Chapter 1 (8/3/20 to 8/15/20): 5011 words Monday: 506 words Tuesday: 510 words Today: 615 words Broke through my previous two-day average to write a bit more this morning and it did not even felt like I had written that many words. I am considering going up to 1000 words as my quota when I write the next chapter and see how that goes, but I am happy to have gotten the document up to around 1630 words. I love always starting my day off this way now and it helps really set the mood and tone for everything. I do not have my own writing room that I can do this in so despite always writing in the chaos of the living room with all of my pets and family, I have managed to make it work so far. Maybe that is what I needed to get the ball rolling, but who knows. Still, it is amazing to actually make time to write in the morning and be able to finally have that niche in my college schedule- for now. The true test will come next week when my fall classes start.
9/30 chapters finalised, 121/441 pages. Only one chapter done today, for a couple of reasons. The weather was nice so I wanted to spend the morning outside instead of in my bedroom, and I know the next chapter is a very long one (30+ pages if I recall) and to be honest I just wasn't in the mood. No big deal, I will get to it tomorrow.
Chapter 1 (8/3/20 to 8/15/20): 5011 words Monday: 506 words Tuesday: 510 words Wednesday: 615 words Today: 963 words So... I almost broke the barrier to 1000 words today. I did not know that I had done so until I finished writing and subtracted the total word count for day from yesterday to figure out how many words I have written for the quota. Does this mean that I will 1000 words tomorrow or write only 100 words? I do not know. I have to see what I am feeling like, especially considering that I have a Spanish exam tomorrow, but I will not take that until the afternoon so I may write some in the morning to calm my nerves. Still, it amazes me that I was able to almost double my word count in the hour block I allow myself for writing per day so it shows that maybe I can write 1000 words and still be able to write good quality fiction, which has always been my biggest fear and the reason why I wrote slowly up to this point. It is amazing to see this and I am eager for the chance to prove myself again tomorrow, because Saturday is my editing day and I may go and polish the names on the first chapter, but that may be the extent of my edits. I have yet to see when the first round of thorough edits will come from me. I will cross that bridge when I complete this chapter.
Finally submitted my second manuscript to a new journal. This is the third attempt for peer review after two desk returns. I grossly underestimated the time it took to reformat the manuscript content to the requirements of the new journal. I had to painstakingly edit each figure and table for consistency. Then the journal requires UK English, so there was that. Finally, a colleague advised me to include at least 5 references from the target journal as editors are playing a numbers game to improve their impact factor. This task took me two days to find the appropriate literature matching my manuscript scope. Fingers are crossed, really hope the third time's a charm.
Now back to the third paper tomorrow. I got some changes to make on the last engineering report I submitted to the client. I'll try to complete that today.
10/30 chapters finalised, 156/441 pages. Only one chapter again today but it was the longest chapter in the book so its not a problem.
Chapter 1 (8/3/20 to 8/15/20): 5011 words Monday: 506 words Tuesday: 510 words Wednesday: 615 words Thursday: 963 words Today: 676 words I am making good progress on the manuscript of this chapter. It is now up to 3270 words and if I end up not writing anything tomorrow, that is okay because that is a good word count to end my writing week on. I am already having to see that this chapter may have some major revisions around some of the setting paragraphs and backgrounds because I am not entirely sure about it, but it is more of a stylistic and personal preference so that is not a major concern for me at the moment. I know that I can focus on those areas when the edits come around. I was not too sure if my first idea of the first four chapters would hold up, but when I was writing this morning, I decided that I would scrap a purpose scene because I'd feel it would've ended up working against my idea for this group of chapters and be able to end it on a different note that will allow the two chapters told from the female perspective to intertwine together nicely with these two male chapters. That creates a jumping point that occurs in Chapter 5. I am sure that you guys love it when I notice these sudden flow and idea changes as I am writing and showcase what an author goes through as they write their first initial draft. @Anakin66: What kind of journal do you write for? Do you get paid for it?
These are academic engineering and science journals. I'm basically writing my thesis as a series of papers that are publishable. I've already published the first of three papers in the American Society of Civil Engineering Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering. Unfortunately, you don't get paid when your work is published. As a matter of fact some journal ask you to pay a fee if you want your paper to be available to a wider public. Some academics do this, especially in medicine and climate change studies.
Chapter 1 (8/3/20 to 8/15/20): 5011 words 5015 words Monday: 506 words Tuesday: 510 words Wednesday: 615 words Thursday: 963 words Friday: 676 words Today: 4 words I can already tell some eyebrows are being raised, but I want to clarify beforehand that the 4 words came from me editing the first chapter. I went back and polished up the names and I saw something that needed to be added at the very beginning so I went on ahead and done it. My total for the week is still 3270 words, which is about the same average as last week, meaning that the consistency is working out nicely. The project is not at a total word count of 8285 words, which I think for the span of three weeks is not that bad. If I write well next week, I will reach over 10,000 words, a milestone for me as only one other project has ever gotten far up to this point in my writing. Reflecting on all of this made me stop and think: if I write 2 chapters per month, with an average of 10,000 words between the two, that could mean that, ideally, I would have this project completed in six months, which would be in January or February, depending on how you count the months. Realistically, though, it may not happen in six months depending on the severity of my fall classes (Spanish 2000) and the need to find a job as soon as possible. I also am going to try and complete the second chapter by next Wednesday so that I can spend Thursday-Saturday doing a more thorough edit of the first two chapters, polishing up names, rewriting parts that do not make sense and read it more in-depth to get a sense of what my characters sound like. Then I intend to send these first two chapters to a friend for an examination and get his touches on it before I move them into a document on my Google Docs, thus marking the first two chapters to be ready to go to another friend that has said he would do an editing critique as a favor because he is getting married to one of my oldest best friends and we have gotten close in the past few months, but that is beside the point. I will still have to pay him, though, but it is far lower than what might have been and then after he does that, I will go from there. Oh okay. Are they research papers you have done or articles that you have written from the basis of research papers? That is amazing. I am sure that it gives you a nice name recognition if you ever want to go into the publishing and writing fields. I wonder why you do not get paid and even have to pay a fee in this area? You would think that they would want to pay people for their papers and articles. Thanks, man! I appreciate it. I like how consistent I have been up to this point and I intend to continue moving forward.
Yes, my own original research. This is a key requirement for a PhD. One had to demonstrate a significant contribution to knowledge with their thesis. However, one can also write and publish a paper based on existing research papers. This is called a review paper and it is usually done at the beginning of a PhD. This way you can identify the research gaps in your area and then set your objectives for your PhD. It's a complicated process, but in academia no one gets paid for publishing. Publishing itself is seen as a form of compensation (I don't agree with this either) and prestige. The more papers you publish, the higher your chances are at winning grants to fund your research. It's very different from publishing novels and works of fiction. Most publishing houses have a subscription fee so the general public does not have free access to scientific papers. However, most universities pay for these subscriptions and provide free access to students and professors. Sometimes the funding agency will explicitly say that your research must be published as open access (free to the public). Then you have to pay a fee (upwards of $1000 USD in most journals) to publish without a paywall. There are many debates about this now since a lot of predatory journals are popping up offering cheaper open access and faster publication timelines, but the quality of peer review is usually poor. Nevertheless, good science still prevails and publication is a mean of sharing your works to fellow scientists first and the general public after. 20 years ago the public didn't care to read journal articles as much as they do now. That why it's more complicated to publish today or to get a tenured professor position at a university. Academia has a lot of catching up to do.
Getting back to it with 13/30 chapters finalised, 209/441 pages. Only one chapter again today but the weather is once again nice so I want to sit outside. Even at this pace the book will be ready to be read by others within a few weeks.
Oh, okay. This makes sense. I have several papers that I would like to turn into articles down the road and change up to be published on some websites and blogs, but I see what you mean. I know that if I ever get my Ph.D. I will have to do the same thing. I have no idea that you are working toward your Ph.D. but that is amazing to hear! What are you getting your doctorate in? In regards to the publication, what you said makes sense and I disagree with the idea that publication should be comprehention for a person's research because considering all of the time you pour into that research, time that is taken away from what you could work on to make money, I do not think it is fair as well because you do not know how many people will have access to said document and what they will even use it for in their own projects. The fees for the papers are expensive though since I know I have came acorss papers I wanted to use for my own assigments in college classes, but I could not use them because they would have costed me an arm and a leg, haha. In terms of writing today, I got 0 words done today, but it was because I had to do something this morning and between that and my fall semester starting, I am a bit overwhelmed at the moment so I am going to just spend the day getting started on my classes so that I am not thrown off tomorrow and can write a good amount of words to get back on track.
Had some spare time later in the day so I got another chapter done. Now up to 14/30 chapters finalised, 236/441 pages.
you are at day 90 of no ejaculation, must be having great drive and energy to achieve your goal! i think everybody here in this thread is productivity powerhouse.
Started writing again this morning. This time, a small blog post for LinkedIn advertising my published paper. Got in 580 words in less than half hour. Felt good. I have plans to do some blogging after the PhD, so this is good starting point.
Thanks! I'm doing a PhD in Civil Engineering. Precisely! This is one of the problem with academia. Word of advice. Read everything you can about students' experience doing a PhD before you make that decision. I can tell you that if I knew then what I know now, I would not have done a PhD. I'm not going to stay in academia. I'm going to get my license and practice engineering.
