Re-started the paper yesterday, with the re-frame. This is going to involve writing a new section (and dumping a big part of the existing Results and Discussion).

So, S.F.D. ahoy.

"Bird by Bird" - which is by Anne Lamott - is a book aimed at fiction writers but I do find some of the concepts in there very useful to writing journal articles and the other "shtuffs" I have to write in my job.

She also talks about turning off Radio KFKD (K-FKD, get it? Like the KRP in WKRP stood for a word that, at that time, they were not permitted to say on television)?

The idea behind Radio KFKD is that it's that cognitive-dissonance-generating stream of self-talk: self-aggrandizement in one ear, the Inner Critic on full spin in the other ear, telling you how your work is worthless and will never amount to anything. (Funny, I seem to be deaf in one ear many of these days).

But I think I find the concept of the S.F.D. most useful - I can free myself to write, I can say, "Just get down the ideas you need to get down. You can fix it later." And that helps. I find that writing helps me think...once I start getting the words down, other words come, other ideas come. And I've also gone back to writing longhand on legal pads, like I used to. I can't write at the computer screen and write well, I think because somehow that blank screen is more tyrannical, more demanding of getting stuff down right the first time than a pad of paper is for me. The pad of paper is more private, somehow - it's like a diary, what I put down there is just secret between me and the lined paper, and if it ever sees the light of manuscript day, it can be cleaned up and fixed and made nicer. But the stuff on the screen - even though I have the Delete button and all that, it seems more permanent, like if I'm bothering to use those electrons, I should use them right.

So anyway, I got a chunk of rewriting done yesterday. Or actually, rather new-writing-that-will-become-part-of-a-rewrite.

I've decided to re-institute the "one hour per day" rule on working on research. If I've worked at least one hour, that means I don't have to take research stuff home with me. If I slack during the day and don't get that hour in, then I will be reading articles or rewriting in the evening.

It seems to help. Both with tuning down Radio KFKD (at least the Inner Critic channel, but then I've never had a problem with too much self-aggrandizing inner talk) and at making it more enjoyable to come home in the evening and just be able to knit, or something.