dissertation digest #8

ummm....i think i am currently stuck in terms of what comes next in this chapter of the dissertation.  i've been sitting here for an hour trying to write something, but the only thing i've written down is the time that the game starts tonight.  4.57.  those aren't even words.  so i have been staring at a blank page, twirling my pen in my hand, unable to figure out how to begin.  is this because i made the attempt to write first thing in the morning rather than in the evening?  could this be the reason that i'm so blocked?  here's the thing: i know i'm not going to work tonight. it's game one of the world series and texas is playing and cliff lee is pitching against tim lincecum.  yeah.  i'm so not working tonight.  so i thought i would try to be good and do my dissertation writing in the morning, then try to grade some papers later, and then it would be okay if i didn't work tonight because i would have already gotten my 500 words written for the day.  but nothing.  i'm dressed and sitting at the coffee shop.  i'm drinking the day's first cup of coffee.  i even have makeup on.  seriously.  in terms of personal appearance, this morning has been a home run.  in terms of productivity on the dissertation, though, nada.  here's another thing:  i realize that i know absolutely nothing about child narrators.  this is what i think the next section of the chapter should be about--how the author has given us a child narrator and what that means in terms of how we "see" the story.  the 'title' for this section is 'seeing through the eyes of a child'.  this title won't really appear in the dissertation, i'm just using it right now to help keep me focused on what the topic of this particular section is supposed to be.  and yet, i keep thinking to myself that i don't know enough about narrative theory to talk about this child narrator.  ugh.  honestly.  i could fill ten thousand libraries with stuff i don't know.  but still, i feel like i need to know something in order to get started writing.  i haven't been blocked like this in a while.  i was actually expecting it to not be difficult to sit down and write today.  i wrote yesterday, and usually when i try to write on consecutive days, it gets easier and easier because i'm immersed.  but i didn't even have any ideas about what to write pop into my mind this morning when i was walking downtown, and that's pretty unusual.  usually before a writing session my mind is thinking about what i'm going to write.  but not this morning.  more evidence of my blocked status.  hmmm...so what to do now?  when i started working on the chapter on ASCH, i made a list of quotes from the text that i might use, and that seemed to get me started in terms of how to do the close-reading and analysis, so maybe i should try that? i also ordered a book on narrative theory from summit yesterday so hopefully that will be here soon.  i am already using the first chapter of that book but hopefully the author has also written a chapter on child narrators.  guess we'll see. okay, so a list of direct quotes from the novel.  let's try that and see where that gets me.

dissertation digest #7

wow, it's been a long time since i blogged about my dissertation.  the good news is that a first draft is with my advisor.  i managed to send that off on october 6th.  the bad news, since then i feel like i have only been "pretending" to work on the next chapter of the diss.  i have re-read the book that is the focus of the chapter (good) and i also have a set of questions i want to answer in his chapter (also good).  i've even done some writing--my draft currently has 1700+ words (also good).  the bad news is that i really really wanted to have a full draft of chapter 4 by the end of october (which you'll note is only 5 days away) but i have to admit that that is just not going to happen.  so, i'm going to set a new goal to have a full draft of this chapter by november 15th.  i don't really know if that is a reasonable or even an achievable goal.  completing job applications has really slowed down my progress on my dissertation and in some ways it's killed any momentum i may have had at the beginning of october.

however, i must also admit that one of the reasons why i haven't made much progress on the dissertation is that i have not been keeping to my daily work schedule.  adherence to that schedule has been sporadic at best.  i'm just having trouble motivating myself to get things done.  i'm going to have to find a way to solve whatever problem is at the heart of this lack of motivation but before i can do that i'm going to have to identify what that problem is. i'd like to blame it on any number of distractions i have recently allowed to take my attention away from what i should be and need to be doing--baseball playoffs are currently going on, i have recently become addicted to "castle" and PBS is finally airing "sherlock".  hmmm...all of these seem to revolve around my desire to watch TV, which seems like bam that's the reason, but it's not.  in actuality, i have spent very little time sitting in front of the TV watching baseball and not doing anything else.  and while it is true that i have blown through all of season 1 and 2 of castle and just watched all five episodes from season three last night, i just have a hard time blaming my lack of productivity on this new obsession because most of that TV watching was concentrated into a handful of days.  so really, i have no idea how to account for the last two and a half weeks of october.  i know i have spent a lot of time on my online class--it seems like just when i settle in to do my own work (today is a great example) something comes up and i feel like i have to deal with it right then, and then i lose momentum once more.

and, as i was saying to a friend the other day, i haven't been as good at compartmentalizing all of my tasks as i was in september and the first week of october.  i was much more focused and driven in those five or six weeks.  but since i've started working on job applications and after sending chapter 3 to my advisor, i've been a lot less focused.

at least today i have made some progress, and i need to be happy with that progress while at the same time look ahead to tomorrow and demand more progress from myself.  i managed to get 4 papers graded this morning (though i'm going to need to speed up.  i need to be reading and commenting and grading one paper every 30 minutes, but it took me about 2 hrs and 20 minutes to read and grade those 4 papers this morning).  i also managed to complete my duties as colloquium chair this morning and "advertised" this friday's colloquium.  and i have also managed to write 555 words and write a loose outline in terms of what the next three sections of chapter 4 should be focused on. and hey, it's not even 4pm. but i haven't had lunch, so my body probably still thinks i'm going to starve it.  *sigh*