[26 of 100] A meta-level note
I am, in case you missed in, in the Hudson River Valley on a dissertation writing retreat for a few days.
The only internet access I have is when we all take a trip down to the local free library, and most of the time I'm here I'm busy catching up on email and LJ and putting out any immediate fires. I plan to keep up with the 100 days project while I'm here, and in fact wrote an entry in my paper journal this morning already, but I didn't transcribe it yet, and also didn't bring said paper journal with me to the library. I probably won't post my entries until I get home on Wednesday, or possibly later in the week. If for some reason you really need to get ahold of me, call my cell, it works up here. Otherwise, just know that I'll see you on the other side.
Every time I am without internet for a few days I remember how much more productive I can be without that instant distraction gratification right there are my finger tips. I KNOW this, and yet I put the knowledge aside much of the time. My mother told me once, in one of her birthday letters to me, that even as a little kid I had an ability to focus intensely and for long periods of time. I still have that ability, but I don't make use of it as well as I could, many days.
20-odd days into my 100 days project and I am noticing how my entries (at least to me) often start out with a fairly boring and mundane paragraph and then I notice myself saying something actually interesting, something that gets below the surface and says something new, or makes an observation I hadn't noticed myself making. I'm wondering: what if, inbetween my intensive drafting periods, I made myself write 100+ words about my dissertation everyday? They wouldn't have to be draft-quality words, but if I was spending time working things out NOT in big, intense, exhausting chunks, would the whole thing be just a little bit easier? (The answer, of course, is "very probably.") Now is not the week to experiment with that idea, since I explicitly plan to be writing way MORE than 100 words a day. But I want to play around with this idea once I've gotten this draft off and see where it gets me as I head into my work on Chapter 2.
The only internet access I have is when we all take a trip down to the local free library, and most of the time I'm here I'm busy catching up on email and LJ and putting out any immediate fires. I plan to keep up with the 100 days project while I'm here, and in fact wrote an entry in my paper journal this morning already, but I didn't transcribe it yet, and also didn't bring said paper journal with me to the library. I probably won't post my entries until I get home on Wednesday, or possibly later in the week. If for some reason you really need to get ahold of me, call my cell, it works up here. Otherwise, just know that I'll see you on the other side.
Every time I am without internet for a few days I remember how much more productive I can be without that instant distraction gratification right there are my finger tips. I KNOW this, and yet I put the knowledge aside much of the time. My mother told me once, in one of her birthday letters to me, that even as a little kid I had an ability to focus intensely and for long periods of time. I still have that ability, but I don't make use of it as well as I could, many days.
20-odd days into my 100 days project and I am noticing how my entries (at least to me) often start out with a fairly boring and mundane paragraph and then I notice myself saying something actually interesting, something that gets below the surface and says something new, or makes an observation I hadn't noticed myself making. I'm wondering: what if, inbetween my intensive drafting periods, I made myself write 100+ words about my dissertation everyday? They wouldn't have to be draft-quality words, but if I was spending time working things out NOT in big, intense, exhausting chunks, would the whole thing be just a little bit easier? (The answer, of course, is "very probably.") Now is not the week to experiment with that idea, since I explicitly plan to be writing way MORE than 100 words a day. But I want to play around with this idea once I've gotten this draft off and see where it gets me as I head into my work on Chapter 2.