In today's session, I managed to read about 100 pages of my primary source and take notes on it, including notes about how this writer feeds into my overall argument for this chapter. I hope to read another 50 or so pages this afternoon.
My Writing inventory responses got me thinking about why I get stuck with my writing. It has to do with a) perfectionism and fear of doing a bad job, (which is honestly not very surprising to me) and b) worrying about finishing and fearing that I'm going to come down to an impossible time crunch at the very end of writing and hate my life so much that I give up in despair, thus fulfilling point A.
The second point is a little more surprising to me because I've always told myself I "work best under pressure." I think the best thing for me to do right now is to schedule my reading days and writing days, and also let myself have actual time off in the afternoons, rather than scheduling eight hours a day of writing. The second thing I'm going to do is to break down each chapter into discrete tasks, rather than "letting the muse guide me" with regard to what sources I look at on a given day. Even if I'm only writing notes, my notes still count as writing. That's what I need to focus on.
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