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*

dissertation digest #6

528.

tonight's writing session was not much of a writing session, even though i did manage to make my goal of writing 500 words tonight.  my initial thought is that 500 words isn't a hard enough goal to reach.  i know. i know.  i always expect way too much of myself.  but to be honest, once i got to 500 words, i felt like it was okay to stop working. and i did stop working. i did nothing for the hour that followed me reaching that 500 word goal.  the good thing is that i added 500 words.  the better thing is that the 500 words i did add will go a long way to focusing the next section of this chapter.  the negative is that i would have written more if i had set my word count goal higher.  this wasn't one of those nights where i came to the office not wanting to work but did some work and some work is better than no work at all.  on the other hand, when i came to the office i wasn't really sure what i was going to write.  so maybe even though i felt like tonight's goal was too easy, the positive that i should take away is that at least when i write tomorrow, i'll have some idea of what i need to accomplish.

one additional positive outcome of tonight's work session is that i got an essay graded.  that is an unexpected check mark on the to-do list.  i don't yet feel overwhelmed by my teaching responsibilities and that is definitely a plus.

so tomorrow hopefully i will write another 500 words and be that much closer to having a full first draft for this chapter.

dissertation digest #5

2815.

let's call this day 2 of "so...how much progress could i make if...".  i was thinking this morning (don't be so surprised!) about what kind of progress could i make on my dissertation if i made a commitment to write at least 500 words per day through september 30th.  this question was inspired by a post on the time-management ninja blog that i read a while back where the writer asks what could you do in a year if you really set your mind to it.  one of the ideas was get in the best shape of your life.  while that would be fantastic, right now, i have two goals: finish my dissertation and find some kind of job in academia for the 2011-2012 school year.  so i asked myself: what kind of progress could i make on my dissertation if i made the commitment to add at least 500 words to my dissertation over the next 25 days? i'm here to say that i have taken up this challenge whole-heartedly, though i do already foresee some challenges.

the first and most difficult to surmount is the fact that i'm taking a mini-vacation starting on september 16th, and i won't return home until september 20th.  so i'm going to lose those 5 days because i highly doubt that i'm going to be able to write while i'm away.  if i were going on my own, that might be one thing, but i'm meeting my aunt so i don't anticipate having enough alone time to get any amount of writing done.  though i have already made the promise to myself to try to do some revision if at all possible.  i also need to plan ahead for this lack of writing by trying to exceed my writing goal whenever possible for the remaining days that i will be writing.

the second challenge that i've already been faced with--what about those days when i need to revise or read? so what? i can still add at least 500 words b/c if nothing else, i can add relevant quotes to my document as well as start forming an outline and the most important questions that i want the chapter i'm working on to answer.

those are the biggest challenges that i foresee, but i'll just have to wait and see what happens and how committed i am to dedicating the majority of my time and focus to getting this dissertation written.

as for today--i had an awesome day as far as writing goes. i got up and the first thing i did was write.  now here's the thing--i do believe in the power of the advice "write first".  i used that idea when i was nano'ing two summers ago and i met the 50,000 word goal in 30 days because of it.  the reason i made writing first a priority this morning was because i wasn't able to get as much done last night as i wanted.  so i set freedom to run for an hour and fifteen minutes and i'm not kidding when i say that in 1 hr and 15 minutes i wrote 1372 words.  for real! it was such a fabulous way to start the day.  i went to the office tonight for my regularly scheduled writing session and managed to write another 1443 words.  but don't be fooled.  this chapter draft is still very much a mess and is going to need lots and lots of revision.  but i am grateful for the steady progress i am making in terms of getting the ideas out of my head and onto paper where i can actually work them into something coherent and organized. although today was a holiday, i feel like i've had double potions and managed to avoid snape's wrath. double potions-double dissertation writing sessions.

oh, and i almost forgot.  the final verdict about last night--i do believe that i was having a mild anxiety attack.  when i got home i got straight into bed and just concentrated on breathing and trying to relax my muscles and slow my heartbeat down, which was racing.  after about forty-five minutes the queasy feeling went away and i was able to eventually fall asleep.  it was just such an oddly timed anxiety attack because i was actually getting some writing done.  i dunno.  the human body is still a mystery.  but the good news is that it didn't happen again today, and hopefully i can stop having to schedule meetings and such during my work out time so the exercise should help to alleviate some of my tension.

dissertation digest #4

857.

okay, first of all, i have no idea what's wrong with me.  physically, i feel absolutely wretched. this is sort of how i feel when i'm about to have an anxiety attack, but i'm not 100% sure that that's what this is.  i was sitting in my office, and at about 9.30 i started feeling kind of nauseous and my head started to kind of hurt.  it might be because my blood sugar is falling too low, but honestly, eating something, anything, right now does not sound very appealing at all.  and my head is getting that heavy, kind of groggy feeling again, which seems to have started happening early this week.  it's not lack of sleep.  for someone who's writing a dissertation i get plenty of sleep.  and funny that all day today, while i wasn't trying to work on my dissertation, i felt fine.  so i feel like this feeling is somehow connected to trying to work on my dissertation this evening.  i ended up writing 857 words.  i had hoped for 1000 words tonight, but i'll take what i can get right now and i also have an idea of what needs to come next.  while i was working in the office i was adding things to my to-do list. it now has 16 items on it, where it read 8 when i started working at 6.00 this evening.  ugh. even now i still have that nauseous, queasy feeling.  the only thing that seems to be missing that is typical of one of my anxiety attacks is the trembling.  i can usually feel myself trembling a lot (more than the usual caffeine-induced trembling i'm used to) as well as the sense of being really hot.  honestly, i have to find a way to make these feelings stop.

well, in other news, i'm still working on drafting chapter 3 of the dissertation.  i am going to have to really work everyday, diligently, for the rest of the month (save the four days when i am on vacation in mid-september) to get to where i want to be on september 30th--a draft of chapter 3 and a draft of chapter 5.  these people who say they wrote their dissertation in 3 weeks or 8 weeks, i really can't imagine how they did that.  tonight was a so-so writing session.  i had a lot of trouble focusing on what i was trying to write.  i'm teaching online this semester, and my students have been blogging and submitting response papers since thursday.  i was lax about reading posts on friday when i should have been reading and responding.  i got a lot of reading of posts done today at home before going to the office to work on my own work, but when i got to the office i spent an hour (and really, i do not know how i spent an hour on these tasks) doing additional work for my class, and every time my freedom session expired i found myself going back to the course space.  just going there--not doing any real work.  so, it was really hard to focus on my writing tonight.  i'm grateful for the 857 words and will hope for and try to write 1000 words tomorrow.

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.

dissertation digest #2

it's monday. the first day of the fall semester.  seriously, i can't believe this is the beginning of my last year as a student.  forever.  b/c believe me when i say that there is no more schooling for me once this ph.d. is done.

so far, the routine is working.  i was even up before my 'mandatory' wake-up time.  i have written the welcome message for my online class, read through my twitter stream, consumed my first cup of coffee, chatted with a colleague and checked all of my e-mail.  amazing start to the day, truly!  i am even planning to go to the gym at the scheduled time (or maybe a few minutes early) though I must admit that it was looking like i was going to skip today.  but no.  i'm going to make it there.  just as soon as i finish this post.

last night was also a win but that's mostly because my neighbor upstairs is conducting some kind of construction project that involves an electric saw and hammering.  so i actually found myself in my office last night even though i had thought i would just take the entire weekend off to recharge.  i started re-reading a star called henry and got through the first 100 pages.  i will be back in the office tonight to read more and will probably plan to finish the book tomorrow night.  then the goal is to write at least four pages from wednesday through monday, and then revise what i've written on tuesday before sending it to my committee chair.  hopefully i'll have 25 pages to send.

those are the goals and that is the plan.  now all i have to do is execute it!

dissertation digest #1

well, it's the friday before fall semester starts.  i have good news to report: i have completed the course prep for the class i am teaching this fall--the twentieth century novel--which means i can now focus most of my attention on my dissertation.  even more good news, my committee chair says it's okay for me to switch out one of the novels i had planned to use in my dissertation.  so rather than having chapter 5 be on jennifer johnston's shadows on our skin, it'll now be on seamus deane's reading in the dark.  a change i must admit i am rather excited about and it's a chapter that i cannot wait to dive into.  i think i am going to work on it after i finish drafting the chapter 3 which is on roddy doyle's a star called henry, mostly because i think it will be easier for me to move from one irish author to the next rather than going back and forth between irish writer, indian writer. i must admit, i am feeling a lot of excitement over the idea of finally being able to re-focus my attention on my dissertation.  i hope i can sustain that excitement and see it translating into some good writing over the next couple of weeks (dare i hope for months?).

but right now the focus is on chapter 3 and a star called henry.  i did do some reading today in terms of critical scholarship on the novel, not nearly as much as i would have liked to have gotten through, but that's okay.  i might finish off this last book chapter tonight before going to bed.  as far as keeping to my stated schedule, well, i didn't do very well.  i slept an extra ten minutes (which, really, that's just fine) and got up and made coffee and read e-mail and checked in on my twitter peeps.  but then i didn't go to the gym like i was supposed to.  instead i went to campus and made a trip to the library and dropped off and picked some things up from my office.  but then, i did have lunch when i was supposed to, and i did do some work afterward like i was supposed to, and i have attended to chores in such like i was supposed to.  so, it's not all bad news.  plus, it's friday night, which means no work in the office for me.  instead i get to treat myself to new episodes of eureka, haven, and the glades.

goals for tomorrow? re-read as much of a star called henry as possible. in fact, if i could read about 225 pages tomorrow that would be fantastic.  yes, i know, one goal sounds lame, but hey, it's a 350 page book, so getting that much of the book read would be an accomplishment.

restart

if you know anything about me, you now that one of my favorite TV shows is "house" with hugh laurie.  though, if you talk to my friends, you will discover that i have yet to finish watching season 6.  this has nothing to do with the show, or the fact that [spoiler alert] cameron has left chase and princeton-plainsboro (that was the last episode that i saw).  it's more a matter of time and priorities as well as my own self-awareness when it comes to my TV watching habits.  if i start, i won't be able to just stop at one episode.  i can't play the carrot-and-stick reward game with my favorite television shows.  when i start, i want to watch three or four episodes at a time, and right now, i just don't have that kind of time.  well, let me make an amendment to that--i shouldn't spend that much time to watching television.

so while i have yet to finish season 6, "house" is still the one television show that i think about when progress on the dissertation comes to a standstill and when the will to work on my dissertation is low.  in fact, it's the one show that inspires me the most when it comes to actually working on my dissertation, setting high goals and expectations for myself, and encourages me to get myself into my writing space (which is my office on campus) each day.  believe me, i understand just how odd that statement is.  how can a fictional television show inspire anyone to want to write their dissertation?  it's house himself--the character, not the actor who portrays him.

in a blog post far far away and in a time long long ago, i wrote about my impressions of house.  ever since i started writing my dissertation, but particularly in the last couple of months, i find myself going back to that blog post.  in short--house may be socially appalling and ethically reprehensible, but he's damn good at what he does, he has an amazing ability to concentrate and focus on a problem and look at it from all angles, and he devotes an incredible amount of time and energy, heart and soul into the one thing that he values most--medicine, or maybe it's solving a medical mystery (it could be argued that he really does care about saving lives, but nah, i'm not going for it.  it's the puzzle that he loves, the thrill of victory and being the one to figure out a puzzle that others couldn't decipher.  in another life he probably would have been a codebreaker.  but i digress...).  it's these qualities that i admire most in gregory house, md, and they are the qualities that i try to emulate when it comes to working on my dissertation.

if house's one thing is medicine and an unmatched ability to solve whatever medical puzzle you throw at him, my one thing is finishing this dissertation.  it is the one thing around which everything in my life revolves.  i made some major life changes to get here, to this point where i'm a ph.d. candidate and ABD, and finishing the dissertation is going to be the pinnacle of so many of the dreams i've always dreamt but wasn't ever sure i would reach.  it's also the one thing on which i am building so many of my hopes for the future.  so if the dissertation is my one thing, then i tell myself i should be a lot more focused on it and devoting much more time and energy, heart and soul into it.  if i want to have house-like success i have to work like house.

and so oddly here i am on a friday re-committing (for what, the tenth time now?) to working harder and more consistently on the dissertation.  i'm going to work even when i don't want to work and i'm going to have to get a lot more serious about setting daily goals and holding my own feet to the fire in terms of meeting those goals before going home and making a fantastic dinner, or sleeping, or playing fallen london... everyone knows that writing a dissertation is hard, that's why not everyone does it.  but what only dissertation writers know is that the hardest part about writing the dissertation is motivating yourself to work on a consistent basis.  i imagine that i will continue to struggle with this for the next nine months, but when i seem to be going nowhere fast on my project, i'll just ask myself "what would house do?" and i'll have the answer i need.

to watch or not to watch...

i've started reading this blog called "To Do: Dissertation" (located at tododissertation.wordpress.com if you're interested in reading it too) and one of the most recent posts is about whether or not a person should have a TV while he or she is writing a dissertation.  i must admit, i'm a little bit on the fence on this one.

here's the thing:  personally, i have been trying to watch less TV, and I've been a lot more conscious about not turning on the TV unless i am intending to really watch something specific.  i've stopped wanting to have it on just to have it on.  several of the blogs that TD:D listed within its post said that television was a waste of time and that it prevents you from doing other things that are, quite frankly, more enjoyable.  i find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with these opinions.  case in point:  over the 4th of july weekend, i didn't turn on the TV much, and do you know what i got accomplished?  i finished a piece of fiction writing that i've been working on for a long time.  and when i say that i've been working on it for a long time, i know that the reason for that is that there were times that i could have been writing, or possibly even wanted to write, but i watched TV instead because i convinced myself i was "blocked" and so i walked away from it to occupy my mind with something else.  if i had indulged in one of the many marathons that were being shown over the weekend, i wouldn't have finished that story.  i wouldn't have that wonderful, exhilarating feeling of happiness and accomplishment.  instead i would have been able to say that i watched season five of NCIS for the 12th time, and who really needs that?  and who really thinks, honestly thinks, that that is some kind of badge of honor?  no one, i'm sure.  at least, not if they are honest with themselves.

another thing i have to admit to is the fact that i can't do any work at home, mostly because there are two many distractions, the biggest of which is the television.  so when i want to work on my dissertation, i always force myself to leave the apartment and these days, the place i go is my office on campus.  and honestly, i am so much more productive because i'm not distracted by the TV.  even the distraction of the internet, which i still have access to at the office, is minimal compared to the television.  and so there's another point in the "yes" column on whether or not a dissertating writer should give up their TVs.

BUT, i can't.  or perhaps the more proper thing to say is that i won't.  why?  sporting events for one.  after i read the blog post on TD:D, i thought to myself, well, maybe i should turn off my cable.  i could really do it.  there are only a handful of shows that i watch on a regular, committed basis.  i even wrote them down--house, the vampire diaries, bones, and fringe during the regular TV season and then in the summer, warehouse 13, eureka, haven ( a new pickup), doctor who and being human.  so i could just take the money i spend on cable and use that to buy the season pass of my favorite shows on iTunes (and yes, i'm willing to do that instead of pay hulu $9.95/month for the same access because i'm willing to pay to not have to watch the commercials.  i spend enough of my life being advertised to thank you very much).  but i soon realized that even if i were to take the iTunes route to get my favorite TV fare, i still wouldn't be able to watch the u.s. open.  and what would i do during the baseball playoffs and the world series? so i though okay, i'll just wait until after the world series to turn it off.  by then it'll be almost thanksgiving and most shows take an eight week break now it seems so that there are no new episodes from thanksgiving to well after the new year.  but then i thought, what about the NCAA tournament?  so you see, even though i have no problem getting my scripted series from iTunes (and in fact, i do this quite often anyway), i'm not willing to give up easy access to the sporting events that i find the most viewing pleasure in.  i can completely agree that watching such sporting events is a waste of time, but watching them makes me happy, and how can you dismiss that so easily?  i guess you could say that being productive also makes me happy, that it fulfills a need, and well, you'd be right.  but in the final analysis, i'm still not willing to give up the tube, dissertating or not.

so until i move away from pullman, or have to move into a new apartment, i'll be keeping my cable TV and paying for it, while at the same time i'll keep trying to turn the TV on less and less.  to be honest, not watching TV to just be watching whatever is on has definitely made me excited and appreciative about what i do watch, and in the end, that's a really good thing.