Sunday, January 14, 2007

Week of January 15 (I'll be the ant or the tortoise)

Hi, all. I've been writing, but writing very slowly. I know that dissertation writing is a slow process, but I want it to be faster than it is. Because I'm not just flying through this work, I feel like a loser . . . I think to myself that I should write 10 polished and perfected pages a day so that by the end of the month, the diss will be finished.

But I know it doesn't work like that. I know that. Really I do.

I was thinking the other day about the tortoise and the hare . . . or the ant and grasshopper . . . or something. I want to be the fast one, but I need to be the slow one. I need to remember that all it is, all it really can be, is one foot in front of the other.

I read on a blog several months ago (in comments, so I can't link to it easily), that dissertation writing is a different genre and it's one that we (as grad students) have not had to write before. This commenter noted that writing a page a day (which for most of us is manageable) could equate to a completed diss in about a year.

I'm holding onto that idea today. I can't write 10 pages today, but I can write one. Anyone with me?

4 comments:

elle said...

yes! though my day will have to be over the next 24 hrs and not today.

Billie said...

Thanks, Elle! I did get a couple of pages written today. Yea, me!

chris said...

me, too! ...in a min.

and yea, you!

Meagan said...

"you can do it!"

(I'm picturing Tony Little in that goofy Geico commercial).

:)