I am kind of at a loss for the moment. I finished a first draft of my introduction chapter this afternoon. It's very rough in some places and it has some gaps that I'll come back to when I've written the lit review. I'll come back to it tomorrow or Friday, but I want to leave it alone for a bit so I'll be fresher when I edit.
What to do next? I have the luxury of a day or so to do some strategic reading that will push my thinking forward in other chapters.
Everytime I get told "you can't do this or that because of blah blah blah" I must remember that there are no rules. EVERYTHING is negotiable.
there are no rules there are no rules there are no rules. (The rhetorical 'rule of three' but that's just a suggestion, not a rule.)
In other news, I have have put together an ambitious (but do-able) schedule to complete the rest of the writing. I met my goal of 800 words yesterday, so I feel pretty good about it. It's tiring though, and after about 3-4 hours I feel drained. I am hoping that preparing my class will be a welcome diversion.
I don't like it when my sense of self-worth zigs and zags all day depending on phone calls and emails. I tried to track down some results for some of my job applications - one "no," three messages unreturned. If I had known in January that my life (and B's) would still be this uncertain now, I wouldn't have made it this far!
Now I've just emailed everyone on my committee with a progress update and a request to consider August for my defense. It sounds possible, if ambitious, but based on my sitting around doing pokey little chores all day, I wonder how I am going to crank up into full production mode.
I think I just have to write hard and fast and not worry so much. Just get the ideas out into the light of day, and then work on clarifying and strengthening the arguments.