Matched-pair samples (N= 174) of women and men faculty at doctoral-level universities and at traditionally women's colleges responded to a questionnaire in ways indicating (a) that at universities or colleges, women equal their male colleagues' time investments in writing and males' rates of publishing journal articles; (b) that at women's colleges, men and women devoted about half as much time to writing, devote about twice as much time to teaching, and publish articles at half the rate of their university counterparts; (c) and that, in either setting, women experience more discomfort about pressures to publish, feel more adversely affected by harsh reviewers, and report less confidence with their writing than do men, especially men at universities.

We review automaticity, effortless writing that comes with freedom from excessive conscious interference, in terms of its origins in automatic writing and its growth into contemporary techniques such as free writing. We characterize automaticity (a) as a form of dissociation from consciousness, (b) as an aid to spontaneity and creativity, and (c) as a key to understanding why some writers block more readily than others. Conclusion: All forms of automaticity resemble hypnosis and, so, should be used with carefully planned structures and cautions.

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Sixty subjects, 40 of them blockers, provided over 5000 examples of self-talk accompanying the initiation and completion of writing sessions. An inductive procedure of sorting those thought-list cards into reliable and discrete categories produced 7 cognitive components of blocking (listed in descending order of importance): (1) work apprehension, (2) procrastination, (3) dysphoria, (4) impatience, (5) perfectionism, (6) evaluation anxiety, and (7) rules. Blockers were more likely than nonblockers to list negative thoughts and less likely to evidence “psych-up” thoughts during writing sessions.