Eviatar Zerubavel is Board of Governors and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University, where for many years he served as the Director of the Graduate Program in Sociology. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the author of many books.

Eviatar Zerubavel takes issue with books on research and writing that imply that checklists and synopses of resources and literary texts are all the equipment a writer requires to start a research project. In The Clockwork Muse, he assumes that writer’s block is natural, pervasive, and tends to prevail regardless of an individual’s ability, ideas, and resources. He argues, therefore, that any writer’s first task is to insure himself against this paralyzing condition by commanding the ‘procedural’, not the ‘material’, aspects of producing a manuscript. The basis of his philosophy is ‘temporal organization’: self-disciplined planning—‘methodicalness and routinisation’—result in manuscripts written well and on time.

• * Acknowledgments 1. The Clockwork Muse 2. The Writing Schedule * Setting Priorities * The Writing Session * A Time to Write * Ideals and Constraints * Quiet Times * Keeping Your Momentum * A-Time and B-Time 3. A Mountain with Stairs * Divide and Conquer * The Outline * Drafts and Revisions 4. The Project Timetable * Estimating Length * Pacing Yourself * Deadlines 5. The Mechanics of Progress * Getting Started * Moving Along * Closing * Storage and Retrieval * Road Maps and Benchmarks * Discipline and Flexibility * Notes * Index

Eviatar Zerubavel is Board of Governors and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University, where for many years he served as the Director of the Graduate Program in Sociology. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the author of many books.

Eviatar Zerubavel takes issue with books on research and writing that imply that checklists and synopses of resources and literary texts are all the equipment a writer requires to start a research project. In The Clockwork Muse, he assumes that writer’s block is natural, pervasive, and tends to prevail regardless of an individual’s ability, ideas, and resources. He argues, therefore, that any writer’s first task is to insure himself against this paralyzing condition by commanding the ‘procedural’, not the ‘material’, aspects of producing a manuscript. The basis of his philosophy is ‘temporal organization’: self-disciplined planning—‘methodicalness and routinisation’—result in manuscripts written well and on time.

• * Acknowledgments 1. The Clockwork Muse 2. The Writing Schedule * Setting Priorities * The Writing Session * A Time to Write * Ideals and Constraints * Quiet Times * Keeping Your Momentum * A-Time and B-Time 3. A Mountain with Stairs * Divide and Conquer * The Outline * Drafts and Revisions 4. The Project Timetable * Estimating Length * Pacing Yourself * Deadlines 5. The Mechanics of Progress * Getting Started * Moving Along * Closing * Storage and Retrieval * Road Maps and Benchmarks * Discipline and Flexibility * Notes * Index

Eviatar Zerubavel is Board of Governors and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University, where for many years he served as the Director of the Graduate Program in Sociology. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the author of many books.

Eviatar Zerubavel takes issue with books on research and writing that imply that checklists and synopses of resources and literary texts are all the equipment a writer requires to start a research project. In The Clockwork Muse, he assumes that writer’s block is natural, pervasive, and tends to prevail regardless of an individual’s ability, ideas, and resources. He argues, therefore, that any writer’s first task is to insure himself against this paralyzing condition by commanding the ‘procedural’, not the ‘material’, aspects of producing a manuscript. The basis of his philosophy is ‘temporal organization’: self-disciplined planning—‘methodicalness and routinisation’—result in manuscripts written well and on time.

• * Acknowledgments 1. The Clockwork Muse 2. The Writing Schedule * Setting Priorities * The Writing Session * A Time to Write * Ideals and Constraints * Quiet Times * Keeping Your Momentum * A-Time and B-Time 3. A Mountain with Stairs * Divide and Conquer * The Outline * Drafts and Revisions 4. The Project Timetable * Estimating Length * Pacing Yourself * Deadlines 5. The Mechanics of Progress * Getting Started * Moving Along * Closing * Storage and Retrieval * Road Maps and Benchmarks * Discipline and Flexibility * Notes * Index