How I Keep Writing (Even When I Don’t Feel Like It)

The Power of Skill Power Over Will Power

Personal Reflections

Since the start of this year, I am on sabbatical. Actually, it is my first sabbatical ever. Fully acknowledging that sabbaticals are a luxury of academic life, I made the most out of it. I am a 46 years old academic, with way too much energy so what to do when I slow down. My first month were filled with doomscrolling, no wonder for a political scientist in this day and age. This clearly got me nowhere. After settling into a more quiet mode, I started to reflect on my professional life of over two decades now. What were the key takeaways for me? The key takeaway for me is that none of this came easy: I am a first generation scholar, suffer from dyslexia, write in a foreign language and often feel like a outsider in my profession — where let’s face for many being an academic is like being part of family business. What I have learned, fully out of need, is to harness my skill power.

1. The Power of Skill Over Spark

As I’ve moved into a more senior role in academia (and yes, gotten a bit older along the way), I’ve found myself on the receiving end of a question I used to ask others: How do you keep writing academic papers, policy pieces, op-eds? How do you juggle it all and still find the energy to put words on a page?

My honest answer might surprise you. It’s not talent. It’s not willpower. It’s definitely not motivation (because if I waited for that, nothing would get done!). Sure, all those things help, but the real driver, the thing I’ve come to rely on, is something I call skill power.

Let me explain. You know that moment when you open your laptop, the document stares back at you, and the blinking cursor starts to feel like a countdown to failure? Yeah, that one. The blank page isn’t just empty. It’s loud. It says: “You should have something brilliant to say.” And when you don’t? Cue the anxiety spiral. But here’s the truth I’ve learned, the hard way: you don’t have to “have it”, you need to be able to shape it. Writing, thinking, creating—these don’t start with having “it.” They start with doing it.

We love to mythologize academic or literary achievement. We talk about genius, inspiration, the sudden flash of insight that leads to a breakthrough. That is what today’s thought leaders are made of, right? But most of the time, it’s not like that. Real progress doesn’t look like a lightbulb turning on. It looks like a person showing up again and again, working through confusion, reshaping a paragraph for the fifth or fifteenth time, and learning to trust the process.

2. Becoming a Sculptor

For me this means to think like a sculptor. A writer friend of mine once told me a famous anecdote about Michelangelo, the famous Italian sculptor. Apparently, when embarking on a sculpture, Michelangelo would be sitting in front of a block of marble for ages. When asked what he was doing, he apparently answered: “I’m working.” He manifested his statue of David in marble, and for the rest would be “just” chipping away at it, with the firm inner belief that the statue was in there somewhere.

A sculptor doesn't stare at a block of marble to will his masterpiece into existence. The marble has its own grain, weight, and quirks. It resists. It surprises. We can’t change the marble, we can only learn how to work with it. Each cut is deliberate, but informed by feel and failure. It’s not force, it’s finesse.

Writing is the same. Our thoughts, our ideas, they are our marble. We can’t bend them into perfect shape by force. We have to get our hands on the material. We have to chip away at it. We have to trust that form will come not through brilliance, but through movement. Motion, not motivation, shapes outcomes.

3. Harness Your Skill Power

That’s the heart of skill power. It’s not about waiting for the muse to show up. It’s about getting to work anyway. And once we start, something shifts. One sentence leads to another. One idea clarifies. One small insight opens a door. That’s not inspiration. That’s motion building momentum. And here’s another thing: the marble is not just our ideas. It’s also our inbox. Our time. Our exhaustion. The policies, deadlines, meetings, and admin that stack up like noise around the work we care about. That’s all part of our material. We don’t get to wish it away. We learn to sculpt around it. Within it.

Skill power means showing up not when it's easy, but when it's real. It’s knowing that most days won’t feel like breakthroughs. It’s finding satisfaction in the slow, daily cuts. The kind that don’t look like much, but that shape something over time. A book doesn’t get written in a burst. It’s built, like a sculpture, from a thousand practiced motions. So, if you’re staring at the page today, feeling stuck or uncertain, let me offer this: don’t wait to “have it.” That perfect idea, that beautiful argument, that crisp conclusion. They’re not waiting inside you, fully formed. They are hiding inside the doing. Pick up your chisel, and start cutting!

4. Respect the Marble

We don’t need to know exactly what we're sculpting yet. We just need to move. Be the sculptor. Respect the marble. Trust your skill. And keep moving. And if you’re reading this and need a boost—or want to talk through how to build your own skill power—I’d love to connect. This work is hard, but I am hear to tell you that you’re not doing it alone.

5. Subscribe and Stay in Touch

Start with what is in front of you, and take it step by step. I learned my of these insights the hard way and love to extend the ways to harness skill power and create a community of mutual inspiration and support. The way to start is to chip away at these topics in this Substack and really appreciate your feedback. Follow me here, on BlueSky @catherinedevries.bsky.social or LinkedIn and let me know what your thoughts.

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