Argh, this is probably going to be a rant more than anything but a rant is what I need. I'm frustrated with myself because I have to write a 10,000 word paper for my annual review -- due next month. I've written about a third of it so far but have been disrupted by a vacation (actually that wasnt a disruption because I felt good coming back to it) and a work trip across the atlantic which nackered me out, and left me with a chest infection which I'm only just recovering from. In two weeks I go off for another 8 days to a summer school which will leave me with one week to go when I get back. I therefore essentially have 3 weeks to write this paper (i've done pretty well all the reading I need to), minus a few days where I have to work (job). Thats effing ages I know but the paper is proving really difficult to write as I'm trying to do something original and very theoretical. I'm having sessions where I'm writing about 1000 words, then deleting virtually all of it, getting pissed off and then going off and doing something completely unrelated to my phd for an hour or two. I then come back and repeat. This is a ridiculous cycle to be in. I think I kid myself into thinking that by doing something unrelated for a few hours I'll come back fresh for another stab but its just not helping. All its doing is wasting time that could be spent on other stuff that I need to do (i.e. preparing other elements for the annual review, preparing for two presentations that I also need to give next month, or starting to do some reading for a book chapter I've been asked to write). All in all my complete inability to nail this paper is preventing me from doing anything productive! I either need some good advice or a kick up the arse.

Hi there

I so recognise what you describe! I went through a bad period of similar frustration with all my work a few weeks ago, when I was writing a journal article. Nothing I did seemed to work, or come out the way I wanted it to. In the end, I bumped into one of my supervisors in the department and admitted how much I was struggling with this, and he sat down with me and talked it all through. I realised that I wasn't able to write the paper because I hadn't got a clear enough idea of what I wanted to achieve - what the thrust of the paper was. This was really denting my confidence in the writing I was doing, and making it difficult to find a way through. In the end I got the paper written by starting with a blank piece of paper, doing a mind-map of all the things I wanted to include, and then working out a structure that mae logical sense of all the pieces. Once I'd done that, the writing wasn't so bad - I cut and pasted bits I'd already written in other papers into the relevant sections, then went through and added bullet notes on the missing bits, then went back to the beginning (well, just after the introduction) and started writing from there.

I don't know if your frustration is caused by a similar issue, but I do think there probably is a deeper issue that's blocking the writing at the moment. If you can identify what that is and work in small steps to address that and then slowly fill in the report, it might be easier to manage. Probably the thought of the looming deadline isn't helping much either - try breaking it down into manageable steps and targets, rather than getting transfixed by the big deadline further into the distance.

Hope that helps!

Thanks Batfink I really appreciate the reply. Your account is pretty accurate of what I've been going through although I have known all along what the thrust of the paper is I just haven't been able to express it on paper. The frustration seems to be coming from the fact that I feel it should be easy to write and it just isn't. I don't even think it's a lack of understanding the subject (a problem I've had in the past) because I can talk to someone who is not an expert about it and explain it quite clearly. But I definitely take on board what you are saying about starting with a blank piece of paper. I have about 18,000 words (twice what I need) saved across various documents and now feel compelled to find a way to force them into the essay just because I've written them, even though actually they don't fit with the purpose of the paper.

Anyway I feel I've had a bit of eureka moment this evening which hopefully means I'm getting somewhere. Unfortunately it won't make direct use of most of what I've written - I guess I just need to remind myself that the hours I've already invested in writing those 18,000+ words were not wasted as they have been spent thinking hard about what I want this paper firstly, to be about and secondly, to achieve.

Thanks for the pick-me-up (up)