So I almost interrupted my Seinfeld Chain yesterday. You don’t want to hear my excuses because they are all very predictable and amount to one thing: simple laziness.
Then I went to Jonathan’s blog in search for motivation and read the following statement:
Just remember that there are people like me out there, people who not only have the intellectual capability to publish scholarship of high quality, but who also can work over a hundred days straight on a major project.
And that really lit a fire under my ass. “Oh, really?” I exclaimed loudly, scaring people who were hanging out in the vicinity of my office. “And you are suggesting that I’m not such a person? That I can’t do it? I’ll show you!”
After which, I attacked my document with a passionate dedication.
It’s a rare skill to know how to motivate people as well as Jonathan does.
P.S. I know that people are bored by the posts on my struggle with research but scholarship is a huge part of my life and I want to write about it. Since I have abandoned personal diary writing in favor of the blog, I need a place to record my journey as a researcher. Feel free to scroll down for more general interest posts.
Clarissa's Blog 
Not bored! I enjoy this sort of post. You & Jonathan sometimes make me very cross . . . but then I figure out something I can do at the end of the day when I have been busy every minute till 6:00 p.m. & I’m brain-fried but there are actually some research-oriented useful things I can do even when I feel my brain has turned off for the night. So I grumble at you but like your response to Jonathan, it’s useful.
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Exactly! Last night, for example, I selected quotes from my secondary sources and typed them into the text of the article in places where I wanted to use them. So today, when I woke up, I knew exactly what I had to work on and started integrating those quotes into the text.
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I don’t know why it’s called a Seinfeld chain but I’ve been doing good lately. 🙂 1000 per day no matter what for the last week, and it’s already been a more productive month for creative stuff than I’ve had in a year.
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That’s so great! And here I was, thinking that people considered my Seinfeld Chain stupid! And it’s good to know that this method works for creative writing, too.
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I want to hear more about your struggles with research and scholarship, not less!
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Oh, really? Thank you! This is the encouragement I needed.
Why are people being so nice to me today? I’m now getting paranoid. 🙂
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