I have a chapter due next week and I am halfway done. I wish I were completely finished and just revising, but I am not.

I am hoping to write some more tomorrow and this weekend. I’ll be at my folks’ house, though, and that generally keeps me busy. But I’m going to try to finish three more sections by midnight on Sunday, which will leave me only one more section to finish after that.

I want to be able to revise the work, but I have to have some down time and the thing is due a week from tomorrow (or today, depending on where you are).

I’m learning a lot, but I have a lot more references than I was expecting because I have so many different subjects. I’m hoping I can write a short introduction that is fairly coherent about the whole thing and two section introductions that are very short along with a conclusion that is fairly short…. Maybe I only have three more sections and then those things.

I am enjoying the learning and even the writing, but the research process is slow and I’m not an expert in any of this. I’m so glad I’m not doing the “really important” sections in my chapter. I was going to touch on them anyway, but now I think I’ll just let it go. I’m going to be pushing it to get all I want to get done in the word limit.

For example, I can have 5,000 words in the primary sources. I’ve culled and culled and I have 20,000. Obviously I will be cutting tremendously from that. Right now I am pulling out of that 20K only the work that I cite exactly. So I will probably be able to limit it to 5,000 without any problem. The works won’t be quoted in as great a detail, but I think that is okay, too, since the point was to support the arguments made in the chapter itself.

I was crazy to take this on, but I hope I get done, get the chapter done well, and get published. I need publications. Desperately. If I am going to get a teaching job at a four year school.