How to write a humanities dissertation, part four: The Dire Deadlines

See part 3, here.

Step one: Get a Deadline. 

As the second summer of your dissertation writing draws near, you will receive an official-looking letter informing you that your TA funding will dry-up a semester earlier than you originally believed. This should be bad news, but it is the kick in the pants you need. (Later, after all is complete, you will be told that this letter had been sent in error, and that the funds had been available for an additional semester. When you are staring hopelessly at the lack of job postings for people with Humanities degrees, you will think of this missed opportunity and sigh wistfully, vaguely wishing you could have stayed another semester.) For now, though, this news means that you have to graduate in December -- that is, in about eight months. In practical terms, this means you have to be done with all your work, including the defense and the submission of final final copies by the first of November. Allowing for various other deadlines, this means you have to be finished writing, revising and formatting by the first of October. This gives you 6 months, and you don't even have a complete rough draft yet.

Step two: Plan and Procrastinate.

Create a new plan of so-many-words-per-day that will allow you to finish your polished rough draft by the end of summer, so that you will have an approved draft to give all your committee members when school starts in the fall. As before, start out diligently working your plan. Also, as before, begin gradually to slip out of your plan, beginning a spiral of never-ending-catch-up-writing. During this time, you learn that however motivational your big looming deadline may be, it's always the nearest deadline that wins, no matter how much less important that deadline is. Those little deadlines in your life take precedence and consistently edge-out your writing time. You have a class to teach for the first half of summer, with lessons to plan and papers to grade, you have other demands on your time that occur each week, you have family and friends that need your attention, you have a cat sitting in your lap, making it impossible to move from the couch and your laptop is all the way over there! (Okay, that last one's not a deadline, just laziness, but that cat can be pretty demanding of your time, nevertheless).

Step three: Inspiration

When your summer class ends, you now have only one month left to finish and there are two entire chapters and a conclusion that are still in the messy notes/extended outline phase. Now, the deadline is real; now the panic hits; now is the time to get it done. During this phase, it is helpful to collect motivational phrases and pin them to an inspiration board:

You may also buy a new notebook filled with inspirational phrases like this one, from the venerable (though fictional) Jean-Luc Picard:

The cover of the notebook says, "Remember, ideas become things." You cling to this thought, vividly imagining the day you will hold an attractively-bound copy of your dissertation in your hands -- that very tangible "thing" that will be the outcome of all your random thoughts. At the top of page one, you write, "19 days until the rough draft is due," and each day, you write down the things that you've accomplished, along with other random thoughts, notes, and check-lists as you go. This is a useful exercise.

Step four: Perspiration

The air-conditioner in your apartment breaks. It is Texas in the summer, and you are stuck inside this sauna of an apartment, writing as much as possible while wearing as little clothing as possible. It's not a pretty sight. You have been working systematically through the entire dissertation, re-writing some parts and writing others for the first time. In the last two weeks before the deadline, you find yourself face to face with those final two chapters and conclusion, still not having written anything usable. Drink iced coffee. Wear short shorts that no self-respecting 30-year-old should own. Pretend to be a hippie. Start to smell like one.

Step five: Panic

Write the entire second half of the dissertation in the span of two weeks. Don't sleep much. Eat whatever random junk you can grab quickly, especially goldfish crackers, cereal, and frozen grapes. Guzzle 5-hour-energy drinks like a sorority girl presented with jello-shots for the first time. Thank the good Lord for giving you a sweet, coffee-dispensing husband who doesn't mind that you've turned into a distracted, ill-kempt grad-student zombie. Looking back, you will not remember much about these two weeks, except that they will culminate, on the day of your deadline, with you sobbing hysterically on the bathroom floor because you were expected for a family dinner that night, yet were still not finished. Your saint of a husband will gently tell you to stay home, where, after a nap, real food, and more coffee, you will work into the wee hours of the night and finally complete your draft.

Step six: Hit Send

Triumphantly send your advisor this draft. He will email you promptly, saying that he's out of town that week, and he won't see your draft for a few days. At this point, you will shock yourself back into a lucid state with the sound of your own crazed laughter.

Step seven: Sleep. A lot. You will need your energy to gear up for Part 5: The Furious Finish!