Episode 1265: Community 20 (Episodes), Dissertation 0 (Words)

As the title of this post might suggest, I'm beginning to regret having promised my supervisor 1000+ words from my first chapter by the end of term, as I haven't done nearly enough reading so far to be able to get a draft done. I suppose if I get really desperate though, I could just whack out a whole series of close readings of individual poems that don't rely heavily on criticism per se. Frankly, I'm quite sure that if I read everything that I've found so far in the course of researching my topic, I'd find that I have more than enough theory and criticism to bolster my argument. Right now, the only genuine problem I'm facing is the psychological barrier of having to get words down on the page, knowing that they'll have to be revised within weeks. It's just not how I generally work. I'm the kind of person who revises semi-obsessively as I go along, which is generally okay for module essays, where I'm able to operate within a fairly clear framework for what the shape of the essay will ultimately be. That style of working isn't very helpful though, when what I'm trying to write is essentially the opening of a chapter that should be at once self-contained and also part of a larger train of thought spanning 16000 words.