Writing Boot Camp, Day 1

11:40AM. OK, so I've sworn off Facebook for the 4-hour window of the little experiment in social pressure that is the "Kick (Your Own) Butt Writing Boot Camp", but I'm going to try to keep a blog window open to keep the writing happening and perhaps (?) work through writer's blocks that come up while sitting here. The first day is in Actual Cafe at Alcatraz and San Pablo and, true to form, I'm the only one here. Along with all the other wonderful people in the cafe, of course.

But of course that's not true...I think that there will be other people who want to kick their butts into shape a little bit and get writing as well, and what's needed is a little bit of structure. How to create that in the me-first crowdsourced, anti-hierarchical age we live in? And how can "boot camp" be anything other than a playful metaphor for consumption just like all the rest, when even the Army has now for a few years resorted to the slogan "Army of One"?

1:09PM. Not much blogging in the last few hours is, hopefully, a good thing. Over 400 words written in the past 4 hours which is also, hopefully, a good thing. 100 words/hour actually feels like a fast pace given where I've been in writing recently. The reality with reading and note-taking figured in--let alone sleeping, eating, exercise, working, and the myriad other activities and distractions that fill everyday life--is that it's slower. And to project out to the number of words required for the whole dissertation is, in a word, depressing.

Anyway, it was a good start. Thanks, Actual.