and the malaise continues

I don't think I've felt like this since maybe March 2009 - where life seems to be getting in the way of my studies and work. In the past irrespective what was going on in my life, more generally, would pretty much have little effect on my work. At the moment and certainly for the past two weeks, this personal malaise has taken over much of functioning. I think about my work, in fact I actually work but my productivity levels have hit an all time low.

Besides my work and the moments of clarity relating to the unfolding thesis argument developing,  there is a lot of 'other' stuff occupying my mind, not least going back to Cape Town and a number of unresolved plans and decisions that need to be made and acted on. It feels like these other issues are taking up too much space in my brain and squeezing out any productive space open for the thesis. So my days just seem to meander along but are essentially empty when I tally up the productive gains in relation to my thesis. I'm not sure what I'm suppose to do...take a break, continue working, wait for it to pass? while the clock keeps ticking and the deadlines become more stretched.

580

I wrote 580 words yesterday. Yes that's all. It took me the whole freaking day to accomplish a mere 580 words. And before someone offers...well they could be quality words so the time spent on writing them was well spent - I don't care I just want to write more words a day. In any case at this stage of the writing process 'quality' is relative and also something that will be validated by someone else. Quality in this first phase is almost out of my hands.
I guess I am in analysis hell - it's like pulling teeth to get me to explain the most mundane activities, events and practices in my data. I guess it hasn't helped that I have discarded most of what I wrote about this case in January/February. But of course there are silver-lining moments too - when it all seems to make sense and I think ok these 580 words explain this process, this event, this happening in a better, more comprehensible way.

Onward I say, onward...580 words at a time

a non-writing distracting week

I was completely distracted last week. I hardly did any writing even though I really needed to make some concrete progress on an analysis chapter. I was all over the place and as the week wore on I almost surrendered to the fact that the week had been a waste. Of course I kept thinking (and feeling guilty) that I would never be able to make up this lost time. It was gone forever. But the week brought into focus how so much of what I'm doing seems to be such a deeply psychological process. It's all about the health and state of my mind, my emotional well being, my self confidence and self esteem, the degree to which I am able to be positive and think positively about myself and my space in the world. And this past week was really a battle on all these fronts.

On a brighter note - supervision was painless. We were discussing my review of the South African HE landscape. I feel the essence of the argument I'm making is still  unrefined. It needs to be sharpened and more precise - but I also know it will come, with more discussion and feedback from colleagues in SA and when I am more clear about how it fits into the overall thesis story. I now have only two supervisions and two major deadlines before I return to CT in September. There's so much ambiguity and mixed feelings in this realisation as the end of my four year sojourn is finally becoming concrete. This is a difficult one.

doesn't this make so much sense?

I just had to borrow this very important blog entry I've just read and it's so true. All I need to do now is act on it, instead of just saying...'ah yes I agree with Tanya Golash-Boza, but...you know...' And then continue to feel super guilty when I'm not working 7 days a week even when I know working 7 days a week isn't very productive. There must be some psychological term for what I'm doing to myself with this endless cycle of self-flagellation and guilt.
Actually to be a bit fair on myself I took yesterday off - t'was lovely. I got up late, went to zumba, cooked some tomatie bredie, had supper with my brother and watched some soccer. I'm working today but at a leisurely pace - took a long walk earlier when I was 'stuck' on trying to figure out how to structure a section in a chapter I'm working on and started reading another novel. There's a soccer match on in about 30 mins and I'm tackling the ironing tonight. See maybe some balance trickling in, now I just need to lose the guilty feelings ;-/

a non-writing day

I didn't write anything today. It feels so strange. I'm in an in-between period where I've just submitted a chapter and need to be working on an analysis chapter but, I'm delaying. I did lots of other semi-useful things like, photocopy chapters from a few theses that have been on my desk for at least two months, I searched for some articles and references mentioned at a seminar last week, and tried to update my profile on the OU website. All very exciting, meaningful and important - but not as important as writing. And especially analysis writing. Tomorrow will be better.

new ways of writing

I wish I could write down all my thoughts (well all the important ones) about this PhD when it's foremost in my mind. This past week I've been thinking a lot about the way in which my approach to writing has changed. I remember my part-time study days...very carefully working out the structure of an argument and then within a short period (usually over a weekend) I would furiously write up whole chapters or substantial parts thereof. I would of course be thinking about the argument I wanted to make while I was busy 'working' during the week before 'writing it up'. So the argument would coalesce over this period. Usually I would write the piece in one block period or session using notes I had constructed during a reading phase and sticking very closely to the argument structure I would have constructed and outlined. While I did edit what I wrote, the editing was minimal especially in that initial act of getting my argument down on paper.

When I think about how I write now - the first characteristic of my writing is that it is more protracted, fluid, almost unstructured, and consist of many writing sessions. The act of writing happens over many days, I consult my hand written notes, structure and then re-structure my argument usually in the form of a mind map or rough overview. But the structure is never a concrete 'thing' rather it is reformed and reshaped over many iterations as the writing progresses. There aren't any clear stages to the process any more. The degree of editing has increased tenfold and the role of editing in my writing has become crucial. Editing is almost as fundamental as that first act of writing - it plays a totally different role now. Maybe this is the crux of the many problems I have with writing these days - i.e. how I want to produce the 'perfect' piece in the first version which suggests to me anyway, that I'm still clinging onto the role I assigned to editing in my 'previous' academic writing life. When I first started to write like this it freaked me out completely and in many ways it still does. It's very unsettling and I look back nostalgically to those glory days when writing was a exhilaration activity and gave me and my arguments a voice. But try as I might I cant seem to rekindle this past way of writing and I'm stuck, uncomfortably in this new way of writing.

So why the change?

I think studying full time is one reason. Writing is what I have to do on an almost daily basis so I can spend more time on it. Also because I have to conserve my energy to write every day it is harder to concentrate for longer periods when I do sit down to write. The changing role of editing in my writing I would ascribe to the changing perception of what counts as a 'draft'. In the old days my 'polished piece' would probably be my contemporary 'draft' - so my practice of writing has had to adjust and change to meet these new expectations (dare I say standards?) - which have also resulted in the added anxieties that have come to be associated with writing. I can't discount the fact that currently I am writing in an abstracted vacuum - my arguments and theorisations are devoid of practical implication, they aren't ignited by something that happened in the classroom, or something a colleague said, or a serious discussion about whatever issue I'm thinking about with a mentor or friend. Everything has to come from inside my head - well of course it always came from that 'place', but it's just different. Then of course I'm now living in the age of distractions with the internet only a click away - this creates a rather fragmented context within which to negotiate the structure needed to write. The reasons are complex and multifaceted and I don't think there is a ideal answer to the question - why the change?. For now all I can do is to make these new practices work for me as best I can.