My writing workflow as a historian

Nothing fancy, just repetition and comfort. Repetition and comfort.

I tend to use Medium as a place to write about how technology fits into my professional and personal life. I usually keep how I do my work as a historian separate, but I thought it might be useful for me to explain how I go from raw manuscript material to published article or book. Spoiler: there is nothing particularly fancy or mysterious about about follows. I’m a deeply flawed writer and historian, but I have managed to churn out published outputs at a decent rate since I finished my doctorate in 2012 and helped a few other scholars do the same in various editorial roles.

To tell the truth, I feel a bit odd writing about how I work. It feels like a sort of violation that I’m talking about how things get done, rather than the things themselves. Also, the approach that follows won’t work for everyone (it probably won’t work for most people). The message, I guess, is to find an approach that offers the same benefits and that suits your line of work.

In brief: My work is best described as niche. I write about religious cultures in early modern Britain and Ireland, with a particular focus on Scotland. My books and articles are written for specialist audiences in mind and don’t sell in massive numbers. Manuscripts like this…