#like...i'm working on it--i have a concept of an organizational system--but also i am the queen of chaos long may i reign

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

i’ve begun trying to sort through my fic prompts and WIPs (again) to get ready for july’s writing session, and the main thing i have accomplished  thus far is realizing what a mess i am dealing with. 

i have WIPs on AO3, i have them in my google docs, i have nearly 200 unfilled fic prompts, i have many partly-written stories I never even started posting that just live in my tumblr drafts...but also i have 144 Tumblr drafts! 

june is about to be over and i never caught up on last year’s movie reviews so i have never posted 2023′s watchlist or reviews of the ones i’ve seen, and at some point i realized that if I started to reply to an ask it would move to my drafts so i did that with a bunch of them to tidy my inbox a little, and now they’ve lost all context.

not to mention i’ve got ask games i randomly invented but never posted, and things that i do not even recognize at this point or understand. one of my drafts just says “Rock paper scissors but I want to be a flower“......what is that? was i just feeling philosophical that day? because i most certainly don’t have a clue at this point.

[interlagosed]

good eve hibi, i was wondering if you, as an academic queen, have any advice for dissertation writing/planning?? im starting mine this week and am bricking it tbh

also, do you have a ko-fi or similar?? i tried the present at on your blog but i didn't really wanna give your dash crabs lol

ahhh first off please don't worry about ko-fi!! i briefly had tips enabled but i got rid of them since i'm getting paid at my job and am very secure right now Alhamdulillah <3 but thank you so so much for asking!

re: advice......SOOOO much advice. pre-diss writing bricking-it is so fucking real. it's genuinely paralyzing lol. couple of tips to start so you're not overwhelmed:

PREEMPTIVELY take a look at your sources. make sure you're using a good citation manager! i've been using zotero for six years and i would die without it. read your sources before you start writing in earnest! annotate generously and make sure you have a decent organizational system--either color coordinated for argument or section, or otherwise pulling out useful quotes and concepts with page numbers in a separate document. this will save you when you're in the middle of writing and suddenly forget what you're on about/get stuck. tagging your sources will be helpful here too!!

write a skeleton of your paper! think of this as a slightly more fleshed out (hah) version of an outline. i'm actually working on this right now so i'll put that below. but basically, you want to have your arguments, at least your draft arguments, written out either in bullets or in a sentence. This is going to save your LIFE. make sure it's a separate document that you can keep referring back to and, as you review your sources and think things through, that you can add stuff into. It's okay if your arguments change. Just write SOME arguments as a starting point.

create a plan for every day/week working BACKWARDS from your deadline and build in BREAKS. the reason i say work backwards instead of forwards is bc it helps you reverse engineer a perfect progression. building in breaks does two things: 1) literally you need a break from your diss especially if you're pissed off at it you nEED to be able to walk away for a FULL DAY at least otherwise you're going to panic and never want to write ever again lol; 2) if you fall behind on your plans, you have some overflow days that you can tap into so that you don't fall too-too behind. usually the thing about paralysis is that you just don't really know where to start? this tells you exactly where to start and where to end.

don't spin your wheels on one section. you don't HAVE to write your paper in the order that someone would read it. if you don't want to write an introduction, that's fine; start mid-paragraph in a different section. this is especially helpful if you're like working on washing the dishes or brushing your teeth and you have a really good idea all of a sudden and need to put it SOMEWHERE.

DO NOT LEAVE CITING UNTIL THE END DO NOT DO THIS DO NOT DO THIS DO NOT DO THIS you will inevitably do this. to make it slightly less painful, at least put in a [CITE X HERE] rather than just [CITE]. that way you have a rough idea for where to look for your source. if you've done the first tip well, this will be made EVEN less painful.

ok this is enough for now oajglkajg i have so many feelings lol GOOD LUCK LET ME KNOW HOW IT GOES!!!