Writing Uphill with the Fitbit: Part I

My name is Biffet and I am a Fitbit. Eight days ago, I was adopted by a new owner. Well, maybe “adopted” is not the right word. She bought me, but thinking of myself as being adopted sounds cozier, so that’s what I’ll do. I was so glad to finally have a home—for quite some time, I had been locked in a glass cage in a small-town department store, along with about 40 other Fitbits. For a while, every Fitbit who arrived was adopted almost instantly. I overheard an employee say that her mom’s entire exercise class had wanted one, and were lying in wait for shipments, then snapping them up and taking them home.

Eventually, the store people figured out they needed to adjust their inventory, so they ordered a whole bunch of us. But as soon as we arrived, demand dried up. Apparently everyone in the exercise class already had Fitbits, and it’s not the sort of thing you need two of. So there we sat, pining for a way to get out of our cage. (Fitbits like to keep moving—they don’t cope well with sitting still.)

Then last Saturday, a lady showed up and walked straight up to our cage. She read the boxes, got a surprised and happy look on her face, then ran away. We were a little confused and disappointed—we were new and didn’t yet understand the routine. Soon, she returned, accompanied by a store employee jangling a bunch of keys. Our cage was unlocked, and the lady said, “I want one of those—the black Fitbit Charge HR in size Large.” And hooray, the employee reached in and chose me!! I was so glad I had thought to jostle my way to the front row a couple days ago, so I could peek out.

And yay, when I got to the car, I found a friend! Another Fitbit, just like me. But alas, it was a short-lived friendship. The lady said she had gotten a better deal on me, so she was returning the other Fitbit. (That’s how I found out I was purchased rather than adopted—a bit disheartening, but I am slowly learning to accept it.) Apparently my particular department store had a policy of paying people to shop. My owner had a wad of green papers that were a special kind of cash—cash that could only be spent at this one store. When she bought me with the special green cash, the store gave her more special green cash. It seems rather a strange way to run a store...I wonder how they stay in business? Maybe that’s why they have inventory problems. Anyway, my owner got paid to shop for me, yet she still referred to me as a rather extravagant purchase. Sigh...so many things I don’t understand.

Anyway, she took me home, got me out of the package, and plugged me in. She managed to install the phone app and the computer app without too much trouble. She was very glad it was so easy—she said it must be idiot-proof if she could do it. She’s a smart lady with a lot of college degrees, but apparently isn’t very confident when it comes to installing apps and programs. She said that was because she lives with someone who likes that sort of thing, and he always installs and updates stuff for her. She said it was hard to become skilled at things if someone else always does them for you. Makes sense to me.

While she was setting me up, she was intently watching a TV program. A bunch of horses walking around with tiny folded-up people on them. Then she laid the computer and phone aside, jumped up and down a lot, and even hollered a little. Then she just stared dumbfounded at the TV. I thought maybe she even cried a little, but that wouldn’t make sense. I heard something about a Triple Crown and 38 years since Affirmed. She said she wished she had been wearing me, so she could know how fast her heart was racing. (The HR in Fitbit Charge HR stands for Heart Rate.)

In only an hour or so, I was all charged up and ready to go. Yay! I am a fitness tracker, so I figured she would take me for a walk. That’s the whole point, right?

But no: she took me WRITING. Yes, she was so excited to have a fitness tracker, that she went to a restaurant and WROTE. The only steps I counted were back and forth to the soda machine, and one trip to buy dessert.

Then, we left the restaurant and went to a coffee shop. More writing. Actually, not so much writing, but sitting at a table recording survey data. She accused me of overestimating her steps—of counting a step every time her arm flipped over a survey. She simply had no comprehension of how many steps were involved in normal activities, like going to a coffee shop. (Well, maybe writing after midnight in a coffee shop isn’t normal for most people, but apparently it is for her.) Then, she got mad at me for starting a new day at midnight. This kept her from getting proper credit for the steps she took walking from the coffee shop to her car. She thought the day should end whenever she told it to, like her writing log. Or it could end at 2:00 a.m., if I wanted it to always end at the same time. But ending it at midnight was unreasonable. I sighed. This relationship was not off to a good start.

The next day was much the same. Writing. Bleh. Then Monday. More writing. What had I gotten myself into? Why did this lady want a fitness tracker? She said something about wanting to lose her dissertation weight, but she didn’t seem to understand that simply wearing a fitness tracker to coffee shops was not going to make that happen.

Then, Monday night, things changed. She took me for a long walk, with a friend and the friend’s Fitbit! Hooray! It was a beautiful night for a walk. It was fun to listen to the two friends talk. They talked about writing, among other things. They both have lots of papers they need to write. That was fine. From my point of view, talking about writing is preferable to actual writing. I asked my new Fitbit friend for advice about coping with this strange owner who wanted to write all the time. He said his owner was the same—she kept taking him writing instead of walking. His owner also mentioned dissertation weight—she doesn’t have any yet, but is afraid she will get some without her Fitbit. However, based on some things they both said and also on our own observations, we thought they both spent time doing other stuff they didn’t need to do, as a way to avoid writing. That doesn’t make sense—if they have stuff that needs written, and they talk about wanting to be good writers who actually finish things, why don’t they just write, instead of doing other stuff? And if they simply can’t stand writing, why don’t they walk around the block to avoid it, rather than always doing sedentary stuff?

But at least on this night, the two writing friends were walking. We gave them each a big pat on the back (well, really a vibration on the wrist), when they reached 10,000 steps for the day. (New Fitbits default to a daily goal of 10,000 steps.) Our owners said goodbye, and so did we. It sounds like I may get to walk with my new Fitbit friend occasionally—I hope so! If our owners insist on doing all this writing, we need to strategize about how to get them physically fit while doing it. It won’t be easy. (I will post another update soon....I am really hoping this weekend of writing was an aberration.)

Oh no, not a writing appointment! Anything but that!

Nearly every writing expert maintains that I should schedule my daily writing session, and protect it like an important appointment. (Because it is…right?) By “schedule my writing session,” they mean that I should commit in writing to a specific time and place. Then I must show up at the appointed time and place, ready to write.

This is how appointments work. I understand the concept, and I have no problem making appointments with my doctor, my hair stylist, or my car mechanic. (Well, sometimes I have problems getting around to making the appointments when I should. But once I make the appointment, I keep it, and I do not resent these professionals for requiring an appointment.)

For some reason, writing appointments evoke a completely different reaction. They make me shudder and want to hide. My resistance is irrational, but real.

I have been writing consistently for about three years now. In fact, tonight’s writing session has extended my writing streak to 382 consecutive days. Hmmm….I just looked at my log and, wow, this ties my previous record for consecutive writing days, reached on January 22, 2013. Cool! I definitely need to remember to write tomorrow. Last time I reached 382 days, I forgot to write the next day, and was devastated to see my writing streak end. Almost none of those writing sessions were scheduled in advance for a specific time.

I have generally convinced myself that as long as I was writing daily, it didn’t matter that I failed to schedule the time. My writing streak and my finished dissertation are proof that my system is working. But is it working? Maybe I have been deluding myself. Yes, I am writing, but my failure to plan may be destroying my writing efficiency. (Well, you can’t destroy something that never existed. More accurately, my failure to make writing appointments may prevent me from ever becoming an efficient writer.)

How about a trial period? I should schedule my appointments for a week, and see if it helps. I took a deep breath and pondered my week. What time would work best? I would have to make this tough decision seven times, once for each day. I wavered and gave up. It was just too much.

Would planning one day at a time work? Maybe that would be less intimidating than planning writing appointments for a whole week. I tried it. I sat there with my pen and my calendar, and willed myself to write down a time, in ink. I couldn’t do it. Scratch that. “I couldn’t” is surely a lie. My hand muscles were perfectly capable of grasping the pen and using it to write words and numbers on the paper. “I wouldn’t” is indisputably the truth. Regardless, it didn’t happen. The thought of writing down a time was revolting to me—my mind pushed back, vehemently. It was as if I had walked into a room with a really strong unpleasant odor, and my body pushed back, doubling over and wanting to throw up. That’s how I felt when I thought of committing to a specific writing time.

Why? Why such a strong negative reaction to the notion of scheduling my writing? It makes no sense.

Is my aversion to scheduling writing-specific, or does it apply to other activities? What about running? I almost never schedule the time I run, and I usually don’t decide the mileage in advance. I have never successfully followed a training plan to completion. However, I once followed a marathon training plan for a couple months. I didn’t schedule the exact times of my runs, but I knew approximately when they would occur (10:00 p.m., when my favorite writing venue kicked me out.) During the time I followed the plan, I hit nearly all the weekly mileage targets. Planning my running doesn’t seem to evoke nearly the level of negativity as planning my writing.

Is it rebellion? Not wanting to be told what to do? I love my little Toyota Corolla (238,000 miles and still going strong), which gets excellent gas mileage. But if the government passed a regulation requiring fuel-efficient cars, or incentivizing them in some way, I would be seized by a strong desire to drive a large truck or land yacht—preferably an old rickety one that makes coughing noises and spews blue smoke.

But with writing, how could it be rebellion? The government is not telling me to schedule my writing times, and neither is my employer. The decision about when to write is mine alone.

Perhaps my distaste for writing appointments is tied up with my fear of failure and rejection. Scheduling my writing time sets me up for failure. If I schedule myself to write at 10:00 a.m. and I oversleep, then my day is a failure before I even get out of bed. If my writing appointment is at 2:00 p.m. and I let myself get sidetracked by email, I have failed. I clearly can’t hack it as a writer, so I might as well not even try.

I hoped that writing about it would help me resolve my scheduling revulsion. It didn’t. I still do not understand it, and I have not defeated it. So, at least for now, I will continue as before. As I wake up each day, I will delight in my freedom, knowing I can write at whatever time I choose. No matter how tight the constraints of the day, there is always choice…some scrap of time I can devote to writing, if I wish. Scheduling would rob me of one of writing’s pleasures—the pleasure of choice.

I’m PhinisheD!

It is PhinisheD. Yep, somehow I finished my dissertation, defended it, and graduated. And I’m back! (on my blog, that is).

To start, I must first apologize to my small but faithful cadre of readers. I should not have abandoned you. To write an (at least somewhat) inspirational blog post about the joy of spending Thanksgiving Day at McDonald’s, then to disappear without a word, for over six months—such behavior is unacceptable. Perhaps I can explain it, but I cannot justify it. No, scratch that….I cannot explain it, because I do not fully understand it myself.

Still, even if inadequate, an explanation is warranted. Here goes…

Words cannot describe the emotional, mental, and physical drain of my last four months of dissertating. (Keep in mind that “drain” is not always negative….intense joy can be draining too!) A few days after that Thanksgiving blog post, I set my dissertation defense date, for January 31, 2014. Driven by a fear of not finishing (two chapters had not been even begun, and the other chapters were extremely rough), I found myself able to work far longer and harder than should have been possible.

Once the draft was “finished” (no more unwritten sections), I turned to revising, trying to bring the rough sections up to snuff, in hopes they would pass muster with my committee. I revised until I ran out of time, and then I sent it off—hoping for the best but fearing the worst. I knew my paper still had very real flaws, and I knew my committee had very real standards. However, I was unsure of the seriousness of the flaws relative to the standard.

The process is rather like being in a dark tunnel and having to leap over an unseen rock wall, of unknown height. You know you need to jump high, but you don’t know how high. Until you jump, you don’t know what will happen—you might sail cleanly over the top; or you might hit the wall hard, hard enough to bruise and batter your body, and then fall back down the way you came. With luck, your head will not crack open and you’ll be able to try again another day. Or, you might jump almost high enough but not quite—just high enough to grab the top with your fingernails and somehow drag your body over the wall, scraping yourself up but successfully arriving on the other side.

As it turns out, I made it over the wall with nary a scratch. All the writing training, feedback, and hours of revision paid off—I only had to do a few tiny edits after my committee read my paper. A few more tiny edits (formatting) for the Thesis Office, and I was done. (Some of these “tiny edits” were rather time-consuming, such as paring my abstract down to the specified 350 words, obsessing over my Acknowledgments, and looking up doi numbers for my 128 references—these tasks were mostly enjoyable, not stressful.)

Somewhere in the process of finishing my dissertation, all my creative writing energy was drained away. It was as if someone opened a spigot and just let it all pour out onto the ground. Blog ideas used to constantly invade my brain. I didn’t always write them up, but I thought of them…sometimes I even started writing them, and stashed them in the archives for later polishing (nope, I still haven’t slain the perfectionism monster). But from November to March, no inspiration. It had been stolen away, maybe by physical exhaustion, maybe by the mental effort of writing, maybe by the intensity of emotion, from fear to overwhelming joy. I had no energy to do what I should have done—start writing in hopes inspiration would strike.

After I cleared the Thesis Office in early March, I started to feel normal again and vowed to restart my blog. The problem was, that after such a long absence and after an event so momentous as a Ph.D. graduation, I was convinced my next blog post had to be SPECTACULAR. It had to engaging, inspiring, and beautifully written. Anything less would be a disappointment and might even out me as a fraud. I made a few token efforts, but they all fell short.

Finally, I came to my senses and gave up. If my first blog post as a Ph.D. had to be good, my blog was doomed. I can’t let that happen. This little blog has been a creative outlet and a source of joy for me (plus, it’s great writing practice!)…. I’m not willing to let it go.

Onward and forward… a new chapter in my blogging life awaits.

P.S. Interestingly, I started this blog almost exactly three years ago, on June 22, 2011. I just missed my three-year anniversary. I thought of waiting three more days, until June 29, so this post could land on June 29, the anniversary of my first real post (rather than the intro post marking the existence of the blog). But I decided the risks were too great—if I suffered a perfectionism attack during those three days, my blog might sit idle for another six months. Better to strike now, while my courage holds.

Unexpected Joys of the Dissertation: Thanksgiving Dinner at McDonald’s

Today I did something I have never done in my entire life: I spent over 12 consecutive hours in a McDonald’s restaurant. To make the experience even more memorable, it was Thanksgiving Day.

As a writing venue, this particular McDonald’s had several things going for it. Most importantly, unlike most of my usual haunts, it was open. Also, since this was a college town, it had been designed to accommodate students who needed a quiet place to work. Like most McDonald’s (hmmm….what is the proper way to pluralize a possessive proper noun?), the main part of the facility had several televisions blaring and was not conducive to studying. But this particular McDonald’s, instead a playland for kids, has a large quiet study room, with a variety of seating options and plenty of electrical outlets. A glass wall seals the study room off from the noisy part of the restaurant.

As an additional plus, the service was friendly, much friendlier than I have found in my rare visits to a big city McDonald’s. I was pleasantly surprised by the food, particularly the Homestyle Burger…it was really good! So was the Peppermint Latte (I had two.)

The one drawback of the quiet study room was the temperature. It was freezing!! Fortunately, I was somewhat prepared. I had multiple jackets, sweatshirts, and blankets. (I learned that lesson last weekend, when I had to borrow a writing blanket from a friend who lives in town.) I also had a pair of writing gloves (gloves without fingers). I purchased the gloves last night, in anticipation of a cold writing session. In the last six months, thanks to a kind husband and total immersion in the dissertation, I have only made a half-dozen or so visits to grocery/retail stores. One of those visits was last night, and it’s a good thing I did it. I should have looked for an electric blanket too.

During the day, most of the McDonald’s patrons appeared to be college students. Some stayed quite a while (though I outlasted nearly all of them). I suspect I may have been the only one born and raised in the U.S.A. In the evening, the clientele changed…more teenagers and children. I wonder if they were getting ready for Black Friday shopping?

A friend heard I was in town to write, and invited me to her home for Thanksgiving dinner. The friend, also a graduate student, understood perfectly that I could not commit to a specific time, that I might show up anytime or not at all, and that writing my dissertation took priority over eating a holiday dinner. But apparently my friend’s mother was horrified that I was spending Thanksgiving at McDonalds’s. I think my friend had to forcibly restrain her mom from delivering turkey and stuffing to me.

Speaking of moms, my mom and my husband ate Thanksgiving dinner together at Golden Corral, eighty-plus miles away. Since I ate under the Golden Arches, we were all together in spirit.

A year and a half ago, I wondered if I could find joy in the dissertation writing process. Today, I did.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Important note: Only 56 minutes of writing time were used to create and edit this blog post.
(Those who know me well are aware that I am engaged in a constant battle with perfectionism. This note is to reassure them I have not relapsed.)

Keep Calm and Write On

When I arrived at work yesterday, the sign pictured below was attached to my office door. So far, no one has claimed responsibility.

I have several suspects in mind, and have begun inquiries.

Regardless of who did it, I plan to obey.

I’m back!!

As my faithful readers have undoubtedly noticed, my little blog has been sadly neglected for the last few months.

Why?

That question is currently under analysis. The preliminary findings of that analysis have already emerged, and I would love to share them with you. Unfortunately, I am prevented from doing so by the same root cause that produced the phenomenon under investigation (an enthusiastic blog-writer vanishing from her own blog). At a later time, after the situation causing the blogger’s blogging hiatus has been resolved, I will post a detailed report.

In the interim, please be assured that I have not been completely idle. I have stopped drifting, and have kept myself busy by decorating, with the help of my investors.

(Yes, the links are safe …and relevant.)

In the coming weeks, I hope to revive the blog from its coma through a sequence of short posts at regular intervals. Very strict time limits will be imposed on the generating and editing of these posts. Without such limits, the patient is unlikely to survive; if it does survive, its long-term outlook will not be positive.

Chemistry Building Addition: Introducing my new writing assistant

(This is Stop #21 in the Texas A&M Building Writing Tour, my attempt to motivate myself on my dissertation by writing in every campus building before I graduate.)

In recent weeks, my dissertation productivity has increased considerably, with an unfortunate result — the near extinction of my recreational writing.

I’ve been wanting to start blogging again, but it seemed so difficult to switch my writing gears. Plus, I felt intimidated by my backlog of buildings. So, to get unstuck, I decided to write in a new building, and tackle a really easy writing task: Gushing about my new portable monitor.

The 16.4” HP U160 Portable Monitor is a remarkable product. Simple, beautiful, and functional. It runs from a single USB port (no external power source). The attached case flips around and becomes a stand, so I can prop the non-glare screen at any angle. It starts automatically, as soon as I plug it in. Using the HP DisplayLink Manager software, I can specify the second monitor’s location, to the right or left of my laptop. This gizmo requires no computer savvy … just drag the windows and documents over to it, and drag them back when you’re done.

This is a wonderful writing tool. I can read a journal article on one screen and write about it on the other. I can compare two sets of statistical output side-by-side. If I’m doing lots of cutting and pasting between documents, I can keep them both visible simultaneously — no more switching between windows, confusing myself, and pasting paragraphs into the wrong file. It’s fantastic!

Every writing nomad should own one of these. At 3.4 pounds, it’s light enough to carry anywhere (official weight from HP, confirmed by my own independent measurement). Wherever I am working, my new monitor is by my side — at my apartment, the library, or the local bakery/deli. At my favorite coffee shop (which has tiny round tables), the monitor sits on a tall chair borrowed from the bar.

When it’s time to go home, the whole thing folds into a flat package about an inch thick. I’m not sure if the black outer covering is leather, or vinyl, or what, but it has a rich, classy feel. The inside is lined with soft velour/felt material to protect the screen. Embedded magnets gently snap the case closed, with no need for zippers or latches.

The subtle embossed HP logo adds a nice touch — I love my monitor so much, I don’t mind a little advertising. In fact, I sold two of them in the first week alone — HP should put me on commission!

What do you think is cooler, the monitor or the multicolored  glass-encased helix?

On Writing Community (Part I): Rescued!

I spent all of last Friday stuck in a bog; a bog of my own making. No, that’s not quite it. I did not create the bog, but I allowed myself to wander into it. Instead of paying attention to the ground immediately in front of my feet, my eyes were focused far ahead, trying to discern my path. I was looking for assurance that my current road would indeed take me to my destination, and not to a dead end, or to somewhere I did not wish to go. I was so busy looking for distant dangers that I missed the danger at hand. Before I knew what had happened, I was stuck. Like Bunyan’s famous pilgrim in the Slough of Despond, I struggled to move forward, then sank into darkness and discouragement.

I did not intend for this blog post to become an allegory. But since it seems to be heading that way, I might as well give my bog a name — I’ll call it the Swamp of Statistics Fear. Now, please let me clarify… I am not one of those many graduate students who are terrified of statistics. I enjoyed my statistics classes, and I think I am perfectly capable of grasping statistical concepts. But my analysis requires some advanced techniques, combined in an unusual way, and I’m not sure exactly how to go about it.

My perfectionism affliction affects all areas of my life, including my quantitative analysis. I want to thoroughly understand my statistical procedures, so I can write intelligently about them. More importantly, I want to avoid making mistakes and drawing wrong conclusions. In hopes of understanding exactly how to proceed, I have spent many hours reading, learning, and writing about what I’ve learned. Still, I am in a fog. I understand far more than I once did, but crucial connections are missing. And time is slipping away. Every day is precious, and I can’t afford to spend them floundering in the dark. I must get started, or I will never finish.

When I fell into the bog Friday, I knew exactly what had happened. My fear of flubbing my analysis had paralyzed me. Immobilized by Fear, I couldn’t move forward, and not just on my statistics. I didn’t work on other parts of my paper, because I knew that my writing would serve as a statistics avoidance mechanism. I didn’t go for a run, because I hadn’t been productive and didn’t deserve recreation. My day degenerated into a total loss.

Fortunately, as for Bunyan’s pilgrim, Help arrived. A friend, seeing me flailing to get free, offered to meet me at a coffee shop Saturday and talk through my statistics. Now, let me be clear — he was not there as a statistics tutor. He did not tell me how to do my statistical analysis. Though he has far more statistical knowledge than I have, he was not an expert in the particular techniques I was using. But he had something more important — a clear mind, a mind not hampered by personal investment in the project. He gave me sound advice, pointed me to some useful online resources, and reminded me to keep everything as simple as possible. Together we mapped out my next few steps, and decided at what point in the process I should call in a true expert (the statistics professor on my committee). My friend reminded me that although I could not yet see a clear path all the way through the analysis, I had sufficient light for the next few steps.

Finally, I was free. Right there in Sweet Eugene’s House of Java, I started to work, putting together my data set. But I was still on the edge of the swamp, and could easily have slid back in. Fortunately, my statistics friend had brought reinforcements, in the form of another friend. We wrote together for a while, and talked about our journeys, our fears, and our futures. Then the three of us went for a jog in the park. Not wanting to leave me until they were sure I was safe on solid ground, they handed me off to another pair of friends (yep, same coffee shop…we wrote together all evening.)

I once thought writing was a solitary endeavor. Now I know better.

Along this writing journey, I have been blessed with cheerleaders — friends who applaud my efforts, downplay my deficiencies, and celebrate my victories, however tiny. I cannot describe how much their encouragement means to me.

But when you are truly stuck, a cheerleader on the sideline is not enough. You need fellow travelers who are willing to lay down their own burdens for a while, climb into the muck with you, get their clothes dirty, and drag you out.

Thank you, my writing friends.

Sbisa Dining Hall: Death of a Dream

(This is Stop #20 in the Texas A&M Building Writing Tour, my attempt to motivate myself on my dissertation by writing in every campus building before I graduate.)

Well, it’s gone. Over. Dead.

My beautiful, magnificent, splendid writing streak is done. It lasted over a year, and I had secretly hoped to keep it going until I graduated. For 382 days in a row, I wrote continuously for at least 30 minutes. I was sure I would at least make it to 400. (Why are numbers ending in 00 somehow more satisfying? Completely illogical.)

My writing streak died last night at midnight, but I didn’t discover its death until lunchtime today, in Sbisa Dining Hall's underground café where I had settled in for a pleasant lunchtime writing session. I couldn’t decide between Chik-Fil-A and Mombo Subs, so I compromised, pairing a Mombo sandwich with CFA’s waffle fries. I opened my file to work, and I opened my writing log spreadsheet to document my session. Then, a shock: there was no entry for yesterday.

I stared at the log, hoping to discover a mistake. I scoured my paper journal, to see if I’d written longhand without recording the date. I cast my mind through all of yesterday’s events, from getting up in the late morning, to the doctor’s appointment, to packing up my stuff, and driving to my College Station apartment for two days of self-imposed dissertation boot camp. I remembered settling in for a relaxing evening, catching up on emails and other miscellaneous dissertation-related tasks. I didn’t even open my writing log, thinking I’d written that morning. Somehow my dissertation-addled brain mixed yesterday morning up with the previous morning…I remembered an actual morning writing session, but my mind placed it on the wrong day. I could easily have written half an hour last night, without even staying up late.

If only I’d known my writing streak was dying at that very moment, I wouldn’t have been so upset about shattering my beloved water mug in the apartment parking lot. Yes, yesterday was one of those days everything fell apart: me, my water mug, and my writing streak. I wonder, do other grad students occasionally have days filled with panic, when nothing goes well, and they’re terrified they won’t be able to finish? Hmmm, it’s probably just me. I must say, the writing streak has helped with that—ever since I developed a daily writing habit, my percentage of panic-filled days has decreased.

A wise professor once advised me to voluntarily end my writing streak after a year. I wish I’d listened to her. I suspect she know I was bound to blow it if I kept going. She probably feared, with good reason, that if I failed at something so simple as writing every day, I would become very discouraged about my dissertation. I’m sure she knew it would hurt more to lose this writing streak than last year’s writing streak, which had only been with me for 145 days.

I am keenly aware of how a small setback can snowball into deep discouragement, if you're not careful. Don’t worry, I have invested far too much in this little project to let that happen. I am determined to press on and not lose heart. Once I get past the momentary sadness, I’m sure I’ll see this in a positive light. Perhaps now, instead of being satisfied with spending 30 minutes a day writing about a building, I’ll chase some bigger and more meaningful writing goals.

Important disclaimer: Except for a few small edits, I wrote the above portion of this post on Thursday, January 24, the same day I learned of my writing streak’s demise. As usual, I am running behind transferring my photos and posting my building blurbs. Bad habits are tough to break at the best of times…please cut me some slack while I’m in mourning.

Oh, I almost forgot…this blog post is supposed to be about a building! I’m afraid I don’t have much to say about Sbisa Dining Hall. My writing streak’s death had rattled me, and my powers of observation were nearly nonexistent that day. All I noticed about the Sbisa underground were the murals on the walls. I liked them. They were very well done, but not so well done as to be the work of a professional (at least I hope not). My guess is that they were created by a bunch of different student groups.

Evans Library: Dissertation Boot Camp!

(This is Stop #19 in the Texas A&M Building Writing Tour, my attempt to motivate myself on my dissertation by writing in every campus building before I graduate.)

What an amazing week. For four days, the University Writing Center staff locked us in a beautiful window-lined room in Evans library, so we could write, write, write.

We each had our own big table, where we could spread out our books, research articles, and chocolate. Each day, our Writing Center friends treated us to an excellent lunch. They said that if we left to eat, we probably wouldn’t come back. As one camper said, “they took care of us so we wouldn’t have to take care of ourselves.” They even fed us afternoon snacks—writing is hungry work.

Each day, we each had a 45-minute private coaching session with the same two Writing Center experts. Thanks to Nancy and Skully, my fantastic coaches, my Introduction and Methods sections are a thousand times better than they were the weekend before. (For the first three days, I spelled Skully’s name as Scully when I sent her my papers. I eventually got it right. Apparently she is an anthropologist who likes to play with skulls.)

Due to a hectic data collection semester last fall, along with some non-dissertation-related setbacks over Christmas break, my rate of progress had slowed nearly to zero in the six weeks prior to boot camp. I badly needed some momentum.

I found it.

In the past two years, I have become a believer in the power of a daily writing habit. In fact, oddly enough, my writing streak (writing 30 minutes every single day, no matter what) began on January 7, 2012, exactly one year before the first day of the 2013 Dissertation Boot Camp. I have made considerable progress by squeezing one-hour writing sessions into the end of tiring days, but that’s not enough. If I want to finish this thing, I need some 4-6 hour work sessions, long enough to wrestle with organizational issues and data analysis without constantly looking at the clock. (Short breaks are okay; I’m not crazy enough to write 6 hours nonstop.)

I don’t think I could write 9-5 for more than 4 days though. By Thursday afternoon of boot camp, I was exhausted and my brain was fried. I couldn’t write a coherent sentence no matter how hard I tried. I’m pretty sure my fellow campers felt the same.

But as tired as we were, we knew we had accomplished a lot in those four days. Three of us resolved to do our own unofficial boot camp, beginning the next Monday in Evans Library. Getting up at 7:30 a.m. is never easy for me, but I can do it if I know someone is expecting me.

Boot camp ended on January 10, and so did the free lunches, snacks, and private writing coaches. But that’s okay, because the boot camp organizers gave me a very special gift, a gift I can keep: Cheerleaders. Whenever I walk through the second floor of Evans library and see someone from the Writing Center, I can count on receiving a pat on the back and a kind word about my writing. To a graduate student, especially one in the dissertation-writing stage, words of encouragement are like gold. (They gave me a T-shirt too, but I value the cheerleaders more.)

Over the last two years, I’ve written many times in Evans Library, usually staring at the wall of a small closet known as an individual study room. I’m very glad I waited until Dissertation Boot Camp to put Evans in my blog. Thank you, TAMU Writing Center!

Me at my writing table. It looks dark outside because it is.
It rained most of the week, so nobody wanted to go outside anyway.

Chemistry Building

(This is Stop #18 in the Texas A&M Building Writing Tour, my attempt to motivate myself on my dissertation by writing in every campus building before I graduate.)

(This is also the last remaining building in my backlog of overdue buildings. I wrote in the Chemistry Building in early November.)

Wow, what a cool building! I know I’ve said it before, and it’s not very creative, but that’s what ran through my mind as I walked the Chemistry Building’s halls in search of a writing place.

I chose this building semi-randomly, from the population of buildings near the Harrington Education Tower, site of my POWER writing group meeting at 5:00. The funnest buildings for writing are those whose identities are completely unknown to me when I enter them. Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out where I am—not this time. Within six steps of the door, the chemistry was obvious….chemical diagrams, labs, and hazard warnings were everywhere. The Chemistry Building was clearly not designed for writing—I walked the entirety of the main hallways of all three floors without finding a single chair, bench, or study cranny.

During my futile search for a bench, I enjoyed reading the signs. On an elevator that didn’t look like an elevator: “This is a non-functioning elevator….for ADA compliant elevator, go to room ___.” On an ice machine: “Not for Human Consumption”. On a marker board: a detailed hand drawing of the building and surrounding streets/walkways, complete with stick figures, numerous arrows, and large biceps (on a stick figure). Everywhere: “High Voltage and Spill Control Kit”. On each floor: signs for the men’s and women’s restrooms, also with arrows. I followed the arrows to what appeared to be a dead end. I was scared to open the double steel doors, because they appeared to go to a lab. (I didn’t want to trespass.) I peered through the glass and saw no lab equipment, so plunged ahead. Sure enough, I found it: a well-marked door to a lovely, brightly lit restroom, nicely decorated with gray-and-white checkerboard tiles and shiny steel fixtures.

The place I wanted to write was the Arthur E. Martell lecture hall, because I wanted my one photo to feature the lecture hall lobby’s garish decorations. The floor’s intricate geometric tile design reminded me of American Indian art. The fancy brass moldings on the ceilings made me think of a normal house masquerading as a mansion. I’m not sure what the red leather-like door coverings decorated with rivets reminded me of... a dungeon? An old-timey western attorney’s office? Anyway, none of the lobby decorations seemed to belong, either with each other or with the rest of the chemistry building.

I couldn’t write in the lecture hall because it was being used for…guess what? A lecture. I do not claim to know the topic of the lecture, as I only saw one PowerPoint slide, which summarized the difference between realism and romanticism. Perhaps if I had stayed, the professor would have pointed to the giant periodic table on the wall and explained whether it fit best with realism, romanticism, or both. But no, I couldn’t stay. I had to fit in a writing session before my 5:00 writing group meeting, or I might get kicked out of the group.

For the first time in my building-writing tour, and possibly in my whole life, I wrote for nearly an hour standing up. (I stood up for part of my Kyle Field writing session, because Texas Aggies are required to stand during football games, and I did not arrive in time to finish writing before the game started.) The best writing place I could find was a chest-high table outside a lab. A friendly chemist emerged and asked if I needed a door unlocked. (I’m sure he wouldn’t have actually unlocked anything without checking my credentials.) I told him that no, I was just waiting for someone, and asked if I would be in anyone’s way writing at this table. He reassured me and went back to work. (I practiced no deceit—I was indeed waiting for someone. I was waiting for me to finish my writing session.) I have heard that writing standing up is actually a good thing…it can cause your brain to function better, and of course, it burns more calories than sitting. Maybe I should do this more often.

I was tempted to cave on my “one picture per building, visible from my writing location” rule. I so wanted to post the picture of the lecture hall lobby, as I was so proud of myself for managing to stuff the geometric floor, brass ceiling moldings, and riveted doors all into the same picture. I slept on it, and fortunately a cooler head prevailed. Nearly a year ago, I compromised my principles on the writing streak, allowing myself to count blog writing and rambling in my writing log. Like most who succumb to temptation, I justified it in my own mind, arguing that miscellaneous writing activity would provide useful writing practice and keep me from hiding from my dissertation. Disaster followed: my 367-day writing streak now controls my life, keeping me awake late at night writing about buildings, instead of sleeping so I can do meaningful research and writing.

Even our sins and compromises have value, if we learn from them. So here is my one building photo, which includes my tall writing table. If you want to see the lecture hall lobby, you’ll have to visit in person (you’ll be glad you did.) I love the Chemistry Building’s wood doors and moldings…they seem unexpected, almost quaint. They are certainly warm and welcoming. If I were a chemist who had to spend my life in a lab, I’d like the lab to be here.

My writing table is on the right side of the hall, past the blue trash can but not quite as far as the yellow refrigerator.

Writing while barfing

Well, the writing streak is officially out of control. I refused to break it even when I was throwing up every ten minutes (aftereffect of sinus surgery anesthesia). I kept the hospital-issued barf bag on the table next to my computer, which worked very well.

Two days after last year’s sinus-drilling operation, I completely forgot to write, and my writing streak died after 145 days. I was heartbroken. This year, with my writing streak standing at 319 on surgery day, I was determined not to repeat my mistake.

Amazingly, writing is now a part of my daily routine. It’s not always valuable, and it’s often ugly, but it’s there. I am no more likely to forget to write than to forget to brush my teeth. Even on the worst of days, I no longer doubt that I can squeeze in a thirty-minute writing session.

So, my dear writing streak, ridiculous as you are, I thank you.

Jack E. Brown Engineering Building: Sometimes “good enough” is good enough

(This is Stop #15 in the Texas A&M Building Writing Tour, my attempt to motivate myself on my dissertation by writing in every campus building before I graduate.)

Since my dialog with my inner perfectionist a couple weeks ago, I keep noodling on the concept of “good enough”. How good is good enough? Shouldn’t I try to excel at things I do? If I am writing something, shouldn’t I try to write it as well as I can? I always thought that if a task wasn’t worth doing well, it wasn’t worth doing at all. Now I’m reconsidering.

If I were in business, I could make decisions about what is “good enough” from a return-on-investment standpoint. That isn’t very helpful when it comes to dissertations and writing. From a monetary perspective, the dissertation’s return on investment is negative anyway. According to my calculations, based on the anticipated pay raise I would receive for earning a doctorate, I would need to work for my current institution for at least 30 years to recoup the money I’ve invested in tuition and school-related expenses.

That’s okay, because I never approached this from a money-making standpoint. Not all investments are financial, and the most valuable investment returns are not financial either. The time I invest writing my dissertation will be paid back in other ways.

If all goes well, I will eventually need to make decisions about how good is “good enough” on my dissertation. Do I do the bare minimum to satisfy my committee, or do I try to make it a masterpiece? I’m not there yet. Right now, my “how good is good enough” decisions involve other things. How carefully do I need to grade? How much time do I spend on a recommendation letter? How clean does the house need to be? Time and energy are both precious commodities. If I spend too much of either on other things, there is less available for the dissertation. At the same time, I have a moral obligation to serve my students and my institution, and serve them well. There’s a right balance to be found, and I’m sure I’m nowhere near finding it.

I’ve occasionally made a good “good enough” decision. It’s rare, but I’ve done it. This past week, I paid Mr. Car Wash $30 to clean my car inside and out, including an interior super-scrub and dash dressing. When they finished, I noticed a bit of dried Starbucks in the console cup-holder, and some big crumbs in the metal track holding the passenger seat. At first, I was upset. If I pay $30 to clean my car, shouldn’t it be clean? Maybe. Trouble is, I didn’t pay $30 just to get my car cleaned. I could have cleaned it myself, for free. My $30 was for getting it cleaned in 10 minutes.

For 10 minutes, it was good enough. It smelled nice, and it looked nice. If I want to grab a toothbrush and remove the dried Starbucks myself, I can. The cleaning job was good enough to dispel any trace of new car fever that might have been building lately. And that’s money well spent.

This “good enough” writing session occurred in the glassed-in second floor aerie of the Jack E. Brown Engineering Building. I’m glad I chose to explore upstairs—I felt like I was floating in the trees. (Though I liked the sign on the downstairs computer lab: “Observe. Engineers in their natural habitat. Please do not tap on glass; engineers are easily startled by outsiders.”)

This building is truly beautiful. Stark, but beautiful. I’m glad whoever designed this building was not satisfied with “good enough”.

What a lovely writing spot!

It was fitting my little car reached 200K during a drive home from A&M. I took this photo at the Navasota stoplight...didn't even have to pull over. This was back in June...I'm hoping to reach 250K before I graduate!

Halbouty Geosciences Building: An argument wiith perfectionism

(This is Stop #14 in the Texas A&M Building Writing Tour, my attempt to motivate myself on my dissertation by writing in every campus building before I graduate.)

Deliberately skipping a workshop to which I had RSVP’d….isn’t that a wonderful way to begin a Friday?

Actually, as it turns out, it meshes perfectly with the writing lessons I have learned today. This weekend, my Texas A&M writing family brought in a special guest: Dr. Dannelle Stevens of Portland State University. She was here to talk with us about how journaling can transform even the most unproductive stalled-out graduate student into a prolific academic writer. Of course, I immediately signed up. I registered for the 3-hour Saturday workshop, and also planned to attend this morning’s 9-11:30 session. I even cajoled my writing professor into letting me crash her advanced writing studio Friday afternoon, as Dr. Stevens was scheduled to visit them for a “fireside chat”. I briefly considered skipping my Friday night writing feedback group for the 5:30 pm seminar, but fortunately came to my senses just in time. The surest way to guarantee a journal-free life would be to spend 36 hours learning about journaling.

So why did I miss my Friday morning journaling workshop? Well, because I stayed up until 5 a.m. trying to perfect a paragraph I had been struggling with all week. I wanted to make it as flawless as possible so the Friday night feedback group could tear it apart.

In a rare instance of good decision-making, I decided 1.5 hours of sleep was not the best recipe for a fruitful day of learning about writing (especially when the writing-learning would span 13 hours, not including the 3 hours spent driving). So, I skipped the workshop and slept. I still made the afternoon writing studio. There, Dr. Stevens asked us to write a dialog with one of our “writing demons”. My demon of choice was….you guessed it, Perfectionism.

Demon P. and I had quite a conversation. He praised my efforts in seeking out writing mentors, and informed me I should try to be just like them. (Yep, including the mile-long vita full of publications). He lauded the research design classic I had referenced in my problem paragraph, and told me my writing should be just as clear. He reminded me that anything I wrote, for my blog or anything else, would be archived forever, to be perused by dissertation committees, deans, and college presidents. I’d better be careful to make it good.

I’m sure the dialog was supposed to end with me kicking Demon P. to the curb, never to be seen again. I don’t think it happened. I believe I nudged him out the door, though I don’t trust the latch…it’s not a real deadbolt, just one of those hook-and-eye thingies that wiggles a little, then eventually unscrews and comes off altogether.

However, it seems to be holding for now. With that in mind, I am determined to publish my Halbouty Building blog post tonight, with no more than fifteen minutes of editing (I have to get up at 5 a.m. to get to the journaling workshop on time.)

Yes, I will post it the very day I wrote in Halbouty. No more waiting for 3 weeks like the Kyle Field blog post, or 2 weeks like the Rudder Theater blog post (both still sitting in my files, awaiting final edits before the expectant public is allowed to read them). If Demon P. stays outside for the rest of the weekend, they might get posted too.

For the record, except for the aforementioned fifteen minutes of editing, this entire blog post was created in a single session, in the first-floor bathroom of the Halbouty Building. Yes, I wrote in a bathroom. Old buildings, especially the ones with labs, often have couches in the bathrooms. I’m sure they were originally intended for grad students. But this is the first time I’ve written on one. I’m very glad my Institutional Review Board liaison hasn’t yet returned my phone call….I really need to talk to her, but have always refused to become one of those people, …you know, the ones who have phone conversations in bathrooms.

How guest blogging ruined my blog

Actually, it’s not so much that guest blogging ruined the blog itself…rather, it ruined my ability to blog. And the problem is not that I allowed some friend, or stranger, to write something unworthy on my own blog. The problem came when I wrote something for another organization’s blog.

Why would this be a problem? Was it because the piece I wrote was so badly written that my reputation was ruined forever? Did I write something so controversial or offensive that Blogspot banned me from my own blog? Did my advisor find my guest post and tell me I’d better stop blogging if I wanted to graduate?

No, not at all. The trouble was this: my guest post was just too good. Well, that might be overstating it…let’s be accurate. I don’t know whether it was any good or not, but I’m certain I spent way too much time editing it. It was my first go at writing something for an established audience, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself (or my university or my advisor). So I spent quite a bit of time on it. I even hauled it to my professor’s Friday night writing group for feedback. (I thought they might enjoy a break from the usual academic menu…methods sections of dissertations can be a bit dry.) Yes, indeed, I shared my grad school failure/drifter story with a bunch of professors. What was I thinking? I still don’t know the answer to that, but I do know their critique improved it tremendously.

By the time my guest post finally posted, it had almost become a pet, and I was rather proud of it. I liked my little story, and thought it a pretty respectable first effort for a rookie writer. I fully intended to submit a couple more guest posts over the summer. Unfortunately, the pains I took perfecting my first post doomed the rest of them. My other guest posts don’t exist. I started them, spent a few sessions editing them, but never finished them. They were okay, but they didn’t seem to have as much life as the original one, so I stopped.

So what? If I never wrote another guest blog for an actual audience, wouldn’t that be okay? Sure. Except that my perfectionism-induced paralysis extended to my own blog. The whole point of this blog was to motivate myself to write on my dissertation. When I found myself spending five consecutive days editing a building description, I realized something had gone terribly wrong. I could justify spending a few hours each month blogging, trusting it would spike my motivation and give me some much-needed writing practice. But I couldn’t justify hours spent editing commas and finding synonyms on Visual Thesaurus.

So, since my blog posts couldn’t be perfect, I quit writing them. This is just my second blog post in the last two months. Now admittedly, the last three weeks of my blogging hiatus are partly due to the fact that I finally started data collection (hooray!), and I’ve spent the last three weeks visiting classes and wading through piles of consent forms. Still, I managed to find a little time for recreational writing—I just didn’t post anything because it wasn’t good enough.

Well, absence brings perspective. I missed my little blog, so I’m back. And I’m back with a new resolve: In the future, I will post my spontaneous ramblings for all to see, and save my perfectionism for my dissertation.

Important notes/disclaimers: This blog post was written, edited, and posted in a single writing session. This blog post was created in fulfillment of my “Next Session Writing Goal” I committed to last night: “Write and post a blog entry”. From now on, I will devote no more than two (2) writing/editing sessions to a single blog post.

Blocker Building

(This is Stop #9 in the Texas A&M Building Writing Tour, my attempt to motivate myself on my dissertation by writing in every campus building before I graduate.)  

This week’s writing session in Blocker was all about accountability. Last week, I confessed to my writing group that I’d been in rather a rut with my writing and research. I had been so focused on getting my proposal and IRB documents approved, that I didn’t know what to do with myself after those were done. I’ve been piddling around, working a little on one thing, then a little on another, with no plan whatsoever. My writing streak now stands at 205 days, but half of my recent sessions have been completely useless. 

So, when a new friend from my writing group offered his services as an accountability partner, how could I refuse? Refusal would prove that I like whining about being completely unproductive, but am unwilling to do anything about it. 

So, we scheduled a meeting, showed up, and talked through my overwhelming pile of articles/projects/tasks. We decided a reasonable goal would be to write at least 2 hours per day, alternating days between my systematic review article and my mixed methods research study. He suggested taking weekends off, but I told him I was too immature and untrustworthy for that—taking a weekend off would derail me completely.

On Monday, I am supposed to email him my writing log, and tell him I completed several short but important dissertation-related tasks. If I don’t do them, or if I fail to write, I must confess. When I think of an accountability partner, I think of “tough love”—someone who is willing to chew me out and tell me to get my act together. However, I suspect that’s just what I will not get from Charles—if I don’t follow through on my writing commitments, he will probably say, “good job”, ask politely what happened, and trust that my own sense of shame will kick in and get me back on track. 

After our planning session, we wrote for 39 minutes in the first floor computer lab. For my photo, I considered the drink table by the entrance. (Drinks are not allowed, so everyone leaves them on a table, and picks them up when they leave. I put a green sticky note on my bottle, so I wouldn’t accidentally grab the wrong one. Apparently no one else worried about this, as I saw no other marked bottles). 

But no, I couldn’t waste my one photograph on a drink table. I had to photograph the lab itself, with my accountability partner Charles included for no extra charge. 

For the record, the Blocker building was the impetus behind my original building-writing goal, which was to finish my dissertation before A&M finished any new buildings. If you discover you are unlikely to reach a goal, it is always wise to forget the original goal, well before you fail to reach it, and replace it with a more reasonable goal…exactly what I’ve done. 

Write Every Building!!

Since discovering writing was the key to dissertation progress, I have read several writing books, and parts of quite a few more. While they all have different slants on the writing process, they are unanimous on this: in order to get anywhere, you must write a lot, and you must write whether you feel like writing or not.

Most stress the importance of setting writing goals. The books’ suggested writing goals seem to fall into two categories: time and volume. Time-related writing goals involve writing a certain number of minutes each day or week. Volume-related writing goals call for writing a certain number of words or pages.

I have yet to try a volume-related writing goal. If I sat down to write knowing I had to churn out two pages before getting up, I’m sure I would turn into a quivering pile of jelly. Once I started typing, my two pages would undoubtedly consist of endless repetitions of “I will write a lot”, “I will write a lot” or “I hate writing”, “I hate writing”, neither of which will result in much actual progress.

Time-related writing goals have worked well for me, on the whole. I set up an Excel formula to track the number of consecutive days 30 consecutive minutes of dissertation-related writing. This “writing streak” column of my writing log currently stands at 109 days. I have kept it going even when I was totally stressed-out and exhausted, and when my brain was too fried to think straight. It pained me to think of that triple-digit streak dropping back to 1. My longest writing streak has been 145 days…when it finally died, I hid from my dissertation for 2 entire weeks. Fear of a repeat of this disaster keeps me writing something every day.

As much as I appreciate the value of my “write 30 minutes every single day” goal, sometimes I crave variety. A while back, I set a goal of finishing my dissertation before Texas A&M built any more buildings. This is a fine goal, but it isn’t very motivating, because I can’t track its progress and I have no idea how likely I am to achieve it. Who knows what buildings A&M is about to break ground on? My only hope is to keep writing and just hope for the best. If I’m too slow or the building-building powers are too fast, then I’m doomed to fail. I may already be doomed to fail—I just don’t know it yet.

So, I have modified my original building-related writing goal into a better one (maybe it’s the engineer in me). I will continue with my “write at least 30 minutes a day” plan, but with a twist: I will attempt to write 30 consecutive minutes in every A&M building before I graduate. This goal is trackable, because it is has lots of subgoals. I can color in the buildings on the map and see my progress.

In order for this goal to be trackable, the set of buildings must be well-defined. I must admit I haven’t quite delineated this yet. For now, I’ve just started on the easy obvious buildings—there are plenty of these to keep me writing for months. I expect I’ll skip the dorm buildings. Even if I could get in, it might be inappropriate to barge uninvited into someone’s home just because I devised some odd writing goal. What about physical plant buildings and parking garages?

My new writing goal is similar to a running goal I set back in January. Sometime in 2012, I plan to run every inch of Woodlands jogging trail system. In the interests of having a well-defined goal, I will only count the trails on the official map of The Woodlands Parks and Pathways—I keep a paper map in the car and mark them as I run. I don’t need to run all the 20-foot sections of sidewalk that lead from a street to a park (unless they are drawn on the map). What a fun goal!! It prompts me to explore new places, and lets me feel like I’m progressing, even though I’m as slow as ever. I don’t need to run them fast, I just need to run them! It also satisfies that little engineer inside of me who likes to figure out the optimal running route, maximizing the miles of trail run in a given time by minimizing the miles of trails that get run twice. A certain amount of overlap is inevitable, but the less the better.

My write-every-building goal doesn’t give my inner engineer as much to work with, but I can still employ some optimization strategies, taking advantage of occasions when I am already in a building or am walking right by one.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote in the far-away-from-everything General Services Complex, after meeting an Institutional Review Board expert about my project. Last week, to my dismay, I realized my writing class would meet only one more time, and I had not yet written in the G. Rollie White building (adjacent to Read where our class meets). So, I plan to arrive early Thursday and write before class. I have written 30 minutes in Read before, but not since I set the write-every-building goal. Would it be cheating to count it?

Saturday night, I attended Aggie Muster for the first time. Wow, just wow. This part-time commuting grad student had heard of the Aggie Spirit but until now had never grasped what it meant. After it ended and I dried my eyes, I wondered if it had been appropriate to arrive an hour early, with my computer, so I could cross Reed Arena off my buildings list by writing 30 minutes. (ah well, what’s done is done.)

Last week, I knocked out the Cain building (the mechanical engineering one—Texas A&M has multiple Cain buildings!). Upon walking into the first floor, I wasn’t optimistic about a pleasant writing experience. All I saw were concrete corridors, and lab doors labeled with warning signs. Fortunately, upstairs I found restaurant-style booths and nice cushioned chairs. I settled in and made myself at home. I very much enjoyed overhearing  the conversations in the next booth. The students were discussing fluid mechanics, or some similar class. One of them casually mentioned “Oh, you just need to derive this formula, and then you can…..” That was all I could follow, but it made me rather sad that I had forgotten everything I had learned in my fluid mechanics class. That’s okay, I don’t want to be an engineer anyway...I enjoy writing in buildings much more than designing them!

Embracing the dissertation: Is it possible?

Finally: I have a teeny bit of momentum, a daily writing habit, an approved proposal, and a plan to collect data in the fall. Though many obstacles must still be overcome, I have hope I will eventually finish my degree.

This newfound optimism has prompted a wave of introspection. It’s funny, and also sad, how we humans so often don’t appreciate something until we either have lost it, or realize we might lose it soon. This is the only chance in my whole life to write a dissertation, and the experience will soon be over, never to be seen again. Writing a dissertation is an amazing privilege, really—what a shame for me not to see it that way.

I am now thinking, “I get to write a dissertation” instead of “I have to write a dissertation”. It is amazing how one little word can change the entire meaning of a sentence.

I know my God has appointed me to a certain number of days on this earth. How many of them have I wasted by my “I have to write a dissertation” attitude?

I enrolled in this Ph.D. program in 2004, nearly eight years ago. How much life have I missed out on since then? How many memorable experiences and outings with friends have I refused because I knew I should be working on my paper? Sometimes, I actually worked on it. Other times, I whittled away the time some other way, neither progressing on my research nor enjoying the fellowship/excursion/event. How much have I allowed guilt and stress to sap the joy from a job I love? How many relationships have languished because my eyes were turned inward?

Nearly everyone I know who has completed a dissertation tells me I just need to buckle down and get through it somehow…that it will all be worth it in the end. Then, when you finish, you can get your life back. A colleague shared this wise advice, “Your dissertation doesn’t have to be good—it just has to be done”.

The door hanger sign given to me by our graduate school writing support service says, “a page a day keeps the stress away”. The daily writing habit is supposed to keep me from feeling guilty, and it does. But am I wrong to expect more? Surely there should be more to this than just the absence of guilt! I am a realist. I know some aspects of the dissertation will be tedious, maybe even unpleasant. I’ve read the writing books. They all say I shouldn’t wait for writing inspiration to strike—I need to write even when I don’t feel like writing. I don’t disagree with this, and I am in fact living proof of the transformational power of daily writing. Yet I am not satisfied with merely trudging along, doing my writing duty, knowing this will eventually result in a finished dissertation and maybe even a publication or two.

Is it conceivable that, if I would just get my attitude right, that this process, at least most of it, could be a pleasure? Is it possible that if I feed the writing muse in just the right way, writing could be a delight more often than not?

Instead of the mindset “the only good dissertation is a done dissertation”, can my goal be to write it so well my committee, who is required to read it, will actually find parts of it both enjoyable and interesting? Can good writing give life to even a dry academic tome? (I’m enough of a realist to know no one but my committee will ever read the thing.)

Am I out of my mind to think I could enjoy writing my dissertation? Embrace it? Revel in it? That I would wish to slow down the rapidly-flipping calendar pages, not because I am worried about getting my approvals done in time, but because I want to savor every moment of a once-in-a-lifetime experience?

Perhaps my guilt and cynicism will return tomorrow. Yet for now I am looking ahead with eager anticipation. I feel that same nervous knot in my stomach I get whenever I’m about to undertake something big, at which I might fail. Though a bit anxious about what the future holds, I can’t wait to see what’s around the next corner. It just might be something better than I ever imagined.