When I was writing my first book, I thought of it as a mountain I had to climb. Or a hurdle to jump. I imagined it as a test: scary, stressful, threatening failure with each page I drafted.
A nonacademic friend intervened. She had never read my work, but by hearing me talk about writing she diagnosed my problem. She said my metaphors about writing were hindering me — plus they were wrong. Your book in progress is a gift, she said, not a test. It’s a gift you will give the world.
I didn’t believe her, of course. A gift? To the world? That sounded arrogant, even delusional. But I felt stymied and miserable in my writing process, so I decided to experiment with her metaphor. I figured I had nothing to lose if — privately, quietly — I applied it and observed the results.
So every time I reached that point of the writing process when it felt as if I was slogging up a mountain of words, I interrupted that mini-movie in my head and instead tried to imagine myself wrapping up a gift for someone. The exercise seemed absurd, but I persisted. I repeated to myself: I’m giving something to the world.
I can’t explain when, or exactly how, the new metaphor began to feel right. The change was slow. But after about a year of practice, I found that writing started to feel lighter, easier. Slowly, the metaphor of the gift became common sense to me. And to my surprise, it reoriented me to myself, my readers, and my writing process.
Now, more than a decade later, I routinely share this metaphor with my own graduate students and with untenured colleagues. I tell them: “Your scholarship is a gift that you are giving the world.” Because this reframing has worked for so many of them, I am sharing it here. This shift in thinking has benefited me and my writing in three ways, and I hope it will benefit you.
It can change how you think about your academic self. This is especially important if you are a graduate student or an untenured/contingent faculty member. Academe can make you feel like a supplicant, forever asking for grants, recommendations, jobs, and more.
But thinking of your work as a gift reminds you that you have something of value to contribute. That is not self-importance — it is accurate. For years, you have done research, thought, learned, and written. Of course you know something worth sharing.
The “gift” metaphor can alter how you think about your readers. Especially those beyond a dissertation committee. If you imagine your readers testing and judging you, a defensive tone can invade your writing: “Look, I’ve read everything! I’m right about X and Y and Z! And I can shred all competing arguments!”
Sure, editors, reviewers, and members of your dissertation committee will judge you — some of them harshly. But what good does it do to fixate on that? Instead, think beyond those referees to the readers of the articles and books you will publish. Think of readers as human beings who want and need to learn what you have to teach.
Imagining your readers as recipients of your gift can reroute your writing goals. Take a moment and remember the best gift you ever gave someone. What made it great? Was the gift inherently perfect? Probably not. More likely, it was perfect for the recipient. It reflected your care for, and understanding of, another person. The best gifts don’t say, “Look at me.” Instead, they say, “I see you.”
Who are your readers? What do they need to learn from your work? How might they use that learning? The more clearly you can answer these questions, the more usable your scholarship will be — and therefore, the better your gift.
Most of all, thinking of your readers as gift recipients can help you remember the single most important fact about them: They’re human. Real people — who get excited or bored, who can learn and think with you — will read your work. They will give you the gift of their attention. You will give them the gift of discovering or understanding something new.
The gift metaphor changes how writing feels. Academic writing is hard. It should be hard. As scholars, we create new knowledge, and no one expects that process to be easy.
But when you think of writing as a gift that real people will receive, value, and use, you can write with a sense of generosity. Defensiveness dissolves, or at least abates. Your energy transforms. Think again of the best gift you ever gave someone. How did it feel to plan and present that gift? Caring and open-hearted, connected? Tingly with anticipation and well-earned pride? Writing can feel like that, too.
But what if your gift falls flat? What if Reviewer No. 2 calls it garbage? What if it gets returned?
All of that happens to pretty much every academic. By definition, not every gift you’ve given has been your best one. Now and then you offer something that isn’t appreciated. Maybe you misjudge the match between gift and recipient. Or you overestimate its quality. Or the recipient is just grumpy.
Rejection — however kindly it is delivered — feels lousy, but thinking of your writing as a gift reminds you that being rebuffed is not the end of the world. You can repackage and regift your work to someone else. Or you can send the original recipient a new present. A rejected gift is an opportunity for self-reflection. Did you fall short, or was the recipient unreasonable? Honest answers to these questions can improve your skills in the long term.
Your dissertation — or your article, or your first book, or your fifth book — is not a mountain. It’s not a hurdle. It’s not a test. It’s a gift — one that only you can give. And you must give it. Someone needs it. And that someone will thank you.
