I'm still here

So, my summer has begun. Classes ended. Grading ended. One more meeting with a student over a disputed grade, and then I'm done. Done with teaching.

I've been meeting friends everyday to work. We meet at about 8:30 to work at a coffee shop or other study location: Cup O' Joe, Starbucks, Caribou, or library. Today it's the library. My friend, who is almost done with her dissertation, has been helping me break down the prospectus into tiny chunks. Which I need to do. Because I can only write in tiny chunks. Little pieces. Bits. Nuggets. Morsels.

Now I'm hungry.

Okay, so today I'm going to just answer questions that I've posed for myself. Then I will proceed to setting up my critical overview. Then I will describe my project. Then I will explain specific chapters.

Yeah.

I am dissertation writer; hear me roar.

Yesterday I wrote five-and-a-half pages on a manual typewriter. They were useful and there's a good bit of useful stuff in there, but mostly I recast my whole argument for one chapter in those pages. Perhaps "recast" is too strong of a word, since it implies that my previous thinking included an argument that was worthy of being called an argument. Rather, I took my vaguely argument-like idea for one chapter and thought it through over the course of five-and-a-half pages and came out with something that feels good: an argument that's worthy of a chapter. It still needs refinement, but I feel like I can move forward with that chapter now with much, much more facility.

What? Me slacking?

Actually, it hasn't been as bad as all that. But I'm in a good mood now and so I'm being pretty self-forgiving. Probably too much so.

I have been writing, but not in any organized, forward-moving way. I've mostly been writing around my dissertation topic, trying to really get a grip on what I'm writing about. It's useful, I'm sure, but I think I need to get over the idea that my prospectus needs to be in any way accurate. It just needs to be plausible.

Like I tell my students, they don't need to discover some new Truth when writing a paper; it just has to hold together and be supportable in the text. Beyond that, anything goes. For the dissertation I think the standards are a little higher, but only a little. And for the prospectus, it needs even less than that. Or something.

Also, grading. As of this morning at 1:30, I am caught up. But that's going to change on Thursday when they turn in their final papers. Between now and Thursday, however, I've got no excuses. Plus, I bought a new (old) desk on Craigslist and now I'm even higher on the productivity scale. Look at me now, I've graduated from the folding table to the $25 recycled desk that really, really needs to be refinished. But it's sturdy as the earth itself, made of solid oak, and might be older than my parents. Lovely.

My next report will have some specifics, because I'm going to keep track with real numbers: hours and pages and tigers, oh my! You want specifics? Too bad, I'm going to give them to you anyway. Because I'm unstoppable, that's why. Cue "Eye of the Tiger", ready Steadicam, places everyone: action.

Great new source of inspiration via facebook/twitter

http://twitter.com/search?q=%23TeamAchieve

Weeks later

So, I'm not sure what happened but the last couple of weeks disappeared. I freaked out over my prospectus last Wednesday. Now, I'm not freaking out, but I'm still feeling stuck. And the grading! I've successfully procrastinated it for two weeks now! That's awful. Today, I will plunge in and do as much as possible. I want to just be done.

Also, teaching has been pretty awful for the last couple of days. My students hate the last book I've chosen for them to read (Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth), which really sucks. They have either not been reading or do not care that I'm suffering in front of them trying to talk about this hugely complex book. Discussion has been dead. Dead! What happened to my wonderful class? They have exited the building. I'm left with a bunch of duds.

Okay, it's 10:17 a.m. Can I finish grading by 8 p.m. and still have time to work on my prospectus?

Oh, right: I'm supposed to be writing now.

I'll be honest: I'm having something of a struggle getting into a rhythm now that my exams are done. I've been so focused on them for so long that the process of churning out intelligent prose seems daunting, even a little overwhelming. Or a lot overwhelming.

Plus, you know, there's grading. Which is going slowly and isn't being helped by my attitude and isn't being helped by the only way I can motivate myself sometimes is to keep a little window open to Netflix so I can watch something half-brainless.[1] I strive for 2 papers per episode, but when I'm tired that goes down to 1 paper per episode. If it goes longer than that, it's time to either (a) turn off the show, or (b) stop grading. Usually B.

But a whole day of grading-plus-dumb-TV makes for a really unsatisfying life. I find myself going to bed feeling crappy about myself and about my work and about the organization of books on my shelf and about the music on my iPhone and about, well, everything. If I write, well then, then I feel much better.

I've written just about every day (except yesterday. Yesterday was not good), but a few days it has been only for five minutes and it hasn't been any writing that really gets me anywhere. It's on topic, at least, but it's mostly high-level, thinking-about-the-big-issues stuff. Important, sure, but I can do that kind of writing all day long and never actually get anywhere. To really feel good, to know that I'm moving forward, I need to sit down and spread out some books and some notes and write something with substance, something that's attached to my primary texts or at least to significant scholarship.

I did some of that this morning. I wrote about a page for my prospectus (the intro section where I lay out the big picture and the theoretical framework and the scholarship to date) that counts as that kind of writing. It'll surely get revised down to about two sentences, but it is something. And it felt good.

So my progress for the week so far is one page of purposeful, happy writing and a few handwritten pages of mushy meandering writing/thinking. I've also just about finished reading a scholarly book and have waded through the numerous introductions leading up to a primary work I've recently added to my stable of primary works under consideration.



NOTES

[1] My half-brainless stuff-to-watch-while-grading used to be Law & Order: Criminal Intent, but I've now watched every episode on Netflix. I've started watching Bones, but it's not as good as L&O:CI. In fact, Bones is pretty dumb and it is both simplistic and condescending at the same time. But it is nice to have Emily Deschanel on screen.

Please let the grading end

I read a little tiny bit this morning before going to tutor. That was it. Then I graded. And graded. And avoided grading.

I will write tomorrow.

Tuesday means seminar day

On Tuesdays I go to my dissertation seminar. To prepare, I read and comment on documents submitted by other graduate students. In many ways, this has been helpful to me because it helps demystifies the process of writing. I see that no one writes a perfect first or second draft. There is always room for improvement, even for the most brilliant writers in the group.

But other days it feels disheartening: so many people are so much further along and have come up with such great ideas. I try so hard not to compare myself, my writing, or my project to others or their work, but it's hard. I question everything: have I chosen the right field? Will I ever come up with a project that makes any sense? Do I have anything to say?

I know this is all very unproductive, so I'm not going to dwell on this. I'm tired. It was a long day. I taught (successfully) this morning, had several appointments with students, and then prepared for dissertation seminar. Days at work are difficult. I can't get much work done in my office because I know too many people. Too many people want to talk, and while I love all the interactions, this also prevents me from getting more work done. By the time I get home, I am exhausted.

Tomorrow I do two hours of volunteer work in the morning and finish grading the exams my students took last Thursday. But before that, I will spend at least one hour in the morning working on my prospectus. That's a firm commitment.

Friday a bust, Saturday better, Sunday doesn't count, Monday disappeared

So, it's almost midnight, and I teach first thing Tuesday morning (yes, that means 7:30 a.m.). I have prepared my lesson plan for tomorrow and graded about one-quarter of the total midterms that I need to have graded by Thursday. It was a total waste of a day for writing. And, really, so was Friday. I just could not write. Well, on Friday at least I tried. Today I didn't even attempt it. I woke up with a headache (gack! humidity! you will be the death of me!) and then went back to bed, woke up again and felt like I was still asleep. I managed to grade a few exams, go into school to administer one last exam, and then prepared to teach poetry tomorrow. And that was pretty much the day. How did it go by so quickly?

Luckily, Saturday was a much needed day of work and progress. I actually opened my Word doc and actually typed some sentences, cut some other sentences, discussed my plan with a fellow PhD student. It was all rather refreshing. So, the key on Saturday to progress was: leave the house, meet up with a fellow dissertator, don't plan to do any teaching-related work, and don't have high expectations. I just planned to look at the document, and--lo and behold!--I actually did more than just look. I managed to think through the possibilities of various chapters and organization and all that jazz.

Wow. So, I'm learning. Slowly, but surely, I'm learning that like Jeff, I need to work on my stuff first or it will never get done. Mornings are going to be the key. Leaving the house and going to a cafe or the library might also be important elements. Working with another dedicated writer might also help. All these things are going into my toolbox.

Okay, off to bed and on to another day of work (mostly teaching, office hours, and dissertation seminar tomorrow, sadly).

Jeff's results for Friday, May 14

What happened? Somehow the day disappeared swamp of sloshing muck. I ran a few errands, took care of things around the house, and, well, that's about it. I did some reading for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Writing-wise, I might have put down two sentences, but I can't remember where or, frankly, what they were about. Maybe they were something I dreamed about during my nap.

I had some half-hopes to get a little done before bed, but I was called away before 9pm to watch some friends' kids while they were at the emergency room with another child. That took me to 2:30am, which has thus thrown off my plan for today (Saturday). Dang it, I need to exercise some more control than this.

I'm starting to learn (emotionally; because it's pretty obvious to my rational brain) that writing first thing in the morning really is important, if only because it'll help me avoid days like Friday. For now, enough. I'm going to stop reading about the books that influenced the writers of Lost[1] and I'm going to go read a few pages of Crawford's Blood, Bodies, and Families in Early Modern England.


NOTES

[1] Which I stopped watching a couple of years ago because it felt like it had descended too far into absurdity. It sounds like I left when things were still pretty normal. Sheesh, who wants to work so hard just to watch TV?

Anne's big goals

So, after getting behind in my studies (two years behind?), I want to see if I can make up some of that time this summer by being an incredibly diligent dissertator. Like Jeff, I have to write my prospectus first. I'm still figuring that out, but it seems like it needs to be a good, solid document that allows me to have fairly sure footing about how I proceed to writing the first of the many (four? five?) chapters that will certainly make up my dissertation.

I am the biggest procrastinator ever, and I have major writing anxiety, so I hope that this blog will give me motivation to write every day and help me work out my anxieties about putting the pen to paper (or, the fingers to the keyboard, as we do).

This was my first week of a really open schedule in which I could have written every day and didn't. Instead, I did everything else possible. I took care of a stray cat, washed dishes, chased the ants around my kitchen, did several loads of laundry, ate cookies, fretted about my new job's low wages, napped, worried about my student's mid-term exam. And other stuff that's too banal to list here. It was also the first week in which my partner was out of the house everyday. He started work in Dayton for the summer, which means I am without a car but have gained an empty house, which should be perfect for writing and reading, right? Well, it wasn't perfect by any means. I got a headache; I got overwhelmed. I don't know where to start. I may have to begin going to the library to work. Home is full of domestic temptations. And a nice bed that is way too perfect for naps. On the other hand, I have all my snacks and hot tea and books here. And I don't have to lug it all on my back when I want to work. I can just clear off my desk (aka dining room table) and get to work. Or something.

Well, like Jeff, I would like to accomplish between 70 and 80 pages this summer, which means not only about 5 pages a week, but also means a lot of writing and note-taking and thinking. Please let my brain work this summer! Please let me have brilliant ideas! Or even mediocre ones that can be formed into sentences.

Fortunately, it's only 1 p.m., so I still have time to be productive. I have an appointment at 4 p.m., so I will read and take notes for my prospectus until then. A report to follow later today or tomorrow.

Jeff's goals: the big picture

Right now I'm looking at a target rate of only 4.5 pages per week to hit my big goal of 80 pages[1] before the Fall term begins. I wish I could just sit down and bang out a page a day and call it good, but sadly there's a lot more to it than that.

Sometimes I wish I were just writing a novel and could do just that. Then again, I've tried to write a novel and discovered that it's hard, hard work. So sometimes I wish I were writing a novel until I remember how hard it is to write a novel and then I recognize that both kinds of writing are harder than they look.[2] I need to remind myself of that, often, so I don't get caught up in the self-loathing that is pretty typical for me.

Then there's the other little problem that I don't yet have my prospectus done and accepted. So I need to write that first, and then perhaps recalculate my pages-per-week. Which is kind of a bummer, because I find the 4.5 pages per week a pretty comforting number. And nothing says that I have to wait until the prospectus is finished before I start writing the parts that are unlikely to be changed by my committee. That's the plan, at least.

Honestly, for now my goal is just to write consistently and make nearly perpetual progress. If I'm writing every day, then I'm getting closer. The faster I write, the faster I finish.

Hm: "the faster I write, the faster I finish" sounds like a good mantra for this week. I think that's going onto a sticky note on my monitor, so's I don't forget.[3]


NOTES
[1] My real goal is two chapters, each about 35-40 pages each. If I get two 35-page chapters completed, I'll consider my goal met.

[2] I'm not sure that's a true statement either. No one looks at a guy writing a dissertation and says, "that looks so easy! I'm sure I could do better than that."

[3] I'm stymied by that phrase: how do you write it? "So as I won't forget" is too slow and stilted. But "Sos I don't forget" looks funny. Then again, maybe I'm the only person who says that, and maybe it only works verbally. Sometimes language is a stinker.