When writing up gets you down

There’s a stage in every research project casually described as ‘writing up’. You might call it reporting, documenting findings, debriefing, or something else. I think of it as something like Dante’s purgatory; you’re not going down to the inferno, but there’s a lot of suffering and climbing before anything gets better. Since we’re right next door to hell, there might also be some deadly sins like pride (“I know my stuff, alright?”), anger (“why is this so HARD?”) and sloth (“I can’t lift my laptop lid today”).

The analysis ‘high’

I’m at this point right now. The project has been great, so far: we achieved the target sample, completed the interviews, got all the thank-you vouchers to the students. I diligently recorded audio summaries after each interview, kept the client team up-to-date, analysed as I went and tested emerging hypotheses in meetings with the team. I've been back over notes and through transcripts, built a beautiful mind map of themes aligned to the research objectives and found great quotes to illustrate key points. I love this part of the process, jumping around from one idea to the next, feeling so clever when I find a new thread or connection that wasn't obvious before. The air is full of hope and possibility. 

The pain of leaving the playground

Now all that remains is to ‘write it up’.

It sounds so benign and straightforward, doesn't it? Just write it up. Transfer what you discovered into a document, because you can't give your hand-drawn map, sticky notes and sketched diagrams to the client (at least I don’t think you can - I’ve never actually offered to do this). No, those glistening gems of insight must be squeezed into a smaller space now, pulled from your brain like children reluctant to leave the playground, and bundled into the car to be shipped off somewhere else.

This is painful. It hurts my ego when the idea that was a great sketch on paper doesn’t survive the journey to PowerPoint. It hurts when I realise there's a contradiction between two of my key findings that must be resolved, or the whole argument falls apart. It hurts when I realise that student quote I LOVE doesn't support the point I want to make, and now I have to go hunting back through transcripts for a different one. It hurts that I've spent four hours on this and have three slides to show for it, one of which I don’t think makes sense now.

It’s not the writing, stupid (it’s the thinking)

I wrote my first professional research debrief in 2002. They promised me it would get easier, but I don’t think it has - I’m just better at it, and take on more complex projects these days. In my kind of work, where human experiences are unpicked and unpacked in all their contradictory complexity, the write up isn't just a formality; it's a fundamental part of the analysis process. If I can't write it down (or up, or out…) I haven't clarified it enough in my own mind, and I can’t communicate it properly to anyone else.

So what makes it worth it? For the clients, the extra mile during the write-up makes a huge difference to the longevity and application of the findings - we can return to them again and again, sometimes years later, and still see something new. Selfishly, there’s the personal satisfaction of getting to those deeper, juicier insights, and knowing I made the most of our interviewees’ time and effort to participate. Finally, a tough write-up often makes the final recommendations a breeze to write; they feel obvious to me, and that's a sign I've been on the right track. They’ve got layers, just like Dante’s purgatory. But with more actionable insights and fewer tortured souls.

Practical tips: from me, and the real writers

Not everyone agrees that writing things up (or down) is important, but if you’re reading this, I’m guessing you do. So here’s what works for me, sometimes:

✍️ Writing by hand first – can relieve ‘writer’s block’ for anything from wordy blogs to difficult sections of reports and visual ideas for slides and frameworks. Added bonus of getting you away from the screen.

🚶‍♀️ Go for a walk – classic, but it really works, a lot of the time. Takes the pressure off so you can think outside the page.

🗣️ Speak ideas out to yourself – this usually goes along with the walking, when suddenly I have a blinding insight and have nothing to write on. Open the voice memo app on your phone and hit record. It’s often 90% rubbish, and 10% something I can use.

🍅 Pomodoro technique – set a 25-minute timer and don’t let yourself do anything else during that time. Have a 5-minute break, then go again. It works for a bit, but I often cheat and check my email when the writing gets too hard.

📅 Ask your client/ boss to give you a tighter deadline so you have no choice but to knuckle down. Bit of a risky one, but gets the job done.

If these don’t float your writing boat, I recommend you consult real writers for their tips, including buying a cat, staying up late, and not drinking. I’m a particular fan of Hemingway’s ‘stop while the going is good’, and whilst I get Muriel Spark’s cat idea, my writing companion animal of choice is always a rescue greyhound.

A final piece of advice? Getting through writing purgatory is a bit like going on a bear hunt: you can't go over it; you can't go under it – you just have to go through it. And if you need to write a blog to avoid finishing your write-up, so be it. At least you did some writing.