Week 33: Slow week but I have started the next chapter

Maximum number of words:	80,000
Words typed so far:	51,825
Words typed this week:	1539
Words lost this week:	0
Total increase:	1539
Days I managed to write this week:	4

Well the new chapter has started for real this week. I have been drafting the opening scene. This is one of those times when re-creating a scene is very useful theoretically. I am beginning to be able to reflect on the forces and constraints that shape a given enactment of a liturgical practice. Admittedly the one I have chosen to portray is chose because I thought it was interesting in its own rights. However even the act of portrayal has had to be handled carefully. It is not enough that I portray it realistically, I have to watch that I leave individual's theological stance honest and not try to co-opt them to my own views, I perhaps tend to be on the high side for URC, but what is really interesting is that being high or low sacramentally makes a difference in the liturgy used but differences in wider management do not seem to stem from that dimension.

This coming week I am at Reformed Spirituality meeting a Westminster College which should be good. Partly because there is chance to engage with a paper by David Cornick but also because I am spotting that I am flagging and am aware that I have been writing almost continuously since October and that makes for a endurance week as I need to find the time to do quite a bit around writing. I will not stop writing this week, I also will try and take some books on worship/ritual/liturgy maybe even some from a Reformed understanding. My task for writing for next week is to write about a normal church service within the URC. It is an interesting task as the role is to also explore on what looks at the surface a very similar act of worship regardless of where you go, how the two congregation I went to nuanced it and the ways that they sort to shape it to their own ideas of what was going on.

Week 6 - Wondering if methodology is getting out of hand

Maximum number of words: 80,000
Words typed so far: 14,383

Words typed this week: 3,368
Days I managed to write this week: 4

Right as you can see from the way the thesis is progressing but I am realising that I am 14,383 and I am not nearing finishing my methodology, I have one section at best a third written and another big section to write, the reason it has been growing so substantially is that I have been needing to defend my decisions to tackle a couple of things in a very specific way. Intriguingly both of these things relate to writing. The fact is that writing up is not a process for me that is tidily separated from the analysis. I do not analyse and then write, but the writing happens as I am analysing and I seem to gain insight through writing, particularly the creative writing of scenes set in the thesis congregations. However I want to say that narrative creates a space that is separate from my voice as a theorectically interested researcher and also that it is the way I have gained a lot of understanding into the functioning of the congregations. Oh well I suppose we will see when I eventually get it to my supervisor, I suspect January time.

It is always difficult to get the time for four days of writing and yet it is so worth it. I should say that the days are days I do generative writing on and the word count is actually the number of words to make it to the first draft. This is mainly because I do the generative writing by hand and I do not fancy counting the words but the first draft is on the computer and Word will count for me.

However two articles have gone missing I know I read them last week and I just can't find them. One article had a quote from Malinowski that I want to include in it, I need to find the article because I need to know where the quote is precisely. The other was someone talking about how they presented their thesis and would have been useful to cite as it was a more interesting approach and I can remember the approach but I can't find an article describing it. Bother, bother, bother!

Meanwhile I have had a query from my one published article that might mean I need to write up a paper for quite a major journal and see if I can get it published. That will be interesting task but I did not intend to write papers while writing my thesis and this will be the second!

Week 5 - back in harness but the writing is getting harder

Maximum number of words: 80,000
Words typed so far: 11,015
Words typed this week: 2,134
Days I managed to write this week: 4

Well I am back in harness and added another two thousand words to the thesis. The four days of writing is a real achievement as I had a migraine on one possible day which meant I did not get any writing done and then a cold decided to appear towards the end of the week, so my writing then was through feeling slightly feverish yesterday.

I was glad when that I was past the initial cold stages by the end of the day, as I was also moving my conference talk from first draft to second (i.e. after my two very faithful proof readers had read through it). I also heard that the paper has been accepted and asked whether I want projection. I have decided to go against projection so will expect just to read it. There is enough change in pace and tone I think to get away with that. I could do a projection but that is I think time better spent preparing to read it. So next stage is for my supervisor to give his opinion.

However this weeks the writing is getting harder, its not that I don't know it, it is that I need to check I have my sources correct, check I have understood the issue and so forth. That said I am still on the methodology as I have a couple of hurdle that I need to surmount before I am free to present my results. So it is now dealing with who said what and when of methodology. I know how I want to present my results is legitimate, I know that I can present them that way, but it is experimental enough for me to have to clearly argue for the approach. The thing is that I am clear that although the two congregations I will present in my thesis are based very heavily on my field work, because through editing, because they are based on my experience which is coloured by many things and because of the need to present them in a way a reader can grasp (lived life in all its complexity does not come across well in text, therefore when presenting thing in text certain things are adapted to enable people to understand what is happening, otherwise it is just confusing).

Next weekend I also want to get out Ulverstanes' interviewees permission to record forms. So I need to check I have enough envelopes to send them out. Once I have done that I can start thinking about more indepth analysis of both interviews and fieldnotes.