[kmkathymag]

Hot, you are so right about action. It’s the inertia that makes it so difficult to ramp up again. And then the paper becomes this huge *thing* that is scarier and scarier. I just haven’t been able to even LOOK at the books or think about the paper.

However, maybe if that freaks me out, I could, as you say, just even read a citation, or a bit of a book – and just nudge my way in before my mind gets freaked out and knows what I’m doing. 😉

Thanks so much for the good words. In the next couple of weeks I hope to – nay, I WILL get back to work on this!!!

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[kmkathymag]

Hey, folks! I’m on lunch break, so I’ll make this (fairly) short. What great posts! I love the suggestions and ideas and everything. Wgreen, I love your comparison to songwriters in Nashville. Sometimes it feels like writing (and other creative work) means locking yourself up, totally alone. Having companionship and/or partnership makes a huge difference.

Laddy, good suggestions- which I can use once I get myself to actually sit down and start working. Augh! that’s the biggest problem right now: active and persistent avoidance of facing my paper in any way. Once I finally get myself over that hurdle, which has become a psychological block of ridiculous proportions, I can then focus on: How to I now get myself to write, and to plug through when the going gets uncomfortable? Speaking of MP3s, I bought this CD of Beta (I think) wave music that’s supposed to help with focusing. It’s new agey so I don’t get focused on lyrics or pretty oboe soloes or anything, hee.

Robbo, I know what you mean about resistance to authority. I had no idea how bad mine was until recently. Having someone who’s just there and doing the same thing – a partner, I guess – is I think what I need. Congrats to you, by the way, on your new romantic partner. How exciting!!

Scattybird, I did absolutely NOTHING yesterday. well, I took a walk, did some grocery shopping, and read blogs. And caught up on Call the Midwife and fed the cat and watched reruns of Futurama. . .just nothing to do with my paper. However, I finally wrote my advisor, who I’m always sure is going to throw up his hands in frustration and “fire” me as a student. I was supposed to have sent him a short draft weeks ago, and never did. Sigh.

At least I’m talking about this, right? And I bought some books on tape about procrastinating. While procrastinating. 😉

Well, today’s another day, and this week another week. who knows what might happen?

Best to everyone!!

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[kmkathymag]

Also, Rick, love what you have to say, and love your programs!

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[kmkathymag]

This is a great discussion. I was diagnosed last year, in my late 40s. It’s been a relief and a revelation, but the struggles continue. I’ve been asked the question “If you could do anything you wanted, money no object, what would you do?” Aaack.

My problem is, I enjoy about 7 million different things. It’s overwhelming to think of picking one. I often wish I were one of those people who just knew from kindergarden on that they wanted to be an actor or painter or writer or vice president of strategic management. Sigh.

Looking at all this good advice about setting intentions and creating a structure from those intentions reminds me of how important it is to take this gigantic world of possibilities and asking: okay, what ideas relate to my project? Narrowing possibilities down, so that, paradoxically(?) you can succeed.

I’ve written elsewhere about my difficulty writing my thesis. Somehow, I’ve managed to graduate from college and get into graduate school – as an English Lit major – despite my extreme anxiety about writing. Well, not writing emails or facebook posts, but long (30-100 page) papers. I avoid writing like the plague, and feel crummy about myself because I’m such a loser because I’m avoiding it and not “just doing it” like smart and successful people.

On the other hand, I tend to think of the paper in huge huge terms, and everything in the world is fair game to include in it, and it’s got to be the best paper ever written and amaze the academic world. . .Augh! Forget it.

The only way I’m going to get this done is to understand that it’s just a paper, and while I want to do well, doing it does not require magic. I need to structure it, write it in small parts, get help with remembering the overall structure (which is hard for me), and stop telling myself it has to be genius.

Okay, enough of my rambling, hee. I guess Chica, what I’m trying to say is that by doing the work, and plugging away, what you need to do and want to do will start to reveal itself.

Now I just need to do it myself!!! Best of luck, and thanks so much for sharing.

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[kmkathymag]

Scattybird, thanks so much for your response. I absolutely agree with you about accountability buddies. I had a friend work with me a short time ago, and she was very strict. I had to get through the boredom, the fear and the anxiety to get writing – and I did. There were negative parts of the process (she took waaay to much control, and I lost my sense of my own ideas and how the paper should be organized), but on the other hand, I wrote and worked.

Very impressive, I have to say, the way you got your thesis written. You knew what you needed, and drove yourself to do it. That takes a lot of courage!

I might be re-connecting with my Skype/Google+ buddy. Just agreeing to meet for the 1/2 an hour gives me the feeling of obligation that I absolutely need. However anxious I am about writing [and about my own imagined inadequacies], I just won’t let myself goof around when we’ve promised each other to work.

Lately, I have also, for 5 minutes a day, imagined my ultimate goal to remind me of how important this is, and to imagine a world in which I have actually gotten my thesis DONE.

Thanks so much for your excellent words and sharing your own experience. Sunday stretches out before me, unstructured, which is the WORST. However, I will make an agreement to do something, and tomorrow night, yes, I will check in here. Good luck with your work also, and I’ll look for your check-in.

Thanks again!!

Kath

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[kmkathymag]

It’s about Henry Fielding’s novel Joseph Andrews. I refer to various critics, including Russian Mikhail Bakhtin.

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