Sobriquet 56.6

Although it's only a quarter past six in the evening, I figured I'd throw together a post a bit earlier in the day than I normally do.

For whatever reason, I tend to struggle a good deal more than I would care to admit when attempting to begin writing after a break of any substantial amount of time. I assume a significant chunk of this difficulty stems from a perceived sense of having fallen out of whatever rhythm I'd established in my writing. And this happens every time, without fail. A second factor, of course, is the exasperation I feel at taking what I believe to be too long to write this chapter. I had never planned on spending over a year of my life writing a chapter of my dissertation and, while it has yielded a couple of publications and is longer than my previous two chapters, I am want it finished. This lack of patience, too, has become increasingly vexing for me. In my heart, I am through with graduate school, more than ready to close this segment of my life and try to move on to the next phase, whatever that may happen to be. The problem, however, is that I have to finish the dissertation in order to truly be finished. Combine not wanting to work any longer with having to work harder and you get a potent form of dissertation anxiety and it is that brand of discomfiture that I find myself struggling with today. I mean, every time I sit down to read or write, I grow frustrated with myself because, like everything with the Disgrace chapter, this final phase (writing it) is taking far longer than I'd wanted. And, with summer speeding by, I cannot help but feel I am too far behind my ideal schedule to finish the whole dissertation by my original target date.

At any rate, and much to my admitted chagrin, I am going to spend time rereading my notes for the mini-section I am currently writing so that, within a day or two, I can return to the interrupted chapter (stupid hard drive failure) with a renewed familiarity and chug through that last bit and begin the penultimate mini-section within the week.

Ugh.

For today and tomorrow: Read and, if at all possible, write.