September Report

Here is my dissertation productivity for September. The gold stars show when I met the 300-word mark; the silver stars are when I was in my study carrel but reading rather than writing (I had to slog through George Eliot's 500-page Felix Holt to complete the section of the chapter I met with my advisor about yesterday.) If you count the gold stars, I wrote 3,600 words last month, or about 12 pages. Not exactly burning through the dissertation. But I'll take any progress over no progress.

Yesterday my advisor said that giving her new work to read every three weeks meant I was making good time. She said, "Sometimes I can't get people to come see me for eight months."

How on earth did George Eliot write Felix Holt in fourteen months? That's 186,046 words! Hmm, wait a minute, that's only 443 words a day...but every single day.