Babbles of a Procrastinating Grad Student

Cripes, I'm paying for last nights awesome productivity.  Can't focus at all on writing.  Not one bit.  Can't even figure out what I have typed up and whether it makes sense.  I've been trying to look at it all day, and it's just not working at all.  And stupid me, didn't try to do anything else.  Need to work on this one-track mind thing I've got going on here.

*sigh*  thinking of just going to bed and getting up early tomorrow and trying again.  But I want to hand this in tomorrow, and I don't like the idea of trying to work on it during the day when I'm no good at writing during the day.  ESPECIALLY since I'm meeting a friend in the afternoon for coffee.  :P

Maybe I've just been trying to work in this basement too much.  I'm starting to panic about getting everything packed up and cleaned, which is probably the reason I can't concentrate.

Think I'll head to the coffee shop (not my coffee shop, the Sleepless Goat downtown) early tomorrow and work there.  They have awesome coffee too.  Hmm...

Alright, yeah, I'm to bed.  So tired, despite the 7 hours sleep I got last night.  Good night all!

( Alright, it's 6 am and I'm to bed. Caution, sleep deprived babble about the Thesis (of Doom) behind the cut.  )

Good night all!

Well, I am WAY behind with my nano writing, it's kind of ridiculous.  The Super threw a bit of a wrench in it last week, when I accidentally mentioned that my goal was to finish chapter 1 this weekend, and she pounced on that, wanting to see it by Monday.  I didn't mean it was going to be a good copy, just a messy junky 1st draft that I could come back to and fix and add the stuff it needs, things like oh, citations and facts.  Little, unimportant things, you know.  :P

So then I spend 3 days panicking about this, looking up references and agonizing over every little word and pretty much just wasting time.  I have a meeting with her tomorrow (maybe, if her back is doing better), and while I hope to have a draft for her, I'm going to talk to her about how I'm tackling the writing right now and let her know that this draft wasn't supposed to be anything she was supposed to see.  I don't even what her input on it.

*pfffffffftt*

In other news, I'm starting to get rid of Stuff.  Sold my TV (woe) and my comfy blue chair (double woe!) this weekend and made $80 from them.  SWEET!  I've tucked the moola away with the money I made selling my yoga stuff a month or so ago, and now have $100 to go towards moving expenses!  Which is good, because there's going to be some stuff I just don't want to get rid of, and shipping is expensive, yo.

Whoops, 10 minute break is over.  Back to writing.  I hope everyone else is having more success than me with their writing goals this month.


Well, I guess 25% of my (tiny) goal isn't so bad...if I don't think about the fact that it's the middle of the month.  *headesk*

I'm sorry to those on my flist who are tired of me bitching about my thesis.  I can only promise that there is much more of it to come.  :P

Alright, word count.  I haven't officially typed anything up, but I got about 6 pages of long hand written out.  This might sound impressive, but I write long hand using a marker and double spaced on loose leaf paper (I can write fast enough to keep up with my thoughts that way), so this actually comes to only about 450-500 words in reality.  BUT, I also did my usual shortening of sentences when I jot thoughts down in a long-hand rough draft, so typed out it should actually reach my daily word count.  I'll do an official count tomorrow after I finish writing out this section and officially type it up.



Keep count may wind up being harder than I expected considering my writing process.  (Yes, I kill forests.)  HOWEVER, I don't know if I would've actually written anything if I hadn't committed myself to NaNoWriMo and actually told people both on- and off-line that I was doing it.  :D

I will admit, tackling this is scary as hell, and I think the uncertainty of where to start this beast of a thesis is what's held me back for so long.  I realized today that it doesn't really matter where I start, as long as I do something, anything. 

I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can...


In other news, these scones are the best things ever, especially if you swap the raisins for cranberries!  Mmmm...

I'm signing up.

We'll, sort of. A few weeks ago, maderr made a shout out post for a friend of hers that was looking to start a support community for those joining in on mini nanowrimo, and that got me thinking. I've been having a hard time forcing myself to sit down and write this bloody thesis, and based on how determined I was to complete the wardrobe contest this past summer, I've learned that I do well when I'm challenged in something like this.

Actually, that explains my efficiency when I'm doing something last minute.

See, the point of NaNoWriMo is to force you to write a 50,000 word story in the month of November. It's not about quality, it's completely about quantity, and is simply a tool to get you writing. With mini NaNoWriMo, you set your target word count, and people will pledge a certain value of words per day, usually less than the 1667 words/day required for the regular NaNoWriMo.

I need to be forced, to be motivated to write this thesis, and I haven't been thus far. What I've come up with is just crap because I'm over-thinking everything. But by committing myself to a certain word limit a day, I'll be forcing myself to write every day, and I know from past experience that it gets easier to write as you get going. Well, usually. *crosses fingers*

Since I need a certain amount of quality in this, I'm not going to write the whole 50,000 words this month. That just can't happen when I need to do proper research and citation, and generate figures along the way. However, I will set a daily word count for the rest of November (wasn't going to happen in the first few days of this month due to the conference).

I, Heather (bare_bear), pledge to write at least 600 words (or two pages double spaced) of thesis writing every day for the month of November. I will also hold myself accountable by posting my daily word count and status on my livejournal and dreamwidth accounts.

I figured I'd start off with a bang today, since I feel guilty for starting nearly a week into the month. 


The 15,000 value is based on 600 words for the remaining 25 days in November.  However, that does not mean I'll stop writing when I hit 15,000.  My thesis is going to wind up much longer than that!  If I find I can write more than that a day, sweet.  But I know some days I'll be stuck dicking around with graphs and doing lots of research, so I don't want to commit to an impossible daily word count, especially since I struggle writing.  Now I just wish I could write efficiently on the computer, rather than writing everything out by hand and then typing it in.  I killed 14 pages of paper today!

*excited to use all her shiny new nanowrimo icons she gathered last night while procrastinating from the thesis*