Count your stars

One of my favourite writers, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka The Yarn Harlot), writes hilarious anecdotes about her life as a mad knitting enthusiast. By her own account, she is often unrealistic about what knitting she can achieve in a particular timeframe. Looking ironically at herself in once instance, she notates "3 ways to tell that knitting deadlines are getting to you:

1. You are knitting the gift for the birthday girl on the way to the party.

2. You have decided that replacing sleep with knitting just makes sense.

3. You have calculated the number of stitches remaining in the project* and think that it's 'pretty normal' that you are counting down" (2005, p. 95).

It's not that difficult (even if you don't knit) to see the pre-supervision all-nighter in this, is it? But careful examination of Pearl-McPhee's quote highlights the angle from which she's taking her self-assessment: the end goal—completion. Deadlines tend to bring this angle up and make it very loud in the internal narrative.

Of course, why begin at all without a goal? Goals, deadlines—they're all part of life and achievement.

I have noticed, however, that looking at my progress through the frightful frame of my prescriptive final expectations does not really help me at this last minute (or at all, really—deadline or no deadline).

Rather, the carping internal noise of What Has Not Yet Been Done crowds out whatever I'm trying to write, makes my fingers clumsier, and my stress mounts.

My fix for this is to stop for a moment.

What? Are you mad, Kylee?!? I have 8 subsections to write in the next 3 hours—which, at an average of 450 words per subsection is 20 words per minute (and the only word I can consistently type correctly is coffee)—Stopping is not an option!

Ok, I feel your angst. But in the middle of this, take a moment.

First, scribble down a couple of sentences about what's worrying you the most:

This is going to be incomprehensible; I won't have time to check it; nothing I'm writing makes sense; I'm going to be so roasted by Associate Professor Brainy McCleverface.

Then, scribble down everything that you already know is good about your document:

Chapter 2 is much more solid than when they last saw it; I have addressed all 16 of Professor Always Cheerful McCriticism's previous remarks; Chapter 3 now has a proper heading structure; and the overall research goal is much clearer.

Be your own best friend for a minute and lay out what you have already achieved. Now, read it again, right through. You will hopefully notice that your achievements are much more solid than your panic points. You still have a deadline, sure, and you're still in a hurry; but you evidently can attend to your overall goals. Now, rather than toppling over yourself in an effort to beat back what really only amounts to fear, go back to your writing and stand on truths you have made by diligently attending to your work at other times.

In short:

1. "Stress is an ignorant state" (Natalie Goldberg, quoted in Pearl-McPhee, p. 95).

2. Luckily, this means you can sometimes kill it off with good information.

Have a beautiful day.

Reference and note

Pearl-McPhee, S. (2005). At knit's end: Meditations for women who knit too much. Storey.

* In case you don't know anything about knitting, it's basically weaving cloth one stitch at a time. According to Pearl-McPhee, there are about 10,880 stitches in just one sock.