Aha Moment

Today I knocked out 2 of my goals! Here's a little recap:

After finishing my writing last night, I went to bed (after watching Eclipse, don't judge, the man in book culture assured me that lots of grad students love the entire Twilight Series and yes,  I have read all of the books) and got up at 7:30 to do some serious writing. I knew I wanted to make it to a 12:30 Pilates class (mind and body!) so I figured that I could get in at least 2 hours of quality writing, some bad TV, browse on Etsy, check out house tours on apartmenttherapy.com and,  have coffee run before the class. I am proud to say that I accomplished all of those things. However, the degree to which I did them successfully has yet to be determined. This success factor brings me to my "aha" moment of the day. While it is true that I wrote for 2 hours this morning, I was writing myself in circles. I couldn't find my argument, wasn't sure if I had an argument, and if my confusion was any measure of how my reader would feel, well, I was in serious trouble.

Now let me just say that I am all for "writing myself into ideas", and I happen to think that some of my most profound ideas (I conceded, that may be an overstatement) happen as I am writing myself into genius. And I am also not sure if I would be able to embark on this 30 day challenge or even have this "aha" moment if I didn't spend all of my time writing in circles. But this time, I have a deadline, and somehow the deadline made my "writing into" feel more like a maze that was never going to end. So, I did what I probably should have done the day I started grad school: CREATE AN OUTLINE. I am not sure why I have never followed an outline before, believe me, I wish I knew. But today I was determined. So I outlined away. I forced myself to make a really really good outline, which for me means a paragraph by paragraph outline where I write down the point, evidence, and analysis of each paragraph and include transition sentences. As I wrote this mega outline I found that some ideas had to go to the dissertation graveyard (a file which is now about 1,000 pages long) and some ideas totally clarified themselves. Now, if you are wondering how I got this far without making an outline, rest assured that I have plenty of academic-ish friends who swear that they can't follow an outline either. But I have come to terms with the fact that maybe I am just not one of those lucky people.

I have yet to actually follow the outline, but as soon as I post this I plan to write for at least 2 more hours and see how it feels. The outline may not be my ultimate "aha" moment, but I do think that there is something revelatory about realizing that what you are doing just isn't working anymore. But, this blog will remain an outline free -crazy circle-writing into myself space.