I’ve decided to take a break from poetry and prose, to talk about writing itself. This time last year I was enjoying Christmas as best I could whilst most-way through writing up my thesis. I follow a lot of academics on Twitter who ask or vent about writing. For this specific problem, I read Rowena Murray’s ‘How to Write a Thesis’ which suggests you first write then critique. During my PhD project I did just that, and had managed to publish two papers in a decent journal. So I was practiced in academic writing and had plenty of material to use for my thesis. However what I found when writing it all up was I felt an immense pressure of the deadline I set myself to submit on time, for two reasons.

1. If I submitted late I would incur fees which I couldn’t afford; and

2. I was fortunate enough to…