AcWriMo Pledge

I started this blog a year ago as part of DigiWriMo, and although I failed miserably at DigiWriMo, I'm still enjoying blogging, albeit sporadically. But I'm not one to give up on a goal just because I messed it up last time. At the moment what I really need is to make some giant strides in my academic writing, so instead of doing DigiWriMo, I'm making a commitment for AcWriMo--Academic Writing Month.

As part of my PhD program, I have to create a portfolio of two "publishable," article-length research papers related to my area of primary study. I have (and have had for several months now) a beast of a draft of the first one that needs significant revision--a whole new introduction, some pretty major structural as well as content revision of the body, and a new conclusion. The other exists so far only as a somewhat nebulous web of ideas in my head, plus a few scattered notes about potential sources.

I'm giving myself eight days to revise the existing draft, then a maximum of twelve days to read and annotate sources for the second paper before I start drafting it. By the end of the month I'll have at least a first draft of that one. Since you can't write anything out of thin air, focused reading counts toward my writing goal. One of the biggest obstacles to my writing so far has been the tendency of other priorities to intrude on my writing time; if I'm going to be successful, I'm going to have to be a lot more rigid about my writing schedule--I'm blocking out the time in my calendar just like I would a class or a meeting. I'll spend at least two hours every day (excluding Sundays) working on these two papers: 9-11am Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, and 3-5 Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturdays.

Once a week, on Saturdays, I'll post status updates on this blog. I'll talk about where I am in the writing process and anything interesting, frustrating, or cool that's come up in my reading or writing that week. Of course that won't be the only thing I'll have to blog about. I just got another round of student papers to grade, so Jock the TA Octopus might make another appearance. And the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who is coming up this month (which reminds me--I'm deciding now to take a break from my writing schedule on November 23rd because it would conflict with my Doctor Who party; I'll work an extra hour on Friday and Monday each instead).

So, that's my plan: Two papers. Two hours a day. One month of writing like there's no December. 

image source: https://society6.com/DanLebrun/Doctor-who-Geronimo_Print