a new simple idea: think less, write more.

yes, it's one of those working-from-bed kind of days: oppressively hot and anxiety-ridden. i'm generally feeling blue about the project. i should be feeling better because mr. mouse is no more (see aaron's brilliant comment on the last post), arlo is happily sleeping, and my adviser thinks the new introduction is better. but instead, i'm feeling that old, antsy sense that i should be doing something (curses on my love for jane addams who did change everything for me). whenever i start to feel this way, i cruise the net for educational think-tank type organizations and then inevitably feel lousy either because there doesn't seem to be anything out there that seems really promising or i realize that i'm unqualified to do anything. but today i discovered education sector. they seem to be doing the kind of research and writing that i really admire. think maybe i should have been a summer intern?

for me, one of the biggest struggles in dissertating is my inclination toward distraction. with this huge, amorphous thing to be done, i'm much more inclined to think about sewing summer skirts, watering the flowers, finalizing my summer syllabus (off to andover in three weeks), and now something else to compete for space in my mind: a mouse! this little dickens (my grandfather's favorite mock insult) has out-witted me. he 1) ate all of the peanut butter off of the trap without getting caught 2) scandalized arlo by eating out of his bowl, and 3) had the audacity to sleep in my bed last night. mouse droppings prove it all. so now what do i do? elena suggested trying that sticky stuff, but she's not here to help deal with the horror of finding a living mouse glued to the kitchen counter. any other ideas? if i don't get rid of this little guy, i fear nothing else will get done. argh. double argh.

this is what it looks like when you get scooped. fuck.

A study at last! After a week of staring at stacks of books and feeling overwhelmed by the chaos, I rallied my strength and made some bookshelves last night and this morning (thanks for the encouragement aaron and maura!). Sadly, only decent fiction (both in literary and book quality) fit in these shelves, and so I still need to come up with something else for scholarship on the other wall. All essays, belle lettres, bibles, theology, and everything else had to go downstairs and mingle with elena’s books.

The upshot is that the excuses are over and it’s time to face the draft again. My advisor gave me many great suggestions last week (and the not-so-great reminder that as it stands I have a small, somewhat lame argument brewing). So it’s back to work in the new space now….

reading the dreadful draft....

a deadline approaches after two days of unprecedented productivity. three tips for dissertation writers: 1. retreat to an internet-free zone and resist all impulses to drive into town just to look up one thing 2. get a bigger desk and put it in front of a window 3. make your adviser threaten you with deadlines. it's funny -- throughout the year i was studying for my phd exams, any number of friends pulled me aside and offered bits of advice (mostly of the order: chill the hell out, anne) and when i began writing the dissertation the same thing happened (this time it was more staid: write everyday, outline first, don't over read). in both cases, i couldn't hear any thing they were saying and i likely resisted all of these suggestions. i'm so stubborn and so entrenched in my own deeply flawed process. this chapter -- which isn't nearly done -- has been about trying to take some of this advice and let some of my neuroses go. today it feels possible.

the new study seem to be just the thing i needed to get me going. i've always known that spaces affect me, and so i shouldn't be surprised that it took changing my space to change my relationship to writing. because my old and little desk wouldn't fit up the stairs, i've stretched a huge board over my filing cabinets to create an appropriately large desk for the large task of dissertating. i can spread everything out and actually SEE how to put it all together -- which isn't, of course, to suggest that it's coming together yet. also a deadline tomorrow (one that was supposed to be enforced on feb. 15) makes me more eager than usual to get the fingers moving.

first day of work in the new place. my study is under the eves -- which seems a place Jo March would relish as well -- and i had been anxious that it would feel claustrophobic. but instead it feels right. i spent the morning reading newish louisa may alcott scholarship, even though i should have been finishing the section of the chapter about her father. i keep having to remind myself of what john mcgowan told me -- that reading is the worst enemy of writing -- but i suspect that's an easier temptation to avoid after you've written five books and could care less what anyone else thinks of your work.

it's funny the way this project works (and works me). yesterday i moaned to a friend that i didn't want to write it, not at all, that i should stop right now, move to a lovely place, and content myself with teaching the children. but today it felt possible again (though, to be frank, still not probable), and i actually enjoyed working through the morning's scholarship. for the sake of my work, i just need more days like today and less like yesterday. unfortunately, what's good for my work often feels at odds with my other desires. but alas, that's life.