There's a saying...

... what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.


And I suppose in a lot of cases, the saying is right on. But why is it those things that don't kill you have to do so much damage before they make you stronger? Hmmm?

I suspect this setback will make me stronger. I know already it's made me feel simultaneously less and more reliant on my committee members. In a weird way, both seem like a good thing. But this second guessing myself all the time is really starting to get tiring. I've resumed working - which is good - but I'm not moving forward.

You'll notice the dissertation meter really hasn't moved in the last month.

Part of that is because I'm doing a lot of revision - which is good because I like what I'm changing. But part of it is because I'm stuck on the new material. I feel like the writing strategy I've been employing for the chapters to date must be flawed. Which means I need a new strategy. I just am not finding it.

I'm trying to begin a new chapter, but I'm afraid to commit words to paper. I feel like if I put something down that isn't right, I'll get stuck in a bad writing mode and produce a bad chapter that will have to be entirely re-written anyway. It's making me freeze up when I try to write. I've never had that problem before.

I've had tough writing patches - who hasn't? But I've always been able to devise a work-around that gets me back to the writing, whether that's a change in pace, format, attention, audience, you name it. Nothing's working now.

As you can tell by this post, I'm scattered and random in my thinking about this chapter.

Worse, my attitude toward it is changing too. At first, I thought this chapter would be interesting, a revolutionary way of looking at the material. At weaker moments, I had grandiose ideas about its revolutionary nature, but in my more sober moments, I could still see how it would be interesting - the kind of thing that crossed genres and techniques in a really productive and interesting way. I was cautious about putting it into the prospectus, because I felt like it would be a challenge and would propose some rather unusual things, but I worked through what I thought was a reasonable argument for why it should be undertaken and felt confident proposing it as a chapter.

And I must have had something there because the committee approved the prospectus after all, right?

Thing is, now all I can see is disaster. Instead of a novel approach to genre and content, it now just feels silly. As much as I'm trying not to let my committee's lack of faith in me affect me, it is, and now I don't know if I can pull off this chapter.

I know what you're thinking. If I'm stuck in contemplating this chapter, why not write a different chapter instead? And that would be good advice. I have given myself that advice as well. Thing is, the other chapter that needs to be written, the one that I've been looking forward to, thinking it was the culmination and glory of the whole dissertation - yeah, that one - I'm starting to think looks like crap too.

Yeah.

Depressing thought, isn't it?

I have faith that this will all work out and I'll get my writing feet back under me. But right now, it's not happening. I'll continue to struggle, and it will make me stronger, but I sure do wish I could just struggle under the writing, not the writing AND the self-doubt.