Christmas with the intensity of family, gifts, and travel can blot out everything else. Just Sending Cards can balloon into a fast-paced skit that ends with husband driving wife to the Post Office while wife continues to stamp, apply return label, and seal the final 15 cards that could possibly arrive before Christmas.
Christmas is like the hard deadline, familiar to all writers. You know that you’re through getting ready for Christmas when it is Christmas.
When it’s time for people to open their presents or when the kids are coming downstairs or when everyone is seated at Christmas dinner, you’ll know you’re done.
There’s something reassuring, if harrowing, about a hard deadline. It’s often not of your own making, but the definitive, clear nature of the hard deadline removes from you some responsibility and even commitment. You didn’t set the deadline—it’s outside yourself—and you just keep working until you’re gathered with others around the tree. Then you know you’re ready for Christmas. You made it once again.
In writing a dissertation, you won’t encounter too many hard deadlines, sorry to say, but imagine how a Dissertation Boot Camp might somehow capture the elements of getting ready for Christmas or of having a hard deadline.
A Boot Camp can help you by giving you the daily structure of when to write and when to stop writing. A Boot Camp can offer you a great number of benefits.
If you’ve participated in a Boot Camp, I’d love to hear from you. Please share your experiences.
Check out my website for a suggestion about a Boot Camp—that’s at www.nancywhichard.com. While you’re at my website, sign up for my free e-newsletter—Smart Tips for Writers. My newsletter will be going out within the next couple of days. You’ll see a piece on boot camps there, too.
With wishes for a happy holiday,
Nancy
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation and Academic Career Coach
www.nancywhichard.com
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