Scan from The Tale of Kieu, a Vietnamese epic poem written in chữ Nôm, a vernacular script based on classical Chinese.
Welcome to Week 6! We’re almost to the halfway point of the writing group, which is a good time to take a hard look at your goals for the summer. What do you need to do to get where you want to be seven weeks from now? If you haven’t set your goals for the wek yet, put them in the comments, and happy writing!
Weekly Goals:
Meg: I want to return to the parole chapter as my priority this week, mixing things up with the R & R when I feel stuck. My goal is to write 500 to 750 new words each day, Mon-Sat., and ambitiously get this chapter back to my advisor early next week.
Nicole: In brief, I need to turn in my whole dissertation Wed. or even Tues. night. The remaining thing is revising empirical chapter 3 and then proofreading.
Naoko: – brainstorm requests/guidelines for ultrasound training next week
– begin writing ultrasound MOO with Nanomaxx device in mind
– being qualitative training guide
– submit revised NNIPS-3 paper
– send along revised neonatal referral paper
– complete review for BMC
– if time allows, begin drafting Intergrowth paper
Chez: complete dissertation revisions, complete dissertation formatting, start planning for articles coming out of the diss. To help me focus, I’m setting writing times for myself: Monday 9a-1p and 2-5 p; Tuesday 9a-2p; Wednesday 1-6p; Thursday 3-8p; Friday 9-11:30 a; Saturday as needed.
Dan: One 50-minute pom in the morning and one in the evening, bookending my work in the archives. Also, start preparing my classes for the fall by identifying major tasks and breaking them into discrete tasks.
Steph: Finish editing Chapter Five and integrate some more literature into two parts of the chapter.
Roberta: Most of the work this week is organizing and reorganizing and a return with a vengeance next week to committed writing time.
Ye Olde Royle Blog 
My goal for this week is to finish doing revisions for Chapter Five. I wanted to have this mostly done last week, but it didn’t work out. I’m still on good time for my larger plan of getting revisions done by August 26th, though. I have about twenty more pages to work through, so as far as more specific goals:
1) Finish editing Chapter Five.
2) Integrate some more literature into two parts of the chapter.
My goal for this week has changed. I wanted to complete chapter one but ran into a few roadblocks (some self-imposed, some not). I have the help of a couple of students to enter sources and tag them in Zotero and I realized I need to organize the materials with which I need them to work so I am spending most of this week putting things back where they belong so they can actually be of help to me. So, most of the work this week is organizing and reorganizing and a return with a vengeance next week to committed writing time.
Still try to find some time to write each day, if you can! As I’m working on this article, one thing that’s become real clear to me is that daily writing really leads to more words on the page and deeper insights.
This past week: turned in dissertation to committee and took a few days to regain mental energy. This coming week I need to:
1) read the whole thing, warts and all. Monday + Tuesday.
2) list for myself some of the possible critiques so the feedback from committee is not too crushing. Monday + Tuesday.
3) get ready to receive some initial feedback from my advisor on the whole package (ack; not sure when)
4) plan a short presentation for the defense (the following week) and find someone who’s not trying to finish to practice it with. Wed, Thurs, Fri.
5) write an abstract and revise that a few times until it’s tight enough to share (either entirely below 350 words, or two versions with one that short) to distribute around the end of the week (by Thursday) or the following Monday.
I am on track to send round 2 of the parole chapter, plus a rough outline of the women chapter (with data excerpts, concepts, etc.), to my advisor by the end of the day on Tuesday. On Weds., I will need to catch up on paid work that I have neglected. Thurs. I will return to the R & R. I’m not sure how long these revisions are going to take me, and I still want to move forward with the women chapter to meet my goal of a first draft to my advisor by the end of July, so I will likely post again mid-week once I’ve figured out more specific process tasks.
Progress feels very slow, but I believe I am on pace to meet my summer goals!!!
Goals for this week: Complete formatting, acknowledgements, and abstract – submit final dissertation to the Graduate School (Mon. and Tues.); begin reading a book a committee member recommended to help frame possible methods article; begin planning/possibly outlining possible methods article; complete housing trip.
I did pretty well last week meeting in my writing goals while also logging some time at the archive. Tuesday and Thursday I’m going to get in five fifty-minute poms, writing from 10 to 12, 1 to 3, and 330 to 430. Wednesday I’m doing an oral history in the afternoon, so I’ll likely cut that down to two poms in the morning and one or two in the afternoon. Since Friday is the Fourth, I won’t be working that day. Still working on getting a draft of this article locked down by the end of the week!