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I'm probably no expert in this matter, what with still being ABD even after leaving school 9 months ago to "finish". Still, I've made what I think/hope is a borderline insane amount of progress on my dissertation in the last 5 weeks or so. At about the time I was really feeling like I was on a roll, our fearless leader sent me an email announcing the birth of this blog, and it occurred to me that it would be interesting to try and articulate some of the things that seem to have helped me hit a stride lately. Hopefully this will be useful information for anyone at the proposal, data gathering or starting-to-write stage of their dissertation. While my project is for a department of urban and regional planning, I think many of the tips apply regardless of your field or sub-field.
I'm well aware that everyone works in different ways and no two situations are exactly alike. Some people write best in their pajamas. Me, I need to be showered, shaved and dressed. But that said, if even one person is helped through this arduous process by any of the dribble I'm sure to post here over the next few weeks, it will be time well spent.
In the interest of brevity, I've tried to break down the causes of my recent burst of progress into a few key topics. This post will mainly concentrate on workspace, but others will follow (hopefully) soon enough. So, on to this week's topic:
Space
In my humble opinion, this is key, and something that you should start thinking about as early as possible, while you're still doing your coursework if it's feasible. In previous eras of my writing life (field paper, proposal, and so on), I was working all over the place -- at the dining room table, in my spare bedroom/home office (shared with another dissertator), at a couple coffee shops, at multiple libraries, at my research office. Each had pros and cons. I won't get into them here - you can make your own list I'm sure. But since moving to a new town where I have no office to go to, there are no good coffee shops, and the libraries are only passable and always crowded, I've started working exclusively at home. Luckily we have a spare room that can be a dedicated office. I have everything I need here and just hole up when I am writing - shut the door and try to pretend the TV, dirty dishes, and the rest don't exist. I fyou don't have a good home office space of your own to work in (or if you just KNOW you don't work well at home), I'd suggest starting work now on finding a dedicated space to work. Anyplace where you can dedicate yourself to working with as few distractions as possible and where you can store all (or at least some) of your books, notes and other crap without having to schlep them all over town every day.
While space is usually a premium on campuses, I find that some faculty occasionally have access to extra offices that they don't need at the moment but also don't want to admit this lest they lose the space for ever, so it just sits empty or full of a few file boxes. If you suspect any of your committee members has such a space, ask them if you could use it for a while. A friend once commandeered a rarely-used conference room in her department's annex for the summer to work on her final chapter and editing. She didn't have web access, but sometimes the space and a locking door (she had a LOT of files) is more important than the amenities. Plus, because it was in an out-of-the-way corner of the building, no one ever bothered her. Another friend is particularly good at (and bold enough) asking faculty members about to go on leave if she can camp in their office for a semester. I've been surprised by how many say yes, so if you can make this work, good for you.
I personally found that my research lab office was not an amazing place to work, though many people like to write at the same place they spend the rest of their time so they can keep all their stuff in one place. This is a personal decision. Personally I found it too hard to go to the lab every day because, even though I was only "officially" working on lab related work a couple days a week, it was too easy for people to come to me with questions, last-minute tasks, impromptu meetings, etc. and I never seemed to get that much writing done. On the other hand, access to software, server space, physical storage space, a printer, and other tools can be great. Similarly, a coffee shop provides, well, coffee, but also the ability to put in some earplugs and concentrate on cranking out text while binging on muffins. And home is convenient, comfortable, and has cable, but it's also comfortable and has cable.
As you can see, perhaps, there are no easy solutions to this problem, and everyone's needs are different. Plus, it's not really realistic to expect that as a grad student (or even as a faculty member for that matter) you'll be able to secure a different dedicated space for each of your needs (a teaching office, a research office, a dissertation office, and so on). On the other hand, if you can figure out what works for you early, secure some sort of space or even just a routine or a rhythm (library on Monday, home on Tuesday, coffee shop on Wednesday) around which you can plan your life, I think you'll find that it makes sitting down to write just that much easier.
Next week's topic: Making time to write
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