Progress, Sorta
I’m now 28 pages into an article that I wanted to be around 25 pages long, and I’ve got at least another 5 pages of analysis and conclusion to write before the thing is complete. Annoyingly, the first 20-ish pages of the article hold together pretty darn well—ideas move from one section to the next in what seems to be a fairly logical progression—and then in the last six pages (of what I’ve written, that is) it begins to crumble a bit.
I just want to be done with this article. I’ve got two more things that I really have to get written before the end of August, and I can’t get going on them until this is done already.
End whinge. Back to work.
23 July 2006, 7.55 am
A break from the flow of writing and a move towards diagramming the argument per page ration might help. It sometimes is useful to draw a picture of what is going on in the article. It is a technique to discover that what is left might be enough or where the page-argument ratio might be tightened up. Such a synoptic view is achieved by outline tools and in some cases by the use of presentation software that emulate a slide table.
Good luck imagining a re-imaging of the article.