter per week is doable and will allow me to have two or (ideally) three weeks at the end for revisions before sending off the complete draft.
Of course, this pace is only possible because I am writing the kind of book that relies on decades of previous reading and study, rather than all/mostly all new research. But also, I have very limited writing time, and never sit down to write unless I have a well-formed idea in my mind.
If you are a writer on a deadline this summer, I wish you luck—and good planning! And if you are a writer who would like a new deadline this summer, pitch us here at Current!