This is Not My Narrative

More about writing, and life, and dissertations, and less about cats and collies.

We hope.

I just forced myself to turn off last night’s Daily Show and start writing. Writing anything–if not the dissertation then at least this blog.

Okay. The only thing I missed was my moment of zen.

Seriously, though. I’m stuck. I have no idea how to write the Official Analysis Chapter of my dissertation. No idea. And I’m running out of other things to do. Today I’m going to go through the revisions that my good friends B. and D. gave me, and note them, if not actually make them. Just in case tomorrow rolls around, and I still don’t know how to write the Official Analysis Chapter. And because I don’t like to rush things.

Here’s what else I have to do:

1. Figure out what my second reader meant when he said, “You let memory off the hook,” and what to do about it.
2. Write the rest of the “Hymns to the Lares” Chapter. Maybe incorporate #1?
3. Finish the preface (which I’ll do last).
4. Edit the hell out of the APA style that I’ve been pretty much making up as I go along because (a) I don’t know it well and (b) parts of the diss just don’t fit well, stylistically, with APA style (which I’ll do last, even after finishing the preface).
5. Finish the Implications for Teaching chapter, because “I don’t give a crap” is neither an answer, nor long enough to fill a chapter.

Here’s what I’d rather do:

1. Sit on the porch swing and read Cloud Atlas (which I will do, as a reward, later, if I actually get something done today.)
2. Marinate the chicken for dinner.
3. Read the new gas grill manual. (And anyone who knows me will know this is A Desperate Measure to Avoid Writing.)
4. Watch replays of Michael Phelps winning assorted medals. Or the Russian women on the balance beam. Seriously–it’s summer’s answer to ice skating. All flinching, all the time.

And now, to work.

And for inspiration, Clarence Budington Kelland: “I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.”