Revising Delays

If nothing else, my work tonight has shown me that I have a LOT of reading to do. I have been wanting to write all day, but the process has been SLOW. I couldn't figure out where to start, what else needed to be done, besides finishing that one section on my figure's early Congressional career. But I knew that finishing one section would not complete the chapter--there was still much revision work to be done.

So I started at the top--sentence one. And have been working my way through the document, using my own eyes and comments that I received on my early seminar drafts of the chapter. The primary area that my professor's comments addressed that I had not yet fulfilled in the paper was dealing with the genre of campaign autobiographies. Between drafts one and two I added some scholarly sources on the campaign autobiography, but really have not found a lot of theoretical work in the area. I think in my earlier readings of my professor's comments, I overlooked the recommendation to theorize rather than look for theories. What I need to do is read a bunch of autobiographies and the theorize about characteristics that are consistent with the genre to show how my subject does or does not deviate from our generic expectations in her work.

This means I have some serious reading to do. Using my professor's recommendations, I need to take a look at five books. I don't have to read them closely, but I do need to get a good feel for the works for comparative purposes. Sigh. This is going to push back my plans somewhat on completely this Chapter by the 21st.

But to keep myself as close to my deadline as possible, I am going through what I have so far with a fine-tooth comb, adding footnotes and using bold font comments to indicate places where I need further citations or additional information. I am doing as much rewriting and language-tweaking as possible. So hopefully, I can get through this entire thing tonight.

After tonight I will have three things to do:
1) Complete the section on the campaign autobiography as a genre.
2) Fill in the empty footnotes and boldface comments.
3) Write a solid conclusion.
It will definitely be feasible to complete #2 and 3 by the 21st, but I'm not so sure about #1....Sigh

Updated 2:04 AM--make that a Double Sigh. I made it through the pages I have written and what I need even more than a solid conclusion is an entire section on political philosophy before the conclusion--I'm talking 5-7 more pages. Sigh Sigh.