publications diary?

Towards the tail end of my PhD studies, I attended a session on ‘Creating a publishing strategy for journals’. It was fairly helpful in pushing one to think about planning writing and setting up a writing/publications pipeline - so very important in the ‘publish/perish’ space of academia (particularly when you’re a precarious scholar). It wasn’t anything groundbreaking when you’re doing a PhD by papers (as I was) and focused on submitting to journals already, but it was really useful in thinking about and reflecting on writing itself and why/how we move from an idea to a published manuscript.

A resource mentioned in the workshop was Prof. Nick Powdthavee’s ‘Paper Diary’ - “For every paper published, there’s a story behind it”. In the ‘paper diary’, Prof Powdthavee writes a short, often wry reflection on the process of each published article from what inspired it to how long it took. I was struck by how these short reflections grounded a manuscript, making visible the work that goes into it- whether the long discussions with co-authors, the disagreements with reviewers, or the rejections before it is published.

Inspired by this, I aim to document how some of my publications came to be written, published, and make some of the odd; quirky; and chance decisions that are a part of this process, more visible.