A new week begins. I need to have a draft by Friday. Did I mention that, more than having the time, at this point I really must make the time? A nice email from the school administration kindly reminding me that I must graduate by August 31th really woke me up. No more snooze button, no more extensions. Even with the most diligent administrative follow up, there comes a time when your school just needs you to get out.

I am thankful for that. As I mentioned before, a deadline is a powerful instrument. I am writing this partly in the hope that by putting my thoughts in paper here I will be less hesitant to draft my paper. The crucial difference is that I cannot really be myself in the paper. Can I? It wouldn’t look professional if I add jokes, or short sentences expressing my frustration and eureka moments. Right?

As serendipity rocks, a friend recently recommended “Economical writing” by Deirdre McCloskey. The book is hilarious and full of tips, including: “Be Thou Clear; But for Lord’s Sake Have Fun”. To me that also means be yourself, even when writing academic papers.

The author also knows so much about our struggles:

“Sitting down to write can be a problem, for it is then that your subconscious, which is dismayed by the anxiety of filling up blank pieces of paper, suggests that it would be ever so much more fun to do the dishes or to go get the mail. Sneak up on it and surprise it with the ancient recipe for success in intellectual pursuits: locate chair; apply rear end to it; locate writing implement; use it”, p. 20.

After using writing implement, I have been using a navigation outline (I may be the last in hearing about this, so please forgive my naivete; I celebrate anything that helps). Using Headings (and the styles’ area in Word’s home tab) I wrote the skeleton narrative and elements I want to include in the paper. The navigation pane avoids the annoying scrolling down and disoriented search for the specific section I am working on. I can just click on it on the left side of the screen. It has really helped in reviewing the bits and pieces I have written along the way, and putting some of them to good use. The rest can be part of my research agenda!