Progress

I'm tired of counting words. It's getting complicated. I'm at 49% and you think I could not give up and count enough to make it to 50% but I'm done. With that said, I am really happy with my progress this past month. I didn't make the exact goals I had hoped for but I've gotten a lot of writing done, most of it revisions which makes counting difficult.
I've actually done a lot of work putting together my dissertation which I didn't think I'd start until January, but since I'm waiting for other people on my publications I thought I might as well do some of it (since I needed to increase my word count). I'd like to show my outline here and mention how much I've done (to pat myself on my back). The outline was only written in October.

Ch. 1 INTRODUCTION (isn't it always).
This is finished! Granted some was cut and pasted from manuscripts I'm working on and/or edited from my masters thesis but still. It is five pages and has three sections. It could likely be longer but each individual chapter will have have an intro. so this is just basic info and you know the summary about what the dissertation is about. The first section is background info about the hydrogeology of the study area. The second two sections are info about the two major groundwater contaminants I work with, so heath impacts, sources of contamination, ect. You can always put in more info about other peoples work but I feel like I've summarized pretty good and included the major review papers.
Ch 2. Contaminant #1
This has four subsections, three of which are going to be publications. So once those are done I'll cut and paste and format into dissertation. The last subsection I've written this past week. I didn't think it was going to be enough data for a manuscript but now that I've written it up I'm thinking it could be. It's only the second data set of it's kind on this contaminant so I think it deserves to get out there. But I'll wait until the other papers have been submitted and then think about it again.
Ch 3. Major chemistry of contaminant #1 and #2 sources.
This is more of an appendix style chapter. I've written the text, it's about a page, and will make the tables once the last of the data comes in. Part of this is the manuscript I'm resubmitting. So I refer to it but again this is more of a look at all this data, maybe somebody later can use it in a different way than I have, and most of the data has been interpreted in other sections.
Ch 4. About contaminant #2
I wrote the text for this today up until the results section. That's when things get hard :) This is a continuation of my master's thesis. Where the masters had a years worth of data this is four years of data, plus some changes to the study sites, so new data. It's really interested but maybe not publishable since I've been told it's only important locally and doesn't have a broad impact. Most of this data analysis has been done for abstracts but I need to think about it again and organize my thoughts better before I write the results and discussion. I will likely try to submit it once life has settled. There is a local journal I submitted the master's thesis data to.

Ok, then there is a nice conclusion/summary chapter and of course the abstract of the dissertation. These are things that will be completed last so they aren't on the radar yet.

I feel great. Thanks InaDWriMo.

Writing

So it's obvious I won't make my InaDrWriMo goal and I'm ok with that. I'm at 8% now, I'm aiming for 50% by Nov. 30th. Although resubmit should be um, resubmitted by then-see below.

I just got off my internet meeting with adviser and he said if I give him a draft of our resubmit tomorrow night he will read it over the week-end. I had to ask this but I'm glad he said yes. We told the journal it should be completed by the end of the month. I am also happy with the analysis of our newest data. Initially I was upset and hated our model and thought new data didn't fit, and it doesn't give us the same exact result but a similar one and still has an interesting conclusion. I also feel so much better now that I've propagated error for these crazy model equations with eight variables each. Some of the errors are pretty big but some are not. So I've revised the intro and lengthly methods and deleted the results section to just start fresh. I guess I could count these words as part of my progress, and I might, but it's hard to asses written words on a revise. This resubmit wasn't even included in my goals, so I've spent a lot of time this month not working on InaDrWriMo.

I'm still waiting for data on manuscript "1"
Still haven't gotten back manuscript "2"
And as previously mentioned I didn't analyze all samples needed for manuscript "3" and I just heard that lab tech won't likely analyze forgotten samples by conference time. They may just have to wait until I go back to dissertation town in January. Poor forgotten samples :(
Although I'd like to have my completed data set for manuscript "3" there is def. more I can still write while I'm waiting for these samples. It's a very big manuscript with two to three sub stories.

Oh and I wanted to comment about how amazing my home made salad just was. Spring mix, raisins, walnuts, hummus, cooked red potato and balsamic vinegar/olive oil/garlic homemade dressing. Yummy, I may go make some more.

More words

Yesterday felt very productive. I wrote 289 words in my dissertation and am up to 711 words in manuscript #3. I think internet free fridays are going to be a great idea.
I also have lots of blog reading to keep myself busy this saturday afternoon. After I catch up it's back to writing!

Words

I finally opened my document (manuscript 3) to start writing! I wrote 173 words in the introduction, which is a little more than one paragraph. I decided I needed to remind myself of the pertinent literature and along the way came across a really cool taping of legislation discussing EPA's lack of setting a drinking water standard on the contaminant I'm working on. EPA was accused of slacking off and increasing the reference dose due to lobbying from DOD. It was very interesting to listen to. That took about 2 hours of my day.
But really why has EPA taken more than 10 years to take a stand on this contaminant? I understand if you set a standard too low, too soon it can cost a lot of money to clean up the contaminant which may not be necessary, but shouldn't we err on the side of being too cautious for the safety of public health, especially when standards are set to protect infants and pregnant women or sensitive populations?

Yesterday I finished making my presentation for the Dec. conference, which I'm sure will change more as I continue to practice the talk and as I write the corresponding manuscript. I'm also hoping for a few more analysis to include. But these analysis are being performed by others so I just need to cross my fingers.

I have been pretty productive this week but decided to ask the hubby to turn off the internet tomorrow so I will have no distractions. If this goes well maybe I should make all Friday's internet free. Really, if you send any important e-mails on a Friday they really can wait until Monday, right?

And maybe, just maybe, I'm going to sneak ahead on the word count . . . .

Progress

I figured I should give excuses for why my word meter hasn't moved since InaDWriMo began for me on Nov 5th, as other's have done.

As I mentioned in my revised goals I have to resubmit a manuscript that I thought would have been finished in "dissertation town."
So I spent this week making more plots, with new data. I am not very happy with these new plots as I feel the contradict our previous results. Argh. So in my meeting with my adviser yesterday we came to the conclusion that the scope of the paper should be changed. This is likely the third time the scope has changed and in reality I've written more than three papers in this one manuscript. So science goes . . . I guess

I spent the other portion of the week trying to find a copy of MatLab that would work with the code written by a co-author. Said co-author was a previous graduate student of my adviser and is now way out of contact. My adviser never ran the model so was no help there.

Today I was able to get the model to run, which is great, but I don't understand the output files. The first couple lines of the file doesn't make sense with the rest of the file and it doesn't seem to be the outcome of the previous iterations. I've sent an e-mail to another previous graduate student who wrote a help file to the model. She works now, at a consulting company, but is easy to get in touch with.

My plan is to put this manuscript on hold until I get in contact with help file previous graduate student. This likely won't be until the week-end.

The rest of the week will be spent making my presentation for the December conference and hopefully writing some of the manuscript which corresponds to the data in the presentation.

wish me luck.

Goals

It's not quite InaDWriMo yet and I see my goals for November have to be changed.
I'm still committed to writing 600 words per day but let's evaluate these goals again.

1. Finish manuscript "1" to send to coauthors by Nov.9th.
I forgot that I'm sending samples away for analysis because we decided not to submit the short communication with the really exciting data but go ahead and make a 'complete' paper, which will take longer to get published but likely make a greater impact. There were a few samples that still needed more data-which I wasn't planning on doing in my dissertation. So I'll need to wait for that data before I progress on that one.
Doing this will also make the next paper "3" a less complicated manuscript.
2. Write 600 words per day on manuscript "3"
Still planning on doing this. I collected more data here in dissertation town and can't wait to analyze it.
3. Create goal for manuscript "2" once received back from coauthor.
Yep still waiting for this.

NEW GOAL
I thought I was going to be able to resubmit a paper, let's call is paper "0" before I left dissertation town, but yet again, more data and new analysis of the model!

I feel very productive here in dissertation town and it's been nice to be part of a scientific community again. I go back on Friday, hopefully the next three days will be equally productive.


New blog

I created this blog so I could join InaDWriMo 2007.
I also thought this would be a good place to write down my thoughts, keep track of my dissertation progress, and stay in touch with friends and family.

As for my writing challenge, I've come up with three goals for the month of November. I'm not in the contest to win but like the idea of keeping myself accountable.
I have three manuscripts I'm working on, two that are in the final stages and one that is more like a verbose outline.

Goal 1. Finish manuscript 1 to sent to coauthors by Nov.9th.
Goal 2. Write 600 words per day on manuscript 3.
Goal 3. Create goal for manuscript 2 once received back from coauthor.

My writing month won't officially begin until Nov 5th since I need to go back to dissertation town this saturday for 1 baby shower, 2 talks I'm giving, 3 (?) days of lab work and as much interaction with my adviser as possible. We have a manuscript that was accepted with major revisions, of which, those major revisions should have been completed by now.

For those not aware I currently live in husband's job town. We moved here in July after he finished his dissertation from "dissertation town" and received a Post Doctoral position here. *Note he started a year before me so it makes sense I'm a year behind.
My adviser is being very accommodating by letting me finish my dissertation out of state.

I'll try to keep things here fairly anonymous. Although I'm not too worried about anyone finding my blog I've heard about bad stories about bosses, coworkers or students reading peoples blogs and becoming upset.

Ok-thanks for reading. My blog won't be updated too much until writing month begins.