Sobriquet 42.27

It just won't end. Seriously.

I just finished the forty-fifth page of my chapter on The Master of Petersburg. I was aiming for two-thirds that amount. When I wrote my Master's thesis several years ago, my longest chapter was forty-five pages. It dealt with seven novels. The last time I checked, The Master of Petersburg is one book.

Un-fucking-real.

This isn't to say that I don't like the book, but I would really like to finish this chapter. I am, of course, really concerned with the quality of the chapter. Though I have tried to keep it focused and well-organized, it sometimes strikes me as a sprawling mess. I mean, anything that is so long that a standard stapler will not fasten the pages together has a good chance of being unwieldy and I can't help feel that I should have done something differently to make the chapter better. I just don't know what I would have done differently.

My problem is that I hate most of what I write. It's that whole "you're your own worst critic" thing, but I always feel as if something isn't good enough, as if something is lacking. Ugh.

That said, I wrote a good chunk tonight, though it took me a good ten hours to finally get myself to sit down and write. It was one of those days where I'd wake up, stretch, realize that I had work to do, and promptly return to the Land of Nod. I also felt quite a bit of anxiety throughout the day, some of which was caused, I'm sure, by the fact that it has been several days since I was last in writing mode. I also suspect that approaching the end of the chapter and the inevitability of having to let my advisor read it only heightened the intensity of the anxiety. That and just wanting to finish it.

Which isn't to say I am thrilled at the prospect of spending the next few months reading almost exclusively literary criticism, but I do want to finish writing this.

For tomorrow: Read an article or two or dissertate.