Blogging through the pain

Okay, so the summer was bad for productivity and the fall wasn't much better. And, yet, here we are. With the prospectus passed, I have a momentary feeling of hope and a commitment (once again) to work. To writing. My new deadline is April 21. Chapter One must be in excellent shape by then so I won't feel like I'm submitting complete crap to my co-advisers. They do not like crap. They do not deserve crap. Thus, I will be writing crap and then revising it into something slightly less so. But that means that I need to have it fully drafted into something manageable within about a month. So, March 21, watch out! Here I come...

The work starts tomorrow with some reading and note-taking. Then with some outlining and some planning. I will work in tiny chunks: 1250 words a day is all I need to do to get somewhere. I'm pretty sure that four days a week of 1250 words each day will get me to someplace fairly decent in the span of four weeks. That would mean I could achieve 5000 words a week and 20,000 words in four weeks. If 250 words is approximately one page (double-spaced), then that means I'd have 80 (double-spaced) pages by March 21. Then those 80 pages can be trimmed down to a much sleeker and more stylish 50-60 pages, which hopefully will be met with praise, or at least positive critical encouragement, from my brilliant co-advisers.

But is this a reasonable goal? I don't know. I'll take it one day at a time. Tomorrow is Friday, my first work day of the week after a kind of crazy week with my sister, work, and way too much socializing. Time for some books and quiet and my little happy typing fingers. I still can't believe that all that lies between me and a PEE-AITCH-DEE (and that silly hat) is a bunch of writing. Just me, my books, my laptop, and my advisers. Hoo boy. I feel excited and scared and happy all at once. Lots of positive energy right now, actually. But how long will I be able to ride this wave? I don't know. I'm counting on the blog to help alleviate any pain that arises. Don't fail me now, nonexistent readers. I need you.

And, so, this entry concludes with a brief celebratory moment. Cue confetti! Cue the streamers! Cue the noisemakers! Loud horns of exclamation for Jeff! Raucous banging of the drums for Anne! We're off to the races, folks, and we will be blogging the revolution. Stay tuned for further castle-storming.

My prospectus is done

Yes, it has taken me months, and my high-productivity summer wasn't highly productive. But all is not lost, no friends, all is not lost.

Indeed, I have hurdled the final institutional hurdle between me and full-time dissertating and have successfully submitted my prospectus and have already put it out of my mind. It's like the dream that seemed so real while it lasted, but then dissipates before breakfast.

It's done, so perhaps the less said the better. It was a step of institutional necessity but not one that really provided me much value (to be frank) (maybe I'll change my opinion later, but I'm not banking on it), and I'm glad to be through with it.

But now I feel some (little) exhilaration that is giving me some temporary momentum. I wish I could say it was real momentum, but history has shown me that usually this kind of burst is short-lived. So with that realization, I'm going to do my best to translate as much of it as I can into something more substantial.

And I'm setting ambitious goals. My first goal is a little crazy: I'm going to have my first chapter organized and roughly written by the end of next week. It would be crazier if I hadn't been putting together notes and (rough rough rough) rough draft work for the past six months or so. It will be mostly the work of doing some organization (so I tell myself; we'll see how I feel in a couple of days).

Mostly I need to say welcome back to the blog. Welcome back, Anne; welcome back, Jeff. Now we're off to the races.

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?