What goes in will come out!

Spring is here! So glad the cold winter season is officially over. I wonder what everyone got up to this weekend. I had a superb Saturday, we organised a surprise baby welcome for one of my girlfriends. The plan was perfect and she was one pleasantly surprised momma! Sunday was picnic day with my little big family. Fun! Fun! Weekend did Monday have to come? Well it did and it’s back to serious work for this lady. 

I have been frustrated a lot lately by my lack of progress in my academic work. This was caused mostly by challenges in writing, so I went for a writing retreat. The four nights away from home were a great eye opener. I was waking up each morning with nothing else on my mind except just to write and was pleasantly surprised by the progress I made. So I realised that I needed a lot more time to be able to write well academically.  Before the retreat I had been frustrated because I found it so easy to write for my blog and not my academic work. At a certain point I considered stopping the blog to try and focus on my academic work.

So I looked at what made me find it so easy to write this blog. I came up with several reasons, for one I know I have readers who love this blog. I enjoy writing it and I am constantly thinking about what to write getting ideas from everything, conversations etc. I do have people who are interested in my academic work. I love the topic I am working on and I am always watching the news, listening to people to hear what they have to say in connection to my work. One thing I realised I was doing differently that I follow other bloggers and I am constantly getting ideas and learning from them. This is a simple principle but I was not applying it to my academic work. This led me to search the internet for free resources on academic writing. Please note that I said free resources so that I would not have an excuse of not affording them. The internet is awash with academic blogs for the different fields. You just have to select what you find useful and voila!

So why the “title what goes in will come out”?  Well I realised that I was not putting in the right things for the kind of academic output I was expecting.  You cannot plant mango trees and expect to find apples. My dad had a few fruit trees when I was growing up, mangoes, peaches, oranges, lemons and avocadoes. We never expected to get mangoes from the lemon tree or vice versa. More so even though the lemon and orange trees look the same you will not find lemons on the orange tree or oranges on the lemon tree. I realised I was planting mangoes and expecting oranges. I was going to a mango tree and expecting oranges.

 How was I doing this ridiculous thing? Academic writing needs a lot more time and a different kind of vocabulary yet I did not invest in this. I can write my blog while my son runs around or sitting in the lounge with people chatting or watching TV. Try doing that while attempting to figure out the argument in your paper and you will be one frustrated woman. All of it is writing, its similar trees like the orange and lemon trees but a different product. Putting the right seeds and get the correct fruit! Happy week, make sure you plant the correct seed. 

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