Pages written: 1-2
Chapters reorganized and outlined, but not entirely revised yet: 1
Goal for tomorrow: Finish outlining/taking notes for rest of chapter. Begin shaping it into final form. Get more done!
PS. Of course, I know no one really cares about my progress except me…but I find that it’s helpful to think that I’m going to post my progress each night before bed.
Keep this up and you might actually guilt-trip me into doing some work on papers this week… I’ve already gotten as far as (a) sitting in my office (no mean feat, since it look me 20 minutes to get here) and (b) printing out the Instructions for Contributors from two journals.
There isn’t *always* a lot of peer pressure in my department–not necessarily because people aren’t publishing, it’s just that they usually aren’t doing it in the office and in a visible way–and its even more diffuse during the summer. It’s a ghost town in the office. There are no annoying junior faculty going on about their “AJPS” or “WP” pieces, though I understand such folks are common in some departments.
So, I figured I’d make myself accountable to the public through my blog, since I’m really under pressure right now to finish my book ms…got two publishers interested, no teaching (or international move) for *first* time since grad school, etc. It’s now or never. By mid-July.
To be honest, I’ve never been in a department where there was a lot of visible “peer pressure,” at least on me. If someone had told me back in 2001 or so that having a couple of pubs as a grad student was a de facto requirement for a tenure-track job, I’d probably be a bit better off now, at least in terms of job security.