The Streak Reaches 100

Yes, it’s official: Last night, for the 100th day in a row, I spent 30 consecutive minutes writing my paper. Earlier this summer, I finally decided to actually try the “write every day” advice I have heard so often, and 83 days ago I created a written writing streak definition so I wouldn’t be tempted to cheat.

I must confess that, while I haven’t technically cheated by claiming false information in my writing log, there were many nights when my heart wasn’t in it, I was too tired to put coherent sentences together, or my attention was distracted. During tonight’s writing session, for example, I wrote through a splitting headache while simultaneously watching the Rangers try as many ways as possible to give away what should have been their World Series victory game. It could be argued that these writing sessions are of questionable value. Runners have a name for this: “junk miles”. Junk miles are miles run for no other training purpose except to add a number to the running log. Runners are not in agreement about this--some think junk miles should be avoided, while others think all miles have value and there are no such things as junk miles.

What about my “junk writing minutes”? Are they valuable, or are they a way to deceive myself about my writing progress? Undoubtedly, I should put some thought into improving the way I manage my sleep, work, and life, so that I can give quality undistracted minutes to my writing. Realistically, if I wait until I have time and energy to reorganize my life so I can write every day, it will never happen. If I only write on the days I have time to write well, I will never write. Theoretically, my life contains some days with enough time to write well and other days without, and I should be able to write on the good days. The trouble is, if I don’t write on the bad days, I won’t think of it on the good days. Even if I do think of writing on the good days, I won’t know what to write because I won’t have looked at my paper for a week or more. The “write every day” plan accomplishes one very important objective: It keeps me from hiding from my dissertation. Since I am not allowed to hide from it, I am almost forced to make forward progress, even if slow.

Key to my streak has been my Excel spreadsheet writing log, which calculates the length of the streak and prevents me from cheating. I found it easiest to put together formulas in two different cells to do calculate the streak, instead of doing it all in one.

In cell G180:
=IF(ISBLANK($D180),"",IF(F180<30,"NO","YES"))

In cell A180:
=IF(ISBLANK(D180),"",IF(AND(B180-B179=1,G180="YES",G179="YES"),A179+1,IF(B180-B179=0,A179,1)))

Have I occasionally been tempted to skip a day? Yes. Why haven’t I? I knew I would regret it the next day. Also, I am scared of the consequences of letting the “write every day” habit end. If I quit, I may go back to what I was for far too long: a grad student who was making no progress (due to hiding from the dissertation) but who was unable to fully experience everyday joys of life (due to the guilt of the unprogressing dissertation). You can avoid working on the dissertation, but you can’t get rid of it except by finishing it. Even if you are hiding from it very effectively and haven’t looked at it in a year, you still must carry it everywhere you go, and it is heavy. Imagine carrying an invisible backpack full of invisible rocks everywhere you go. It really takes the fun out of life!

How long will I keep up the writing streak? I don’t know. I have occasionally thought it would be neat to keep it going until the day I graduate (so yes, years from now), but we’ll see. I think the primary reason for continuing so far is that once I started, I wanted it to end on my terms. Cal Ripken didn’t end his streak of 2632 consecutive games by getting injured or by becoming such a bad player that the Orioles didn’t want him to play. He ended it by voluntarily removing his name from the lineup for the last home game of 1998. I’d prefer to do the same.

Until then, let the junk writing go on!