Sobriquet 41.3

The following post was originally published on 4/3/08.

I wrote about a page more on The Master of Petersburg this afternoon. I spent over an hour trying to figure out how to begin the lone paragraph I managed to squeeze out and it took me another two hours to finish the damn thing. I mean, I have come to realize that it often takes me a pretty significant chunk of time to get going, but today was painful. Seriously, the scatological image of a constipated person straining to relieve his or her bowels of the shit that has stuck around for too long comes readily to mind. I feel as if I strained and strained, sweat pouring down a face contorted by pain and concentration, only to produce a misshapen, stubborn little nut of a turd.

In other words, I feel as if I have expended far more energy and spent a good deal more time than my work will show. And those pesky doubts that normally plague me when writing? They swarmed about me like flies in an outhouse on a humid summer day.

But, yeah, I'm glad to have gotten another one percent of the dissertation written.

For tomorrow: More of the same.