Library Weekend

I spent yesterday afternoon and this afternoon in the library study carrel and feel so much better. I've finally broken through the 43,000-word ceiling that had me stymied for so long. Check the meter—I'm now 74% done! (Assuming no word currently in the draft will ever have to be edited out, ha ha.)

More than that, I've had a chance to read through the whole draft, which I'd been avoiding for ages. Reading one's own writing is so painful. But it has given me a sense of the whole that will help as I churn out the remaining 26%.

Speaking of churn out, my latest writing strategy is to write as parodically badly, and with academic clunkiness, as possible. That helps me avoid writers' block, and amuses me to boot. Warning: do not try this at home.*

* OK, maybe a warning label isn't necessary, but it does feel a bit dangerous. If you write badly, will your writing get stuck that way? But I think it's OK, as long as I go back and revise later. It's a variation of Anne LaMotte's philosophy of the "shitty first draft."

Quantity, Not Quality

I'm here at the coffee shop with Deb on Labor Day, on a dissertation date. Deb is reading phenomenology; I am blogging and doing word counts, having given up on Lukács's Theory of the Novel fifteen minutes ago. I am supposed to be at 43,000 words by this week, according to the Big Schedule for Getting 60,000 Words Written by December 31, and am currently at 42,380. I'm attempting to draft the introduction, bringing in the heavy hitters of theory like Lukács. The idea is that this will help me go back and revise each chapter, bringing them into line with my overall argument—since in the process of writing the intro, I hope to arrive at said argument.

One Big Document, Paralysis, and the Plan

A few weeks ago I merged all my chapter drafts into one big Word document. Then I stared at it. How does one work on such a large document? How do you make a change on, say, page 12, if you can't remember page 74 well enough to know how your change will affect it? Paralysis ensued.

I realize that people write these things called "books" all the time, and thus presumably have to deal with such issues, but I don't know how they do it.

Then I did a word count. 40,000 words! That's two-thirds of what I need! Once again, arithmetic came to the rescue. I figured out that if I write just 1,000 words a week for the rest of 2009, I'll have 60,000 words—my goal length. The only catch is that when I delete existing words from the draft, I have to make up for them.

Having come up with this brilliant plan, I did nothing for weeks, meaning I am already behind in the plan. It's not just big-document paralysis, I think—things have gotten insanely busy at work (I had to go the office last Saturday! and Sunday!), but there is a glimmer of hope that work will calm down soon and I can implement The Plan.

1/5?

I have approximately 40 pages of my dissertation written. The minimum length of a dissertation in my department is 200 pages. Therefore, I'm choosing to believe that I am one-fifth of the way done with my dissertation. Let's forget for now that these are 40 raw pages that will have to be extensively edited before they can become part of a document I would want anyone to read. One-fifth! Woohoo!

I finished the Middlemarch section of my George Eliot chapter and am moving on to Felix Holt.

Gold Star

I went out and bought myself a $1.89 pack of gold (and red and green, etc) stars, and am putting one on the calendar for every day I write 300 words. Starting today. First gold star!

I'm at the library now, where I just cranked out that 300 words between a takeout sushi dinner and a lecture I'm going to attend at 8:30. I also made a plan for upcoming writing sessions: tomorrow, Sunday, and Monday.

Last week I went to see my advisor for the first time since the beginning of the summer, and it was a very good thing to do. I gave her the eight measly pages I had thrown together out of all the disconnected fragments of the summer, and she gave me many practical suggestions on where to go from there. She also wants to see me every three weeks this semester, with a new 10-15 pages to give her each time. Our next appointment is for September 10.

I've been writing about the epigraphs in Middlemarch. That's going to be a section of my George Eliot chapter. If you asked me today what my dissertation is about, I'd say it's about the use of poetry in novels. Of course, what my dissertation is about is remarkably unstable. I wonder if I'll know what it's about even after it's done?

Another 300

Since that glorious weekend when I wrote a whopping 600 words, I haven't written any until today—have mostly been reading and taking notes—but today I cranked out 300. It helps that I have an appointment to see my adviser on Thursday and it would help to have something—anything!—to show for myself.