I’ll admit it. I’m jealous of Mon, who seems to be absolutely cruising through her dissertation. Me? Not so much. I’ve written 3 pages of chapter 1. My goal is to have a draft of chapter 1 in a week. I think I can do that. I have to squeeze my writing in little pockets of time, an hour or two here or there. It’s not exactly easy. I would like to spend the weekend writing. That seems the only way to get this done. I wanted to write on the train, but I read instead (related to my dissertation, of course). I’m finding myself surprisingly motivated to work on the dissertation even after work, but just haven’t managed to make much progress this month. Also, I haven’t heard back from my advisor about my proposal yet, so I hate to put a lot of work into something when he might suggest I go in a different direction. I’m in kind of a holding pattern, I guess. I will contact my advisor today and let him know what I’m working on and ask for feedback on the proposal. I will try to get through ten pages or so of writing tonight. I think that’s doable. Whenever I feel like I can’t do this, I’m reminded of Maya Angelou writing while feeding her baby in the middle of the night. If she could do that, then I can do this under more comfortable conditions.

Reading back over that, I realize that it’s completely incoherent–and totally represents my current state of mind.