Welcome to the webinar
Three Secrets To An Academic Writing Plan That Gets You Published
AS SEEN ON:
INSIDE
HIGHER EDUCATION
Meet Your Host
Cathy Mazak has a PhD in Critical Studies in the Teaching of English from Michigan State University. Throughout her career she won a Spencer Dissertation Fellowship and over $500,000 in federal funding for her work with bilingual university students in Puerto Rico. As a tenured, full professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, she founded a research center and fostered international collaborations around her work in bilingualism and linguistics.
Trained by top scholars in composition studies and a prolific publisher herself, Cathy launched Navigate in summer 2017, and it has since helped over 500 academics learn to write and publish more.
She is making her mark as a thought leader through her podcast, Academic Writing Amplified, which has over 100,000 downloads, and her upcoming book, “Making Time To Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing”.
You know you need to write more, but how?
Uncover the systems that successful academics use to get their publication pipelines flowing and reach their career goals
Cause you think it’s about time, but it’s about so much more…
My dissertation just sat there, gathering dust.
Between teaching ninety new students, three new preps, and being thrown onto every committee as “new blood”, I couldn’t seem to find five minutes to get back to the number one thing that was going to get me promoted: writing for publication.
And that tenure clock kept ticking, and ticking.
You’ve figured out a lot of things for yourself in your academic career so far (#smartypants), so there’s no reason why you can’t figure out how to keep writing from plummeting to the bottom of your list every. single. time. Sure, you’re busy, but “productivity” isn’t rocket science (and maybe you are a rocket scientist!). If you could just write 500 words per day, wake up an hour before your family, find a writing buddy, or write all weekend, you could get those pubs out. It’s not that hard…
Then why are you sitting on a mountain of half-done pubs with nothing under review? #ouch
You think you need big blocks of time, more accountability, or just to suck it up and work harder (how could you possibly work any harder?), but you’re too busy…
Planning and prepping to impress students into giving you stellar teaching reviews (spoiler alert: they still won’t)
Waiting to write until you have big blocks of time that never come
Feeling so overwhelmed when you do sit down to write that nothing gets done
Exhausted from feeling guilty any time you take a break (after all, you could be writing!)
With so much riding on a CV full of publications…it’s no wonder that so many womxn and nonbinary professors burn out and leave academia before ever reaching full professor.
My first year on the tenure track flew by with my pipeline completely stalled.
That’s OK! I thought. I just needed to get my bearings! The summer before my second year on the tenure track, I got pregnant. I spent the Fall semester throwing up and the Spring semester having the baby and caring for an infant. And my pipeline? Still stalled out.
Year three and things were getting serious. Dire, maybe. But now I had a baby. And the only possible time that I could spend working was…well, when I was at work and she was at daycare. It was not enough to be in the same room as this child. I had to be interacting directly with her every moment that we were together. And when she was asleep? I was asleep too. There was no way that I was going to go up for tenure with enough publications if I kept letting every other part of my career bump my writing. So thanks to that baby girl, in year three I learned exactly how to put my writing first. I figured out that writing isn’t about time–it’s about systems and strategies.
Three kids later, the systems I learned in year three on the tenure track helped me write the publications that got me to full professor. They helped me win over half a million dollars in grant funding as early career faculty and establish a research center on my campus (not bad for an English major, amiright?). By the time I got to kiddo number three, I was able to manipulate my pipeline with such precision that I had everything under review when I went on maternity, and two edited volumes with prestigious academic presses and an article in a top tier journal were published in the semester I got back from mat leave. People were like: How did you do that? Did you write during your leave?
Nope, I just used the writing systems I developed to control my pipeline and design my career. I took an entire year for maternity. And I didn’t work nights and weekends (and never have).
Now I want to teach those systems to you.
AS SEEN ON:
INSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION
It’s time to de-clog your publication pipeline with
NAVIGATE:
Your Writing Roadmap®
The patriarchy-smashing system for womxn and nonbinary academics
ready to propel their careers by writing and publishing more.
ready to propel their careers by writing and publishing more.
Perfect if you’re ambitious but exhausted!
Pre-tenure • Post-tenure • Professors at all stages
Imagine what it will feel like when you’re finally able to move a stalled project forward.
This strategic set of systems is what grad school never taught you about prolific publishing (while juggling your thousands of other responsibilities):
Cultivate your writing time without working nights and weekends–or waking up before everyone else (hear me: writing should be part of your work day–not an add-on!)
Manage your writing projects so that you know exactly what to work on when you sit down to write
Resuscitate (or say goodbye to) stalled-out writing projects so that your pipeline flooows
Pour your best energy into your writing and publishing, even if you have a heavy teaching load
Sustain career-altering writing, time management, and planning systems so that your academic life is less-stressed and more fulfilling
Create a prolific publication pipeline that supports your career goals without you breaking down, or burning out
“Navigate has so many useful tools I go back to frequently, even years after taking it. Module 2 has changed my professional life! This program is perfect for anyone who feels overwhelmed by writing and feeling like it’s constantly going to the bottom of the pile. If that’s your pattern, get Navigate and figure out how to have your weekends back and how to have that weeklong vacation!”
– Nicole Pettit
P R O U D L Y T R U S T E D B Y F A C U L T Y A T:
Cathy Mazak has a PhD in Critical Studies in the Teaching of English from Michigan State University. Throughout her career she won a Spencer Dissertation Fellowship and over $500,000 in federal funding for her work with bilingual university students in Puerto Rico. As a tenured, full professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, she founded a research center and fostered international collaborations around her work in bilingualism and linguistics.
Trained by top scholars in composition studies and a prolific publisher herself, Cathy launched Navigate in summer 2017, and it has since helped over 500 academics learn to write and publish more.
She is making her mark as a thought leader through her podcast, Academic Writing Amplified, and her upcoming book, Making Time To Write: How To Resist Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing.
“Cathy, I was a skeptic when I started this, but look what you have done!!! I am astonished. I entered this Writing Roadmap online course, and have been doing the assignments and planning exercises for a few hours each week for 4 weeks. I don’t think I have felt better about my work in years.”
– Lena Struwe
What’s included in NAVIGATE
System 1: The Mission Method
Create the focus that will propel your writing (and your career)
Most academics feel pulled in a thousand directions because, well, they are. But the secret to a successful career–and much more writing and publishing–lies in how narrowly focused and uniquely branded you can make yourself. You’ll use our mission method to stop being blown in the wind by every “interesting” idea you have and discover the unique academic contribution your work makes.
- Dig deep to find the real motivation behind why you want to write and publish more.
- Come away with your academic mission statement clearly written and hanging on your wall. 🙂
TOOLS INSIDE:
Academic Mission Statement Template
Mission-based decision-making flowchart
System 2: Activity Alignment
Cull the creep and learn to say no
The glorification of overwork is so real in academia that you think you must be stretched to your limits 24/7 or you’re doing it wrong. Because you have no system for sorting the projects you take on–or getting rid of projects that you shouldn’t have said “yes” to in the first place–it’s easy to get overwhelmed by serious activities creep.
- Use our proven set of rubrics to assess everything you’re doing right now and cull the off-mission activities.
- Align the activities that you can’t eliminate (Spoiler alert: this is the key to feeling less stressed).
TOOLS INSIDE:
Activity Alignment Rubrics
Your plan of action to cull the creep
System 3: Freeing Time
Implement templates and workflows to free up time for writing
You’ve read a dozen time management books by now, but there’s always some key thing that’s impossible to implement. That’s because you’ve never learned academic time management from an academic mom of three.
- Snag done-for-you workflows and templates that you can tweak and implement immediately.
- Clearly set boundaries around your time.
TOOLS INSIDE:
Done-for-you systems and processes for email, teaching, students, and meetings
Your Ideal Week plan
System 4: Soaring (vs slogging) Sessions
Repair your relationship with writing and implement a comprehensive, sustainable system
Are you avoiding writing because it feels like a slog? Do you feel like you can get writing done for the first few weeks of the semester and then your writing time gets eaten up when the semester hits the fan? Relegating all your writing to the summer and then collapsing? Yep, you need a system.
- Learn our customized three-pronged system to go from slogging to soaring whenever you sit down to write.
- Completely change the way you’ve been relating to your writing so that your writing practice feels good, has momentum, and stays consistent.
TOOLS INSIDE:
The Soaring System (the three-tiered relationship-based writing system)
System 5: The Write Goals Method
Learn The Write Goals Method for goal-setting that gains momentum
If you keep setting goals you can’t hit you’re pulling the brakes on your own writing practice. Get out of your own way–and use goal-setting to propel your work forward by understanding the power of “write” goal setting.
- Discover The Write Goals Method to determine which type of writing goals will motivate you.
- Create a customized system for setting goals that you can hit.
TOOLS INSIDE:
Three types of writing goals–which one are you?
Goal trackers
Your system for creating rewards
System 6: Mindset Mastery
Unlearn the crap academia has taught you that gets in the way of writing confidently
Academia trains you to operate in scarcity mode: there is never enough time, publications, or money! It also trains you to fear writing because writing=critique (thanks a lot, reviewer #2!).
- Using my mindset mastery system, unlearn these negative messages and replace them with the abundant mindset you need to write and publish more.
- Come back to this work over and over again as you rise through the ranks of academia (cause new levels, new devils!).
TOOLS INSIDE:
”Flip the script” mindset plan
R&R response system
System 7: Project Propel
Finally figure out how long it actually takes to do things so that you can project plan like an expert
Feeling defeated by your never-checked-off to-do list? You might be making a common mistake: your listing projects on the list, not tasks.
- Learn how to break your projects into tasks so that you propel your projects forward–instead of drowning in them.
- Discover the secret to estimating time-to-task so that you can predict how long your projects will take to succeed.
TOOLS INSIDE:
Task templates for writing projects
System 8: The Power Pipeline
Learn the Power Pipeline Method to get that publication pipeline flooowing
If you’re trying to hold your entire publication pipeline in your head, it’s time to #levelup. In this system you’ll map out your publication pipeline and diagnose the clogs that are keeping you from getting your pubs out the door.
- Understand all the steps in your pipeline process so that you can control them to your career advantage.
- Create a curated pipeline and learn the power of carefully selecting what makes it into the pipeline–and what makes it out.
TOOLS INSIDE:
Your mapped-out Publication Pipeline
System 9: A Year-long Writing Roadmap
Create a year-long plan you can stick to
Academic publishing is a long game, and even though it varies by field, most writing projects take months–or years–from idea to publication. That can make it difficult to really envision how your publications will work for you this year.
- Create a year-long writing plan that works with all the other things you’re doing, not in spite of them.
- Learn how to stick to a plan--and how to re-adjust when things go wrong.
TOOLS INSIDE:
Your 3x3x3 writing planning process
System 10: The Five-year Framework
Envision your next five years and reverse engineer to reach a big goal
Where will you be five years from now? Tenured? Full? Running a research center? In a new job at a better-fit university? Whatever you dream for yourself, you’ll create a publication plan to get you there.
- Get clarity around your big goal.
- Reverse engineer your publications to achieve your goal.
TOOLS INSIDE:
Your 5-year plan
Follow our year-long syllabus to meet five program milestones
Milestone 1: You have two hours of writing blocked on your calendar and you honor those two hours
You will have completed enough of the Navigate course material to free up at least two hours of your time per week, ideally during your Soaring State
We’ll help you honor that writing time in our Co-Writing Sessions
By this milestone, writing has become a non-negotiable appointment in your calendar
Milestone 2: Your pipeline is mapped out
You will have all the steps in YOUR pipeline figured out and your current projects mapped onto a graphic representation of your pipeline.
This will become your map for the rest of the year, and will help you complete Milestones 3, 4 and 5.
Milestone 3: Submit a “low-hanging fruit” writing project for publication
A “low-hanging fruit” project is an almost-done project where you have collected and analyzed data, done the majority of the reading for literature review, and you have begun to get words on the page.
An ideal project for this milestone would be one that is on-mission but you have lost energy on and needs to be revived.
Milestones 4 & 5: Create your own milestone
You have worked hard throughout the Navigate program to dial in your mission statement and the projects that support it.
You’ve also worked on being able to predict how long projects take you to complete by refining your goal-setting and task-breakdown skills.
At each milestone, you will submit a form for coach feedback.
Private Podcast Version of Navigate
(Value=$997)
Your Navigate content is delivered right in your podcast app, so that you can learn while driving, walking, or sitting at soccer practice
The Funding Formula
(Value=$200)
Our proven method for getting your university to pay for whatever you want
- Funding request templates letter and argument-building workshop
- If you’re not getting what you want from your university you’re asking wrong!
NAVIGATE:
Your Writing Roadmap®
Weekly 30-min Group Coaching for one year (Valued at $5200)
A yearlong 10-system program (Valued at $3000)
Daily co-writing via Zoom for one year (Valued at $2600)
Private Podcast Version of Navigate (Valued at $997)
Three guided writing sprints (Valued at $600)
Three Semester-ly Planning Workshops (New Year’s/Summer/September) (Valued at $600)
Weekly “Ask a coach” video response to your questions
(Valued at $350)
(Valued at $350)
Our active (and supportive!) Slack group (Valued at $300)
The Funding Formula (Valued at $200)
Total Value =$13,847
Today’s Price=$2,997
or get started for $297 today (plus 11 more payments)
The Reviewer #2 Guarantee
If you’ve reviewed this program and still haven’t repaired your relationship with writing, de-clogged your pipeline, and reduced your everyday career stress, you deserve your money back.
Just send us an email within 14 days of purchase giving our course a big old “reject!” and we’ll happily refund you, no questions asked.
See what others are saying about
Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap®
“Cathy’s combination of group discussions, video lectures, and helpful, high-quality materials helped me to put my entire career into focus.”
– Lisa
“To this group – thank you for the support and for helping me know that even though I am solitary, I am part of a larger community of women all trying to make time to write amidst the chaos of life.”
– Marlaine
“I am so grateful to Cathy for creating a space for women to learn from each other in an encouraging and engaging atmosphere.”
– Katharina
“I enjoyed seeing everybody on the group call today! Simply knowing that there are so many others doing the same work as me to improve their academic lives gives me great comfort.”
– Julie
Let’s get real…
Can you really keep up the pace you’re going at now?
Is this how you imagined your career would feel, after busting your butt during your PhD?
The longer you wait before you take control of your career the bigger the snowball of stuff you have to do gets.
And this has a real cost for you: an actual monetary cost (tenure and promotion) and an emotional one as well.
If you join us today, you will:
Stop feeling exhausted, lost, and stressed out because your writing is not getting done
Learn how to take control of your career direction through writing and publication
Create an actionable one-year plan to write and publish more
Start changing the culture of academia from the culture of overwork to the culture of calm and clarity that puts YOU in control
If you wait, you’ll still be frustrated, stressed, and overwhelmed when the next semester starts.
A month from now, you’ll wish you joined us today!
“This course was wonderful and really did change some of my work habits. I love your attitude and your style, and I think the course had a kind of quiet power that began to seep into my life without my really noticing. It’s impossible to feel alone while doing the course. I really feel like I have not just tools for getting my important work done but a sense of empowerment and perspective about what matters TO ME.”
– Elizabeth Haswell
NAVIGATE:
Your Writing Roadmap®
Weekly 30-min Group Coaching for one year (Valued at $5200)
A yearlong 10-system program
(Valued at $3000)
(Valued at $3000)
Daily co-writing via Zoom for one year
(Valued at $2600)
(Valued at $2600)
Private Podcast Version of Navigate
(Valued at $997)
(Valued at $997)
Three guided writing sprints
(Valued at $600)
(Valued at $600)
Three Semester-ly Planning Workshops (New Year’s/Summer/September) (Valued at $600)
Weekly “Ask a coach” video response to your questions
(Valued at $350)
(Valued at $350)
Our active (and supportive!) Slack group (Valued at $300)
The Funding Formula (Valued at $200)
Total Value =$13,847
Today’s Price=$2,997
or get started for $297 today (plus 11 more payments)
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How many hours will I need to dedicate to this program?
Most people think that their problem with publishing is that they lack time. That’s because your default mode is putting out fires–not pro-actively constructing your dream career.
On average, members of Navigate are able to add 2-4 hours of consistent writing per week AND avoid working on nights and weekends by getting out of putting-out-fires mode. (Oh, and I am vehemently against all that “wake up before your kids” advice #hellopatriarchy). You can expect to get that result from dedicating 60-90 minutes per week to participating in this program AND writing more.
Can anyone from any field of study benefit from Navigate?
I see you giving me side eye, scientists!
The ableist racist patriarchy wants us to believe that we’re all sooooo different. And sometimes it really does feel like writing and publishing in different disciplines are completely different universes (academic party trick: ask an engineer and a historian how many pages a peer-reviewed article should be!).
But here’s a problem that we can agree on: we need to find time to write. Solving that problem is not field specific at. all. I’ve worked with hundreds of academic womxn and nonbinary professors in a multitude of disciplines and solving their writing and publishing problems boils down to the same set of systems (which, by the way, are exactly the systems I teach in this course).
What if I fall behind or can’t start the program on time?
If you’re asking this question you’re probably a front-sitter. And maybe just a teensy bit afraid of failing.
You’ll be relieved to know that this program is NOT structured like a university course. In this program I had complete freedom as an instructor to create EXACTLY what I knew you needed. No minimum contact hours or credit hours x 1.5=office hours formulas here! So this program is delivered in easy-to-digest chunks made for people who need to stop and start and pick up where they left off. You get one year of access to the program so there is no behind (you can put your hand down now, overachiever).
I really only have one problematic project that I can’t seem to take action on. Do I really need this whole program?
We’ve helped over 500 academics write and publish more in my courses, programs, and coaching. You might think it’s about one project, but I’m willing to bet my PhD it’s not. If you had the systems I teach in Navigate in place, there is no way that one project could slow you down. Your one project problem is a symptom of bigger underlying issues–that will only get worse as your career goes on.
This is kind of a big investment. Can I get my university to pay for it?
Sure. But we need to have a talk about this. Please pull up a metaphorical chair. Whose career is it: your university’s or yours? Who is responsible for your success? I’m worried about YOUR development as a scholar, and the trajectory of YOUR career, NOT what your university thinks you should do, or how many publications they think you should have (they’ll never give you a straight answer about that anyway!). This program is about YOU taking control of your career through writing and publishing. If you still want your university to pay for it, our Funding Formula bonus will help you go after that reimbursement. (And if after all that soapboxing you still want your uni to foot the bill, just write us at support@cathymazak.com and we’ll take care of the paperwork.)
Have more questions about Navigate?
Email us at writing@cathymazak.com!
P R O U D L Y T R U S T E D B Y F A C U L T Y A T:
Let’s be honest.
You can’t keep up this pace.
If this is what the next 20 or 30 years is going to feel like, do you even want this career?
But hey–I for one am not willing to let all the most brilliant, socially-conscious, mission-driven, change-making academics cut their careers short because of burnout. That’s not acceptable to me personally, and it’s downright bad for knowledge-making and humanity.
You need to succeed in academia, but you need to do it on your terms.
Publishing is the missing piece. If you can figure out how to get your writing consistent and your pipeline flowing, then you have definitely got this.
Navigate is the key.
There are so many things that you can do to make it feel like you are steering your career ship, and nobody talks about them. With Navigate, you’ll not only fix your publishing problem today, you’ll fix it for the rest of your career.
And I’ll be with you, cheering you on!
