My Theory of Dissertation Momentum

A couple weeks ago, I was really excited about my progress. I was consistently working 4-6 hours each day, including at least a couple hours of writing, and mostly enjoying it. I actually felt there was hope for me as an academic writer. Then, everything slowed down. It became hard to write even a paragraph. I’ve been keeping at it, and have been writing each day, but it isn’t fun lately, and I’m feeling frustrated. So, instead of despairing, I reminded myself that this entire dissertation journey is an experiment, with n = 1, and I went about the task of analysis.

In part, I attribute my decreased writing momentum to the fact that I’m working on a different section of my paper, one I enjoy less. I have devised a theoretical model of how the process will work: for each section, I’ll struggle at the beginning, just getting it organized and off the ground. Then hopefully, I’ll get some momentum and go faster. Then I’ll run out of steam on that part and it will go slow again (by the time I got done writing about propensity scores, I was sick and tired of writing about statistical analysis, and so found it very difficult to dredge up enthusiasm to explain my logistic regression and chi-squared procedures.) It’s like pushing off from the wall in swimming or pushing a sled across the snow—you start from a standstill, then get some momentum and pick up speed, then the momentum dies and you have to start over. Only time will tell if my model is supported by actual practice, but it sure makes sense!

If I think of my dissertation rate of progress as a function of time, there is no reason to expect it to be constant. There is also no reason to think it will be an increasing function, in which I get better and better, and progress gets faster and faster. So, since I don’t expect an upward trajectory, I shouldn’t get down when I hit an occasional low spot, as long as progress is continuing. I need to learn to distinguish the occasional low spot, which is no cause for alarm, from an actual quitting/fizzling, which would indeed be a bad thing.  

I suspect that writing progress will be a series of peaks and troughs. Screwtape, in his Letters VIII and IX, describes the Law of Undulation and warns junior tempter Wormwood to never let his human suspect that peaks and troughs are a normal part of the spiritual journey (C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, 1961). According to Screwtape, the Law of Undulation applies to every area of life, including interest in work and affection for friends. He doesn’t specifically mention writing, but I am sure it applies there too. Screwtape says that the best growth (from our perspective and God's, not Screwtape’s!) actually occurs in the troughs. If that’s the case with writing, I should be in great shape!