I finally managed to submit a draft (albeit very very partial) of my second paper!! There is still so much to do, of course, but this is definitely a BIG step!!

I am a bit surprised at myself. Instead of focusing on what my advisor may have to say about the draft later this week, and panicking, I am just enjoying a soothing sense of relief. I guess I am so tired, after working under duress last week, that my usual self-doubt voice is falling on deaf ears.

This is definitely unfamiliar territory for me. I should feel anxiety because the draft is slightly opinionated and I doubt anybody should care about my opinion. At the same time, I am just amazed I finally managed to do what many had urged me to do… countless times: put your ideas in paper!

I am honestly and almost excitedly looking forward to my advisor’s comments about the structure, substance and even gaps in the draft. It will be a long way from the many disconcerting meetings we have had before: him providing abstract guidance; me, a deer caught in bright headlights.

Now we have something concrete to talk about. We may disagree and he may not even like it, but I will no longer have to start from zero again!

It is insane to think about studying something else while going through this process. I am afraid I am more than a bit insane… Or I need to unsubscribe from open courses sites. One thing is for sure. Whatever I do in the future, it will never involve a thesis. At this point I remember taking exams, or even writing term papers, almost with pleasure. That is how much I am not enjoying this rite of passage.

I certainly know much more about my topic than when I started. I have printed all I could found about it. I have carefully read a respectable part of it. The trees sacrificed in the process didn’t gift their pulp in vain, I promise. Why is it still so hard to advance?

One of the difficulties I am facing right now is trying to put my own argument forward, while supporting most statements in the paper with citations. That is what I am supposed to be doing, right? If it was just about summarizing the literature and adding an empirical exercise, it would be a million times easier.

I got spoiled early on against monumental bibliographies. My mentor is a prolific writer, an experienced scholar and practitioner. In collaborating with him I was somehow covered by this wisdom. I could phrase my ideas on paper without a bibliographic filter. He would tell me right away when I was wrong, naïve or lost. We would then decide what literature was crucial to cite.

Independence is scary. To look at the bright side, it is a growth process. I know my future self will be thankful for having done this. But my present self feels like a child I know after few swimming classes. He sees other kids swimming without support and people assure him he can do it. Nonetheless, letting go and submerging in the water cannot possibly be more frightening for him.

Don’t get me wrong. I am progressing, slowly but steadily. I will have a draft even if I must go sleepless for days. I just wish I was enjoying even a slim bit of it. It is an interesting topic, at least to me. I have been curious about it for years.

What do I need to do to finally demystify it? How can I stop second guessing myself at every turn? Where do rainbows end?

I thought the muses had left me. For a while I seemed to have lost the exhilarating energy that fuels this blog. Perhaps it was because last Friday I had the crazy idea of trying to use that energy to write few paragraphs for my dissertation. I think I insulted the muses by even considering their guidance while writing about international trade. I must say I wouldn’t blame them for leaving. The muses gave me a gift of personal intimacy to share here with you and there I went, misusing it to talk about the asymmetric effects of globalization…

I also got a cold. Spring has really played hard to catch this year and I inevitably fell under the weather. I should have paused to take care of myself, right? Liquids and rest… But there I sat, on the chair, captured by the guilt of what I saw as just another excuse to be unfaithful to my dissertation.

After all, this is what the task has become: to diligently work on it, proverbially in sickness and in health, ‘til the defense hopefully do us part.

Taking the sweet muses out of the equation for a moment, I think that I am so used to being self-conscious and hesitant when writing my dissertation that Friday’s unfamiliar energy was just too uncomfortable. Today, feeling a bit better courtesy of various cold and flu medicines, I went back to the text. My first instinct was simply to discard what I wrote Friday. But I didn’t. Instead, I continued writing around it, fleshing it out. I take it as a small victory against shame and self-loathing. I hope many more will come.

But what will my life look like after D-day? Will I finally take time to exercise, separate stress from eating, get back home earlier, read for pleasure, take vacations? I must tell you: The life I imagine is nothing short from achieving all my recurring New Year’s Eve resolutions, and all at once. Boy am I setting myself up for disappointment!! My quality of life will certainly improve, that is clear, but I will still be me. And I think I am fine with that.

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!

I didn’t do it on purpose. I just had more urgent stuff to get off my chest. But without the two workshops I have attended I wouldn’t be where I am: ready to write, about everything, apparently…

The first workshop I attended was last Spring. The discussions were fascinating and very useful, touching upon the same literature I needed to acquaint myself with.

On the matter at hand, I learned two facts:

Fact 1: Writing a dissertation is ideally about finding your research agenda, one you would take with you in your academic career. You don’t need to write everything about your topic to finish it! You can leave some for the future, ready for your postdoc, first job, first book. Or just for others to continue pursuing it if you are not going to academia.

Fact 2: The dissertation is a school assignment, a damn difficult one, for sure, but still a school assignment. They want you to finish it! They want you to submit something and get on with your life.

Aren’t these facts liberating? They are precious. They are the absolute key to freedom! You still have to write it, though…

The second workshop was also fascinating. Students from different disciplines exposed me to cool topics I would have never heard about otherwise. I also understood more about methods. Not everyone writes in «economical» terms or needs to test hypotheses. Very refreshing to say the least…

The most important part about both workshops, however, has been the people, the unlikely community I didn’t know I desperately needed: all on the same boat and willing to go part of the way together, guided by experienced professors. I am forever grateful for their generosity.

The writing process is a hard path. I am not going alone.