loving the smell of rain

It's a very rainy day here today. Thunder showers in the forecast as well. I love the smell of this kind of rain. I'm sitting at Lit espresso bar now, and it's warm enough to have the door open. It's great to sit here, drink my coffee, do some writing, all while smelling the rain. And a great day to be inside, working away. I have to admit, I am trying to make up for lost time during my visit to St. John's. I had hoped to stay focused and write every day, but that didn't really happen. I did teeny bits of work, but mostly I spent time with family and friends. I'm back in TO now, and instead of feeling guilty for not working as much as I should have, I'm just moving forward. Yesterday was a very productive day, and I hope to build on that today. I'm up to about 95 pages now (94 or 96, depending on the font choices), and I feel really good about that. I figure I have about 1/3 of my thesis done. There's a lot more of it in my head too, so I'm feeling okay about where I am with everything.

Today, I'm working on a revised draft of my Table of Contents. An outline of my thesis, really. The actual TOC will come once it's all written, but approaching it as a detailed outline right now will help me check things off as I go. Perhaps if I approach it like a to-do list, it will seem much less daunting. Of course, I don't have a great track record with to-do lists, so I'm not sure that's the best metaphor for me to use. Here I go again, spending time trying to think of a metaphor when all I really need to do is write. That's the thing though--I LOVE writing lists. Seriously, I have about half a dozen different guest lists written for our wedding. As our wedding is a family wedding, the list looks EXACTLY the same every time I write it. But I just love to write lists, so when I'm bored or procrastinating, I write lists. I'm not even creative enough to vary the lists. Between October and December every year, I write Christmas gift lists over and over again. Rarely do I come up with new ideas after the initial list, but somehow I think if I keep writing lists, I'll have new brain waves or something. You know what? This TOC/outline/thesis checklist actually IS different. I have very distinct drafts of this document. I can actually see my process/progress through the various versions. Anyway, that's my first task for this afternoon. From there, I'm working on revising my first four chapters. Today, I will spend my time with chapter four, which deals with my methodology and research methods. I don't know how much actual writing I'll get done. I'm at a stage where I have some stuff written, but I need to read/re-read some other thesis methodology chapters and revisit my readings on narrative inquiry so that I can strengthen/tighten my own chapter.

Finally, if you haven't noticed the new widget to the right, you can follow me on Twitter now, @nanceTO

Until next time... thanks for reading.