16,014 words so far.

My introduction is nearly done.

Chapter 1 is well on its way to being done. Over the next 10 days, I plan to have both ready to send to my advisor.

I’m tired. I took Tuesday off, because I had other work I needed to catch up on–a book chapter that needs one (hopefully) last round of revisions before I can send it back to the editor, job documents, that kind of thing.

Then, Wednesday, I didn’t make my daily goal.

But yesterday and today I did.

So tomorrow I’m going to write more on Chapter 1, and work on shaping the introduction into something, well, introduction-like. I wrote it in sections, so I need to rethink the organization, I’m sure.

I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished that much, but I also feel like I’ve accomplished a lot. One of my friends said today that I’d done so much in just three weeks, and I realized that it only has been three weeks, since I’ve been writing in earnest.

I feel like I’ve been writing this dissertation for years, but I haven’t been. Yes, I conceived the idea back in my first semester of my doctoral program–a whole 5 years ago. But since then, I haven’t been able to work on it consistently. I’ve had courses to take that did not directly relate to my research interests, and papers to write for those courses. I’ve been doing research here and there along the way, but this is the first time that the dissertation is the only project I have to think about (other than the job market).

It’s nice, to focus. It’s also a little intimidating. Because now that I’m writing this thing, that means I have to finish it.