Week 40: Slow progress as I change writing mode

Maximum number of words:	80,000
Words typed so far:	64,103
Words typed this week:	1195
Words lost this week:	0
Total increase:	0
Days I managed to write this week:	3

Slow progress this week, I think there are a number of reasons for this. Firstly I have had a supervision, this does not always cut down the number of words written but when it happens mid-week and marks a change of direction in what I need to be writing then I technically only get half the week to write the experimental stuff. This means the ideas are not flowing at all well by the end of the week.

Secondly there is the change in direction, or rather in the style of what I am writing. Last week I wrote a theoretical piece and this week I am starting to write the theoretical writing big time. In this I am engaging with a number of the big thinkers and begin to ask whether their ideas can be applied to the issues I am talking about. The intriguing thing is that because I am theorising at middle level I tend to find it difficult to find theorists who actually talk at the level I am working. There are plenty who work at the scale of the individual and plenty who work at the societal level but those who work theoretically between those two are few and far between. That is not to say there are not those who work at those levels but their main concern seems to be to provide solutions not necessarily to understand what is going on. It was my frustration with being told that A was the problem and if we did X+Y then Z would be the outcome and finding that though we tried our best to do X & Y, Z did not follow, in fact there were resistances to doing X & Y, which started me off on this research in the first place. I thought a proper diagnosis, i.e. one that treats a situation holistically rather than provides a quick answer might be a good starting point.

Anyway today was Althusser's turn and I managed to read the relevant article and write about it. Next the challenge is to look at Foucault. These provide partial but not complete answers and I am probably going to have to look at social memory as well. Really there is nobody who has theorised what a tradition is, it is accepted as unproblematic, but I am going to have to make it up as I go along because when I look at it, it is anything but unproblematic. It fits into my full working model but at the moment I am not ready to disclose that.

Oh the chapter which is on tradition has changed completely, it now therefore consists of section on what is a Tradition (capital T deliberate) a description of the precise tradition and finally the engagement by the congregations with the tradition. All that in 10,000 words instead of 15,000 on the middle section.