Well, it is the point of no return.  I have to, absolutely, no room for error, must defend my dissertation in May.

All of that would mean that I have to you know, write my dissertation.  The writing is … going, and I guess that is good enough.  My momentum was really getting into swing, but then December hit.  Suddenly, I couldn’t avoid having lunch with colleagues, and so my lunch time writing fell apart.  On top of that, for various reasons, I have had to drive into work a little more often than normal, which means my bus writing has also been spotty.

Unbelievably there is a silver lining to all of this!  The Cajun Princess, and Tech Oracle also plan to defend in May, so we are all in this boat together.  The plan is to use this time to keep each other going.

To get back on the writing horse my plan has been to write lightly this weekend, which I’ve done, with the knowledge that starting tomorrow there is no looking back.  I’ve two days left at work and then I am out until January 2nd.  The plan is to write my fingers into bloody little stumps in that time.  No goals about the number of pages, or chapters, just to write until I can’t write anymore.  When I set goals that have to do with word counts/page numbers, or the like it’s too easy for me to feel derailed.  As in, “Well, I’m never going to make 15 pages, so why bother at all?!”  The other thing is I know that when I get back to work in January I’ll be busy for at least a month, and more like 6 weeks.  I need to have enough done that getting busy at work won’t stop my progress.

There are no promises about what will happen in this space over the next few weeks.  Sometimes when I write like this my posting actually increases, because I need an outlet.  Other times I just need to walk away from all writing for a while.