2 down 5 to go

I've just finished the rough and dirty draft of chapter 1. Woohoo!

My word count actually went down - which is probably a good thing given how overly wordy I was getting, and it should drop even more as I edit chapter 2, which is also rough and dirty, but needs a section added as well as a bunch of stuff trimmed down or moved to footnotes.

So here's where I stand right now:

Introduction - is with advisor, who's had it for several months now, but since the BIG conference is this weekend, I'll start bugging her for comments in a couple of weeks.

Chapter 1 - rough and dirty draft - by that I mean all the arguments are there and all the sources I wish to use, but I've paid little attention to what it sounds like. I figure a couple of weeks of editing, adding missing pieces, reading a bit more, and it will be draft ready for advisor's eyes.

Chapter 2 - also rough and dirty draft - this was actually the first thing I wrote, last year, and so now that I'm getting a better sense of the layout of the whole thing, it needs some serious modification. But like chapter 1 most of the argument is there and the majority of the sources, so it should only require a few weeks to a month of editing to get it advisor-draft ready.

Chapter 3-6 - bits and pieces strewn across these - each chapter has about 3000 words that sketches some of the argument, but there will need to be a lot more reading before I can begin to write any of them.

So I should be on track to have 4 of the 7 chapters completely drafted by the end of the summer, which is my goal right now. I figure I can then complete edits and the remaining three chapters in the following year and be a doctor by this time next year! That would be a very gratifying feeling!

Right now my challenge is trying to balance the amount of paid work I can do during the next year against the need to get this stuff written. I'm really undecided about what to do. I enjoy both of my jobs, but one has been really slow lately, and other other is changing significantly in form, and I don't know if I can feel comfortable within that change. Right now I don't need to really make any decisions immediately, but I will need to make them in the next few months.

But in the meantime I'm going to go celebrate the completion of a draft with... oh, wait, I suppose catching up on the laundry, recycling, and exercising aren't really celebrations, are they?