Flow chart

Last week, instead of working on my chapter:

I made a flow chart:

Total pages so far: 22 (at a snail's pace)

Double or single?

Ever since I start typing my essays on computer, I have always written my drafts in double space, mainly because the essays were required to be double spaced when handed in. As someone who has marked many essays since then, I can attest to how much easier it is to read double spaced writing.

But I seem to be in the minority when it comes to drafting. Most of my friends write in single spaced. One of them loves that magic moment when you double space an essay and the page count doubles. They've also pointed out that you can see more of what you've already written, thus can keep your thoughts together.

The latter point is an especially apt one now that I'm on (that is, back on) to the dissertation, which contains longer paragraphs than I've ever written in my life. Tonight I picked up chapter three where I left off (many months ago... sigh) and made everything single spaced. The page count was not as pretty (or in the double digits) but it was nice to develop a paragraph while still being able to see the topic sentence. Also, I realize that the other reason I've always double spaced is because Times New Roman looks too crowded when single spaced. Now that I've set Garamond as my default typefact, I no longer have that problem.

Pages written tonight: 1 double spaced (baby steps)

Pages written so far: 18 db sp

A timeline

Fri., July 31: I decide to move

Tues., Aug. 4: I find an apartment I like and I take it. One of the advantages is that it is empty and I can move in earlier.

Mon., Aug. 10: Houseguests: My sister and my friend Jeff arrive to prepare for their show in the Fringe Festival, for which Anna is the stage manager and Jeff is the playwright/producer.

Wed., Aug. 12: I move in under 2 1/2 hours thanks to many friends, a rented cube truck, and the short distance between the old and new places. One houseguests leaves in the afternoon.

Thurs., Aug. 13: Fringe fest begins

Fri., Aug. 14: Houseguest returns, with significant other. Houseguest count up to three, then back to one as newest houseguests find another futon to sleep on. They will return the next day. Apartment full of boxes.

Sun., Aug. 16: Two of three houseguests leave. Apartment still full of boxes, but not as many as before.

Fri., Aug. 21: Jeff returns, and yet another houseguest arrives. Houseguest total: three. Fewer boxes in apartment. Much use made of recycling and garbage bins in alley.

Sat. Aug. 22: IKEA! Dining table assembled. Drop leaf! Oooh!

Sun., Aug. 23: One house guest leaves. Wrap party of three.

Mon., Aug. 24: Two remaining houseguests leave. Living room seems much bigger without air mattress on floor. Wash three sets of sheets and a blanket. Resume writing dissertation chapter, realizing that overseas family trip is less than two weeks away. Consider shitting self, but then realize that there is no time for clean up.

Pages written in the last two weeks: 0.5
Pages written tonight: 2.5

Total pages: almost 14. Let's round down to 13.5 and bank the rest for tomorrow.

The Dissertation Code

No, this is not the magic formula on how to write a dissertation. Instead, this is the code of behaviour for dealing with dissertation writers, a handy guide for anyone who has a loved one currently writing a disseration, and some simple rules to ensure your loved one's santity and your own survival. Consider it a public service.

1. Never ask about the dissertation or the dissertation chapter.
This includes general questions, specific questions about page counts, progress reports, meetings with supervisors, passive-aggressive questions about convocation dates, and the like. If the dissertation writer wants to talk about it, they will bring it up first. Sometimes, even a "how was your day?" will be construed as a question about the dissertation. In fact, it might be best to stop asking the writer questions altogether and stick to simple declarative sentences.

2. Never ask when they are going to finish.
Especially not constructed as a "so you'll be done by _____?" inquiry. Grad students don't do well with deadlines, actual or hypothetical.

3. Anyone who is also writing a dissertation should never talk about how well their own writing is going around someone who is struggling.
This will only provide someone with an anguished benchmark against which to measure their own poor progress. Writing a dissertation already feels like a battle against yourself; you don't need any new competition.

4. Do not talk about Fight Club.
Oops. Wrong list. Substitute "dissertation" for "fight club", though, and it could work.


Pages written today: 2
Pages so far: 7

Chapter Three: Beginnings

After a false start last week, I've started writing chapter three for realz, yo.

And I have managed to produce the dirtiest sentence of the dissertation so far.

The nested spaces in Belinda offer the promise of knowledge if one can penetrate deeply enough, yet also frustrate such attempts.

Hmm. Could use some editing.

But seriously. Dissertations must be filled with unintentionally dirty sentences. Every dissertation has a "dirtiest sentence". I wonder what other examples are out there.


Pages written today: 5
Running page count: 5

Chances that I'll be this productive tomorrow: zero

Haunted

Was only mildly behind on my summer list of "Things to do" until this week, when I subjected myself to an epic, multi-day case of procrastination. The current task to to revise my first chapter into academic article to submit to a major journal. I am not working on it (and don't want to work on it) for the following reasons:

1. Form/Structure: I am focusing on only one part of the chapter (the section I extracted and revised for a couple of conference papers) so I am currently working from a 10-page conference paper rather than a 40 page-chapter. The goal is a 20-25 page article. In terms of revision, cutting, not expanding, is my forte.

2. Haunting. Let me explain.

The life of a neurotic grad student (no, not necessarily a redundant term) is one pervaded by a sense of anticipated failure. Since we all made it to grad school, actual academic/professional failure is rare and occasional (ahem, SSHRC) but for the most part it is the spectre of imminent failure that haunts me/us, that leads to qualifying claims with parenthetical asides (like this one!), that either drives or paralyzes us (often one leads to the other, and vice versa). One of my profs once mentioned that he thought he would stop feeling like a fraud once he actually got a job as a professor, but he was wrong. We are all haunted; the haunting will never stop.

In terms of this particular project, I am haunted by the feedback (constructive but not glowing) that I have recieved on it, including that from my supervior, one of my committee members, and two anonymous conference paper vettors. Frankly, I can't take criticism (to be fair, I also don't take praise well. I never know how to react). It took me days to work up the courage to re-read the more critical of the two vettors' reports, and even then I had to start by merely skimming. The skimming is representative of my roundabout approach to this article. This week I've read a couple of marginally relevant articles, started trying to read McKeon's Secret History of Domesticity again, and even writing about my writing difficulties in this blog entry. I have also watched my hours of Hell's Kitchen UK on Youtube and learned to make Greek salad (two unrelated items).

I am also haunted by my experience of writing the chapter, a torturous, dragged-out process that I was undergoing this time last year. My mistake with chapter one was to start writing the draft before having fully developed my argument—I'm not a process writer in that I don't think as I write. I do "write to think", as the saying goes, but by hand and on looseleaf pages. Last summer I went against my usual process and the result was a chapter that had potential but lacked overall cohension. Some writers need to think of their chapters as "just a draft" in order to get over the hump and start writing. I don't think I'm that kind of writer.

So the mist of failure hovers over me as I look with dread at my cut-up chapter. My procrastination has also seeped into other aspects of my life—some research trip loose ends I need to tie up during my upcoming trip, gathering reading materials for my chapter three prep, figuring out when I'm heading back to Calgary. Everything is at a standstill.

This is ridiculous.

when 2 out of 4 does not mean halfway

Being finished two out of four chapters does not mean that I am half finished the dissertation. The to-do list still includes:

• chapter three
• chapter four
• introduction
• conclusion
• massive revisions

And there is the distinct possibility that chapters three and four will have longer word counts than the first two chapters (esp. four, my Austen chapter). According to my supervisor, dissertation chapters do tend to get longer the further into the process it gets. I've already embarked on that trend, with chapter two being about four pages longer than chapter one, even though the novel for chapter two was half as long as the novel for chapter one.

I have decided that trying to finish a dissertation is like chasing the horizon—it keeps receding no matter how hard you try.

Chapter Two finished

Revised yesterday and wrote the conclusion late this afternoon. Sent to my supervisor this evening.

Next: the syllabus. Because it never ends.

Pages written today: 1 (yes, a one-page conclusion)
Total pages: 47.5 (increase due to yesterday's revisions)

Mediocre writer, good editor

Original sentence:

What is most notable about the three kinds of spaces evident in the pawnshop room is how much flow is impeded in these spaces.

Revised sentence:

In each of the pawnshop room's three incarnations, flow is greatly impeded.

Original word count: 24
Revised word count: 12

I don't know whether to bemoan my writing skills or celebrate my editing skills.

this close

I am at 45 pages and missing a conclusion. I still need to go through it and make some revisions before sending it to my supervisor. I am meeting my supervisor this Thursday, which essentially gives me two days to whip this chaper into shape. We will not be discussing the chapter on Thursday since I have been so slow, but it would be nice to at least have the first draft finished.

I feel like I have been thisclose to finishing the chapter for a week, but each time I sit down to write, the analysis just keeps getting longer. I noticed something new about the novel's ending tonight so that had to be incorporated (yes, it was relevant). The end of a chapter is like the ever-receding horizon. It just gets further and further away the more you chase after it.

What I absolutely must do before submitting it is going through and revising. In its current state, I'm pretty sure that it's stronger than the first draft of chapter one, but frankly I haven't read the whole thing through in its entirety yet, so I could just be deluding myself.

Tomorrow's plan: print out all 45 pages, do a read-through and edit, and write a fucking conclusion.

Pages written today: 3
Running page count: 45 (!)
Pages written at conference, here and there: not sure

Birth by transporter

An old friend of mine recently gave birth, and my sister and I had the following MSN conversation as a result:

A: Alina has squeezed a human being out of her.

A: I don't think I ever want to do that.

M: Yeah, like I've said before, Star Trek transporter...

M: Which makes me wonder why the babies on Star Trek are never born that way...

A: Uh, yeah...

A: me, too?

M: "Beam it out, Doctor! BEAM! IT! OUT!"

A: Or, Give me the drugs!!!
Good, now beam it out.

M: But that would take longer...

M: Honestly, why would they even let it get as far as contractions? Once the water breaks, you know it's ready to come out.

A: uh...

A: so, we're really going to have this super hypothetical conversation?

M: No.

M: But I do think that of all the medical miracles the show espoused, they could have clued in to making birth less painful for the women.

A: this is true...

M: And I think that some of that has to do with either a) lack of women on writing staff or b) lack of attention paid to women's issues in a notoriously male-centric genre.

M: Or c) a need to retain some concept of the "natural" in a representation of an advanced technological time and falling back on the cliché of "motherhood" as the most natural thing women are capable of.

M: And THAT makes this MSN conversation more analytical than anything I've written in my actual dissertation today.

A: change your topic?


I have since written a couple of pages, so there shall be no topic change in the future. Boo. (not really)

Running page count: 38
Days left before leaving for a conference in Vancouver: 0

On a roll?

Finally had a good writing night for the first time in the entire dissertation. Trying very hard to finish by Tuesday.

Pages written tonight: 5
Running page count: 34
Page goal: 40, but it might take more than that to finish the argument

Words added to spellcheck: Panopticon

Writing aids/crutches of the week: Radiohead and Rice Krispie treats

Breaking the heroine

I realized tonight that my Cecilia chapter is about plot, that is, the heroine and the narrative move in similar ways and that the novel ends because the novel breaks the heroine (really—she goes mad). This good, because this will all go into the chapter posthaste.

Words added to MS Word dictionary today: misconstruction, spectre

Pages written today: 2
Running page count: 23

Off tomorrow for some Calgary stuff, so won't be back to work until Sunday.

Dissertation metaphors

Being in English, I like using metaphors to describe things. Right now, I've been thinking about my dissertation, specifically my chapter, in metaphorical terms. Ironically, even though my dissertation is about architectural, domestic spaces, I have not yet thought about the dissertation itself as any kind of structure. That is, until today, when I wrote a couple of important "set up" paragraphs that frame my argument and realized that I was essentially adding scaffolding to my chapter. And the chapter has been structurally very difficult, so hopefully I've laid the foundation enough that I can build on what I've written and complete the project without going too overtime or overbudget. At the very least, I doubt I'll have to call in a structural engineer, though that it what revisions are for.

Okay, okay. I'll stop now.

Running page count: 21

Another dissertation metaphor

Earlier this week, one of my professors suggested that the process of writing a dissertation is like having a jar of paperclips on your desk, and there's one paperclip that you can pull out so that all the other paperclips come out in one chain. Unfortunately, writing a dissertation (or any big, long project) is a trial-and-error process, meaning that you'll end up pulling out many wrong paper clips before you hit on the correct one.

The opposite view: Why can't a dissertation be more like a beer? You pour it out and even if it's a bad pour, you just wait a few minutes for everything settle and then it's fine. Plus, it's beer.

Pages written today: 3
Running page count: 18.5
(Yes, I know it doesn't quite add up from my previous post. I was too tired to update last night.)

P.S. My counting half pages is not an attempt to aggrandize the page count. Unless I actually write a full page, I refuse to count it (no cheating by rounding up), but as a compromise I allow myself to include half pages.

Blocked

and multitasking—am also working on a major project due in June.

Pages written today: 2.5
Running page count: 14.5

Goals for tomorrow: leave the apartment, write at least two pages

Laying down the needles

There are advantages to having a knitting project on the needles while writing. I find knitting, especially a relatively repetitive pattern, therapeutic. It helps me clear my mind and is a good way to unwind at the end of a long day.

On the other hand, I also find it kind of addictive. I'll get going on a project one afternoon and want to keep knitting well into the evening. This is not good for my productivity in all other aspects of my life. It is also not good for my wrists.

I'm starting to think that I need to lay down the needles for at least the next four weeks and focus on my academic work instead. Thankfully, I've recently just finished one knitting project and almost completed a second, meaning that there is currently no backlog of Christmas presents or new babies to knit for. So as long as a certain married couple are too busy playing GTA IV to procreate, I think I'll be fine.

Dissertation as jig-saw puzzle

I finished writing the first section of chapter two today, a section that sets up the circularity and flow theme of the rest of the argument. There might be some moving around of sections later and I'm not sure about the last two or three sentences, but I'll leave it for now and come back to it later when my head has cleared.

One reason writing a 40- to 50-page chapter is difficult is the sheer complexity of the argument and the impossibility of keeping it all straight in my mind. It's also difficult because my argument for this chapter can be best described as a jig-saw puzzle, with each concept or idea relating to at least two or three other ideas. However, writing is a linear exercise where I have to take each part of my carefully constructed puzzle and lay them out in a straight line. The theme of this chapter is circularity and flow, so I have been literally thinking in circles. The adjustment to building a linear argument has been tough.

Pages written today: 3
Running page count: 12

Chapter Two update

Running page count: 9
Total time spent looking through novel, notes, e-texts or Google books for specific quotations: at least 30 minutes
Total pages in Cecilia: 941

It's not quite double digits, which was my goal, but the quality of the last paragraph that I wrote tonight told me that I should stop writing and go to sleep.

Lock-down, terms and conditions of

Writing the chapter means going into a lock-down of sorts—withdrawing socially and being more disciplined and focus. The last few days have not been particularly productive. A reminder of the terms and conditions of dissertation-writing lock down are in order:

Rule 1: No minor socializing
Broken by: attending group meeting*; going to another workshop group meeting where no-one else showed up*

Rule 2: Attend no more than one (1) major social event per week.
Broken by: planning and attending good-bye festivities for a good friend; two days later, attending the department year-end party and then hosting the after-party and then attending the after after-party

Rule 3: Do not allow the previous night's festivities to interfere with ability to be productive the following day
Broken by: Forgetting that red wine+beer=three-advil hangover

Rule 4: Prepare for a seige
Broken by: running out of coffee and fresh fruit; refusing to walk to grocery store in -20C windchill and blowing snow to replenish

Rule 5: Limit length of blog posts
Broken by: you're reading it

Caveats to applying lock-down rules too stringently
a. Leave the house/apartment briefly at least once a day to avoid cabin fever. Coffee runs are an excellent excuse for venturing outside.
b. Have a conversation with a real human being, no matter how short (the conversation, not the human), once a day to remind self of what own voice sounds like. Ordering a coffee and making small talk with barista counts. Talking to self does not.
c. Negative impact of breaking above rules somewhat mitigated if coffee is consumed at some point.

*both meetings occurred in coffee shops. See caveat c.

Running page count: a meagre 5