Closet writing

Abstract

In this article I view academic writing through the metaphor of ‘closet writing’, whereby the process of writing is concealed and erased, allowing public exposure of only polished articles as final products. I explore some of the reasons for the implicit shame and embarrassment that many academics, myself included, feel about their unfinished pieces and practices of writing. Among those reasons are the felt discrepancies between the imagined, and often mutually conflicting, ideals of academic writing as practice, process and product, and each individual’s lived experience of it. I question the sources of such ideals, and suggest some resistance to the ideal through advocating care for ideas, rather than ideals. I query where assumptions about writing as a clean, fast and easy process come from, and counter these assumptions with values of mess, uncertainty and struggle. I argue that the absence of conversation around academic writing, and ‘closeting’ of the often messy add to further mystification of it. Academics are invited to venture out of their closets of writing, and risk some exposure of the process through either shared drafts or honest conversations.