For example, there’s a huge academic output about intellectual property, which is one of my practice specialties. Some of it is interesting at an intellectual level, occasionally an article is useful for some writing I do for a business magazine (especially if it’s grounded in history, rather than in economic theory); but for my practice almost none has been helpful.

So I’d be interested to know what are writers’ expectations about their audience — has anyone done a survey?

Here’s the story:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/01/18/hamline

http://legalperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/12/legal-blogs-versus-legal-scholarship.html

As for how and where to write: ala Byatt (Matisse Stories?), I’ve always wanted a totally blank room to write in. I’ve heard that Xingjian Gao actually does compose his novels in an empty room on blank paper on a glass table.

But I’ve never come close to doing this, and basically have a ton of papers/files all over my real/virtual desktop.

I find this discussion of productivity interesting:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2007/12/13/segments/90395

“Andy Hines, futurist and director of consulting at Social Technologies, a DC consulting company, and Lisa Belkin, New York Times “Life’s Work” columnist . . . talk about “white spaces” where people find their creativity. Where is your white space?”

Finally, Julie Cohen has a great reflection on creativity and copyright theory that makes me wonder why I used the word “productivity” above. Does the word “creativity” sound too subjective, too frivolous? On the other hand, doesn’t the term “productivity” smack too much of Gradgrind-style economism?

Whatever the term, I have found that the key to motivation is to have a deadline (ideally for a conference) where I can discuss ideas with others. To the extent we can model these sorts of interactions online–or can develop innovative ways of collaborating on work together–legal scholars may be able to catch up to the level of cooperation evident in science. See, e.g.:

http://madisonian.net/archives/2007/12/22/egalitarian-synthetic-biology/