I’m in my ninth year trying to finish a dissertation. This is unlike the other blog I started and abandoned. That one was meandering, this one has purpose. My purpose is to give myself a little pep talk because my ADHD shows up periodically as avoidance, shame, and despair. I also feel like disclosing so that other people with ADHD can feel empowered to be themselves and maybe finish their dissertations, too!
This is not about suicide or a physical ledge. It’s about getting unstuck when stuck in writing. The ledge is a metaphorical ledge of writing despair.
I wrote 707 words today, none of them inspired, most of them fought for. Very few of those words will end up being anything except the stirring of ideas.
They say to leave a breadcrumb trail in our writing. How will I continue what I’m working on tomorrow? What if I don’t know what I’m going to write about? What if I can’t figure out where I’m going?
Yesterday, I took a paragraph that I’d written before and realized it was too dense, so I wrote a new paragraph based off of one sentence. I thought this was a great idea to keep moving forward. I tried to leave some breadcrumbs from there, but I couldn’t figure out where I should go. Do I explain the significance of what I just said? What makes the most sense as far as building a narrative that will be comprehensible to someone reading this. Ultimately, I want the thing to be readable. I realized I was starting to spin out and that what I’m doing might be more like revising and not writing what I need to write: a continuous piece of writing that goes from start to finish.
Waves and waves of self doubt creeping up on me while I question my ability to ever get this done. This is what happens when I get to a point in the writing where I’m stuck. I can still feel those waves crash about, and I can conjure them even as I write this.
I realized it’s been so long since I’ve been in coursework that I don’t have a really good idea about what I’m actually producing. What should a dissertation look like? What does a chapter have in it?
I asked Claude what it thought about getting unstuck, and it gave me a few ideas. While I was panicking, I took on the idea of taking what I’d written and just quickly describing each paragraph. I felt huge resistance to doing that, but
What’s working right now:
Daily writing sessions (7/7).
Texting my adviser when I begin my writing session.
Making sure I do not leave work before I complete my writing session.
What’s not working:
I skipped a morning workout and scrolled.
I canceled a mid-day workout because I don’t feel like being sweaty.
What I realized:
I don’t really know what a dissertation is supposed to look like.
I don’t really know or remember what a chapter is supposed to look like.
I don’t really know what it means to write “one continuous piece of writing from start to finish.”
What I tried today:
Briefly looked at dissertations on suburban history; realizing in my off writing time, I should take a look at the genre to get a feel for it.
Briefly summarizing paragraphs that I’d written; it helped me realize some framing for an argument that was helpful, and it also showed me how disconnected the paragraphs felt from one another and why they weren’t flowing. Even though I felt resistant to doing it because I hate looking at my writing so much, I did it anyway and don’t regret it.
Where I need to go:
I need to get clear on where I’m going in my writing, so that I have a place to begin from and a place to end on. This is going to take a minute just to organize chunks of writing and documents spread out here and there. I feel like this would make the biggest difference.
Get on my little desk treadmill. If it’s not going to be sweaty mat pilates, it needs to be something.