How To Write A Dissertation Chapter

  1. read a shit ton of criticism about whatever you think the chapter is going to be on
  2. panic, change topic of chapter
  3. repeat steps 1 and 2 until you are mentally exhausted OR a month has gone by, whichever comes first
  4. throw hands in the air, say “fuck it,” start writing with no clear goal in mind
  5. feel disgusted with self
  6. drink too much caffeine
  7. probably crash from the caffeine
  8. write a bunch of poems and feel neurotic about them and email them to your significant other over and over with the subject line “is this good”
  9. stare at computer
  10. have a general crisis about what on earth you are going to do with your life when/if you actually finish this thing
  11. write more and start to feel like you are making sense
  12. watch episodes of Twin Peaks on mute while writing because this is how you roll
  13. feel pretty good
  14. keep writing
  15. feel elated
  16. write the most
  17. finish writing
  18. enter severe state of anxiety in which you imagine everything you just spent several months doing is awful and derivative and not interesting 
  19. cry
  20. close document file with chapter in it and refuse to open it again
  21. repeat entire process for remaining chapters
  22. die

73 Notes/ Hide

  1. itgivesitthew said: I don’t know if you’re doing it right, but we’re sure as hell doing it the same!
  2. ravenmarlanea reblogged this from ecantwell
  3. writing-dreaming-and-sassy reblogged this from ecantwell
  4. woohoo-sasquatch reblogged this from ecantwell
  5. unwordinglanguage said: This is spot-on, except replace ‘Twin Peaks’ with ‘The X-Files’ and add ‘smoke 3 packs a day.’
  6. menelikseth said: I had to laugh out loud at this list. My approach to coding is very similar.
  7. byronic said: This is a message from the Other Side. You are doing it right, young Jedi.
  8. katwithaface reblogged this from ecantwell