The Fear of the Crappy Draft

- career
The only reason for having this blog is that I very much enjoy writing. I enjoy using language, finding the perfect word for the purpose at hand, being witty, making up expressions, and rewriting everything until it flows and sounds right. I especially enjoy writing about myself and the things I care about - which, well, is the point of a personal blog. And it is a great side effect that in doing so I can at the same time inform friends and family of how I’m doing and show off some cool pics (and  hopefully make everyone want to move to Scotland). 

And you would think that writing job applications which are also mainly about me and what I care about should come easily to me. But it doesn’t. The thing is that I look at job applications completely differently than I look at blog posts, and I shouldn’t. In both cases I am trying to be brutally honest about who I am, what I’ve done, what I want, and why I want it. In my blog, I just start writing a little bit about the topic at hand and then edit a lot. Once I have a first draft there is something there to work with and make it sound good. But for some reason I have this irrational fear of writing a first (usually crappy) draft of a covering letter or a CV profile, a fear that leads to much procrastination (click), which rarely happens when writing a blog. So why is that I wonder? And would it help to write the crappy draft in Blogger instead of Word?

So what I sometimes do now is to write something silly in my draft to take off the pressure and make it more fun - more like a blog post. Something along the lines of  failed academic scientist with mad communication skills is ready to save the world with evidence-based policy advice. That seems to help things get started a little bit. I just need to make sure to edit it properly in the end and not let my cheekiness overcome my professionalism. 

Well, and now back to my application then.


Comments

Too bad you rarely can make a living from writing a blog. I always enjoy reading your blog, so keep on going! Nevertheless, I still do not want to live in Scotland. My perfect place to live would be where you can walk around in a t-shirt all year long, but without sweating a lot. Oh, and around 3000 h of sunshine each year! :) - der Erich

Well, it’s good then that you’re are a European citizen. There must be a plcae like that in the EU where you could easily move to. Canary Islands maybe? Start working on your early retirement! - Maike

Yes, Canary Islands are quite close to what I am thinking of. However, “merely” 5 h of flight from Germany! And I would probably get a “Inselkoller” as they are not very big. - der Erich

Toughen up dear Erich, and you will be able to run around in a T-shirt all year round - like a true Scotsman!;-) There is a lot of sunshine up north - long summer days. Sun and no clouds and sunshine hidden behind clouds. Who would want to be fussy? - Kat