That’s been my mantra the past few days.
“Sentences.”
For the last week I have been trying to write at least one section of my thesis every day. At this point I’m a little behind, but fortunately I planned for that and gave myself a few day buffer. This week (and weekend) will be spent with my nose to the keyboard, writing
“Sentences.”
As I write I feel like the heavy intellectual lifting is tapering off. That is, all my theory is (mostly) in place. Latour, Heidegger, A bit of Ingold here and there, perhaps a sprinkling of Deleuze… Of course, I still have a million books I want to read, Lefebvre, Adorno, Hagel, Habermas, etc. etc. etc. but my foundational sources are locked down. Now my task is to take my thoughts, which have all been ordered and given structure and flow in my outline, and turn them into
“Sentences.”
This is far from menial work. Communicating my ideas! Thankfully I have my outline of structured ideas to turn to, and although this is more than just putting words on paper (communicating ideas!) at least I have them all in organized in one place.
At times I find myself doubting my writing. “Is that clear?” I think as I read and re-read. “Not so much. I’ll patch it up.” “Oh no, now it’s redundant…” “Which piece should I cite for this idea? It comes up here and here in the writings of X, but it’s more clear here in this writing, but I’m talking about this here and that there and then…. Maybe it makes more sense to… ah….”
And there I go. Writing
“Sentences.”