Day 1—Monday
The severe weather sirens went off last night, waking me up at midnight and leaving me so full of adrenaline that I couldn’t fall asleep again until after two in the morning. That’s my excuse for indulging in some extra caffeination this morning, because it’ll be needed as I work my way through translating this Latin!
I have a couple of things to knock off my to-do list this morning:
- Abstract for roundtable, Conference 1.
- Paper proposal for session, Conference 2.
- 250 words on women’s entry to early Order. 265 words.
Lean ar aghaidh, as we say at home.
Progress Update: Both proposals have been written and send off to my advisor for feedback, and I managed two whole paragraphs in my dissertation. I’ll take it!
Day 2—Wednesday
If I thought Sunday night was bad for weather, it had nothing on Monday. Derechos are preferable to tornadoes, but power outages and downed trees and having to comfort the very anxious dog whom I was dog-sitting… well, I’m just about getting over the sleep deficit now. As a callow undergrad, I could get three or four hours sleep and head off to morning lectures fresh as a daisy. No longer.
Today’s goal: go back through the narrative sources for the development of the early Premonstratensian Order and mark up sections which will be useful for bolstering my argument. Write 250 words. I only made it through one source, but I did find a lot in it and ended up with 470 words.
Day 3—Friday
Today is of course a holiday in the U.S., which means I might nip out this evening in order to see some fireworks. But for this morning, another writing session. Today’s goals are to:
- Continue through the narrative sources I was looking at on Wednesday, marking up sections needed for Chapter 2. Made it through two sources, wrote 451 words.
- Print off what I have written so far and read it through to see how it fits together as a coherent whole. Edited first ten pages.
End-of-week total: 1186 words. Less than previous weeks, but probably on a par in terms of output if non-dissertation writing is factored in.
Wow, Yvonne! Great work! I was trying to rescue books from the art library before they put up the flood wall (closed for six weeks…ahhh!). On top of that glorious event, we live in the flood plain and are avoiding evacuation. When it rains, it pours (it applies in more ways than one here!).
Are you getting all your writing done at the workshop or are you continuing your work afterwards…? If you don’t mind me asking, what is your typical work day like? I’m struggling with this myself.
Keep it up!
Thanks, Mary! The closure of the art library must be such an inconvenience for you—will all their holdings be inaccessible for the near future? Have the books just been left there or moved out? Fingers crossed that things will die down and the flooding will be contained, but yes, I’m very thankful right now that I live on top of a hill!
I’m getting the bulk of my writing done at the workshop at the moment, and then afterwards/on off days I’m working on translating and/or reading new source material or going through secondary sources. Some days are more disciplined than others, but I’ve found lately that the days when I try to use the Pomodoro technique are some of my most productive.
Unless they’re able to scale the wall to retrieve books, those books are there to stay. The same happened last year, and I was preparing for comps then. I had to ILL many of the books I needed. Needless to say, the ILL staff and I got to know each other quite well. 🙂
I need to get me a tomato clock! If you’re getting most of your writing done at the workshop, I’m impressed!
I feel that the ILL staff probably deserve overtime from all the work I put them through, toting obscure French and Latin volumes out to the check-out desk!
And yes, I find the Pomodoro technique surprisingly helpful… though having said that, this week has been my least productive in terms of words-on-the-page since I started the programme! I feel like I’m on the plateau level before I make the leap to the next stage, if that makes sense.