dissertation digest #3

2487.

until now, i've never really been very concerned with the number of words that i write in any given writing session or on any given day or period of days.  in fact, until today, i've been a little perplexed by those people who were concerned with the number of words they'd written.  but now i get it.  well, i'm no longer perplexed.  i'm still amazed by those writers who only have to write a 15K word dissertation but i digress.  for the past three days i've set myself a goal--1000 words per day.  i feel short of this goal on saturday and sunday, but i totally blew it up today.  here are some other things i've learned by setting this goal and paying attention to the number of words i've written at the end of the day.

first of all, my writing sessions on saturday and sunday occurred from 10 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon.  i was in my preferred venue for writing and working on my dissertation--in my office on campus--but i was not there during my preferred working hours--anytime after six in the evening.  another problem with saturday and sunday was that i didn't answer the question of what i would be having for lunch and ended up eating nothing at all.  on saturday i wrote 770 words.  on sunday i wrote 684.  both short of the 1000 word goal.

now, my writing session tonight occurred in the right place--in my office--and at the right time--from six to ten-thirty in the evening.  and guess what.  i wrote 1845 words.  furthermore, i didn't start writing right away when i got to campus.  it was probably seven-thirty by the time i actually wrote the first word.  which means that in approximately three hours, i wrote more than twice as much than i did on either saturday or sunday in twice the amount of time.  does anyone else find this curious and frankly, troublesome?

i think there are two possible explanations, and for now the jury is still out on which one is the actual cause.  the first explanation could have to do with the fact that i'm on a deadline, and that deadline is tomorrow.  i told my dissertation advisor i'd send him as much of chapter 3 as i had by tomorrow, 8/31.  he knows it won't be a complete draft of the chapter, so how much i send is really kind of up to me.  he's not expecting a certain number of words or pages, just something.  so while there's pressure, there's not the pressure to get to a specific point.  deadlines always help me focus and produce, and the closer i get to the deadline, the more i can focus and produce.  so the fact that the deadline is tomorrow may be the reason why i was able to write 1845 words tonight (and that's in addition to the 642 words i wrote this afternoon--hence the number that begins this post).  the second explanation could be that i do, in fact, know myself pretty well and have finally taken advantage of the part of the day that is for me, in terms of writing anyway, the butter zone.  yes, it took me a while to get going tonight, but when i finally did, there wasn't really any lull in the writing and i felt like i was firing on all cylinders.  what i wrote isn't brilliant but there were flashes of brilliance and the beginnings of a real direction for this chapter.  to be honest, i'm not sure if it's the first or second explanation that is the real reason for tonight's productivity, and i'll be interested to see if i can continue this kind of productivity after this deadline has passed.  guess i'll have to wait and see.  in the meantime, i'm going to go to bed thrilled by the fact that today i wrote 2487 words.