Wednesday, November 28, 2012

15000!

Today was dedicated to almost entirely brainstorming and reading about my next project. I worked for about three hours on reading, getting books form the library, and working out my ideas on voluntary sector failure. It is hard because there is a lot of work out there about why government and the market messes up but little on the nonprofit sector and when they fail. Mostly because it is small and there are other mechanisms if the voluntary sector fails it is like your city league baseball team losing a match. Bummer for you but this isn't the majors.

But the big news is that with two days left I broke the 50% mark! I am at 15,173 words, which is 50.5% of the way to 30,000. So I won't make 30k. I still have a paper due in a week, so we'll see how long it takes to get there.

Today: 993
Total: 15,173/30,000


Stop blaming others

Today I missed my scheduled time to write, rescheduled, missed it again and then wrote at the end of the day. Today I had no other scheduled obligations but I did have a lot of annoying little errands that needed to be run. Instead of writing then going and doing them I put it off and put it off. It is only my fault, even though I felt pressure to do these other things.

I apparently left two pieces I needed to read at the office so I had to refocus my work. That being said I got some work done on my next paper, and met my goals for today.

Today: 382
Total:14242/30000

Monday, November 26, 2012

Another day

After the binge you rarely feel up for more. But when deadlines rear their ugly heads you have to get back to it. In the past I have felt a great need to move away from a project once binged out. This time I feel more open to revisiting the topic and improving it. If anything this is an indication of some degree of success in making writing mundane. I have no clue if it will stick, but I hope it will.

Today I have to knock out a page on an article and then start the next paper. My goal is 1000 words today for both.

Edit: Went well and hit my target, starting my new paper and finishing my summary.

Today: 1236
Total: 13860/30000

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Finished early?

Well, if something is due on Sunday and you finish before dark on Sunday, is that early? I finished a very drafty draft of my paper for my independent study, which also doubles as a new dissertation proposal draft and approach. No more typing.

Yesterday:1919
Today:1988
Total: 12624

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Binge away

A quick note before I go to sleep. Keeping it mundane and writing for an hour a day has not gotten me to a place where I was able to avoid binge writing or complete my project ahead of time. Maybe if I had a decent idea of what I was trying to do in September and started then. Doesn't matter. Yesterday was a pathetic 200 word day, in the evening after a bunch of family and car stuff. And today, the day before the deadline, was 2000 words. This paper draft is due tomorrow, and I am still an easy 1500 words away from a readable draft.

Sleep must happen. And there are more family obligations tomorrow.

Total will be updated when I have a chance. But I know I passed 10k today.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Vacay no way

Today was the day before thanksgiving. I really hit the mundane today, but in a good way. Rather than get really manic with the new ideas I developed I decided to just jot down what came to me and move on. To be honest I had some of the better breakthroughs on this today than I have up to this point, but rather than hyper focus and try to work it all out here and now I wrote them down where they should be in the draft and kept building. It was not a big day for words, but I did get 770, and my draft went over 2000. I will probably keep going later, but I have other things I need to take care of this afternoon.

Today: 770
Total: 8501/30000

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

and then Today...

My earlier post outlined what happened yesterday, and what I wanted to/needed to address today. I successfully started building my draft, grabbing the low hanging fruit and trying to crank out words. It wasn't tremendously productive, but if I had pushed for 4000 words today that would have been pretty binge. I also continued work on the new conference proposal, but I was unable to capture the words written on that. Considering the amount of time I spend reading and researching, drafting and altering I think the next time I do this I might work from pomodoros, or a measure of time rather than word count.

Today: 1244
Total: 7731/30000 (or just over 25%!)

Yesterday

So yesterday I did not post. But I did write! I swear! Actually I got a small amount of work done on my research questions for my outline and I drafted a conference paper proposal that appears nowhere on my goals list. Sure it was not a priority but it needed to be done since the deadline is soon. So yesterday with the drafting and the other drafting grossed about 600 words. Will update for today later, have a 1000 word goal I am aiming for.

An aside, rather than bemoan and regret what I didn't do this weekend, I am simply appreciating what I have done since then.

Yesterday: 600
Total: 6487/30000

Friday, November 16, 2012

More on the Mundane

I mentioned in an earlier post the intent to make writing mundane and therefore taking much of the anxiety out of it. I think there is a further benefit from mundane productivity. When my written ideas are challenged I am much less likely to get defensive over them if the process of writing them was mundane rather than "inspired". That's the drawback of the inspiration-driven binge writing process. What comes out of it must be golden, because it is draining, resource intensive, high risk and in some ways manic. Instead, if the action of clarifying communication in the written form is common place, then the examination, criticism and editing of those ideas are less tied to identity and esteem. That is not to say that the connection disappears. The difference is one of degrees, and in the matter of cranking out words, the degrees matter.

I fumbled this week hard. Last night I was awoken after two hours of sleep by back spasms that made it almost impossible to breath without agony. I finally got back to sleep around 430, to awake at 6. With no sleep I ended up at the Docs office to figure things out. I am off to a chiropractor on the off chance of the elusive and mythical "quick fix" so I can focus, sleep and ride my bike in the Tour de Tucson tomorrow, and write more when I get home. Will update with numbers then.

Today: 287
Total: 5887/30000

Thursday, November 15, 2012

First missed day, slow progress

Yesterday was blown by student meetings and departmental scheduled events and demands, alongside an electrician who didn't finish the job. Today was a good pick it up, namely because I finished the outline that was due this afternoon. The word count isn't grand but it is a finished outline at this point.

Today: 453
Total: 5600/30000

I want to note that the consistency of last week made a difference. It would have been harder to get moving on a Thursday after a week of nothing if I hadn't gotten the practice in last week. Consistency is good, as well as momentum. I am definitely fighting to maintain productivity through the next week and half and see how Thanksgiving will make things challenging. The schedule is still the key.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Long Weekends

I successfully avoided the binge-writer's habit of mass writing on a long weekend. That being said I missed writing entirely this weekend. Since I am writing daily outside of these times it is not nearly as damaging of an act of procrastination as it would have been otherwise. But I am hurting for words at the almost halfway point.

Today: 390
Total: 5147/30000

Friday, November 9, 2012

Outlining

Today I began my outline for next week. Outline are inherently less words than real paragraphs. That, along with a narrow window for working today, is why I only hit 203 words. As this expands and fills in the numbers should increase.

This week was not great. I did not hit my goals two of the five days, and only had one day where the words really piled up. I am going to be working this weekend, and Veteran's day will be a normal writing day for me. Here's to better work next time!

Total: 4757/30000

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Four Digits!

For the first time this AcWriMo I hit 4 digits on my output! This is a good step, but it is clear that I am not consistently outputting more than one thousand words in an hour at this point. I still have a lot of unformed ideas hat require research. My writing will continue this afternoon, but I wanted to report the results of my specific scheduled writing time. My goal was 1500 for today, a big jump from previous goals. I didn't hit it but I feel good about what I did accomplish.

Today: 1,306
Total: 4554/30000

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Two Birds

With only eight days until the deadline for an outline of my proposal I needed to dig further into learning. At the same time there are comprehensive exams looming over my head. Today I dug into two articles that fed both mouths. The ACF framework has long dealt with policy-oriented learning, but it tends to be about the large, federal level policy changes and approaches rather than about how people deal with things locally and nearby. I read up on and took notes on a rather new piece by Adam Henry and colleagues attempting to explain the emergence of coalitions as collective action driven by shared beliefs, and an old article (1988) on Advocacy Coalitions and Policy-Oriented Learning. Today I got 807 in.

Total: 3248/30000

Edit: I was unable to continue writing yesterday, so the total remains the same.


Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Distractions

Today my writing period was at home for the first time since last Thursday. The dogs were an annoying mess. Our new pup keeps grabbing construction supplies and destroying/scatering them all around the yard regardless of where I hide or secure them. That and an appointment after the designated hour made the whole thing less successful.

That being said I still got some work done. I chased down some work on Simon's contribution to policy sciences and the discernible divide between Simon and Lasswell. Reading essays on the state of ideas from the late 1950s to the early 1980s provides some interesting context for where we are now.

Either way, my goal of 500 words was not met. I only got to 184. I am continuing writing today but outside of the scheduled time, and will report an eventual number tomorrow.

2441/30000

Monday, November 5, 2012

Decisions and Learning

Today I dive back into the work of Herbert Simon and the Carnegie School to figure out how collaboratives might alter theories of decision making and learning based on bounded rationality. This research pertains directly to my dissertation and grant proposals on collaborative learning.

I have also made progress on the submission to the AZ Environmental Law Journal. I need to write a CV for the first time. It will be interesting to try and list my accomplishments but I think it will be a valuable exercise in skill inventorying. More opportunities for words!

Today's goals: 500 words, in drafting on Bounded Rationality, and a CV draft.

Result: 654 words.Total 2257/30000

Friday, November 2, 2012

Making it Mundane

Here's to my attempts to make writing mundane. Yesterday my goal was 500 words and I hit 896. Today my goal is another 500, specifically on the cross-sector partnership paper.

Having completed my writing period I have written 707 words for a total of 1603/30000.


Thursday, November 1, 2012

#ACWRIMO

After a hiatus I am back. It is November, and I have made some progress on what I am going to examine about collaboratives. But first, I want to introduce my overhaul of the writing process. November is Academic Writing Month. Academic writers all over the world are making pledges to produce a certain quantity of academic writing this month in hopes of boosting productivity, practicing writing more diligently, and avoiding the slog of winter break writing and the promise of long breaks to produce that do not happen. One major component of this is to make goals and progress public. Well, here are my goals world!

For AcWriMo, I am setting the goal of 30,000 words.

This will include all forms of writing, outlining, pre-writing and drafting. Beyond this number goal, the form the words will take will include:

- A new draft of my collaboratives and fire mitigation grant and dissertation proposal, this time focusing on collective learning

- A paper on the failure of the voluntary sector and collaborative partnerships between nonprofits and the government sector

- Three answers to past comprehensive exam questions from my major area, Public Policy

- Not word-count specific, but I also intend to get my Water Mangers Use of Weather Data paper submitted at the AZ Law School Environmental Journal

I am tracking my writing in terms of time spent and words written on a google spreadsheet, linked here. I plan on updating my progress here. I will post a link to each blog post on facebook for accountability. Thanks Brandy for the idea from the poem a day posts she did in October for that idea.

I want to share a book I learned about on The Thesis Whisperer called How to Write a Lot by Paul Silvia. Silvia talks about making writing a mundane task, one that you engage in daily just like teaching or showing up to a meeting. He breaks down some barriers commonly used to avoid writing and describes a simple process for just doing it. The trick? Set a schedule. Write during that time, and do everything that you would normally do to prepare for and research writing during that time as well. As with most goals, starting small makes sense. I am scheduling an hour a day to do nothing but write no matter what. Those times are Monday, Wednesday and Friday 11-noon, and Tuesday and Thursday 9:30-10:30. Hopefully those blocks of time will grow. I will not read for class, meet with students, wander and think or have the TV, radio or podcasts on in the background during those times. I will not be checking email, my phone, or playing with the dogs during those times. I will be writing or preparing to write at those times. And when the time is over and I am out of ideas or momentum, I am free to do whatever else needs to be done. The promise of the book is that most people are surprised at the volume that emerges when as little as 4 hours a week are blocked out in this way. Well, here's a test of that promise.

So here's to AcWriMo and productivity!