Have to Admit It's Getting Better...

I have been shocked to discover that writing this conference paper is--so far--not nearly as much of a painful slog as I was afraid it would be. I have finished the introduction, background, literature review, and experimental setup sections; it is due in a week. Writing the previous conference paper (my first time as first author) was an immense pain filled with many episodes of writer's block. I guess it helps that I have written the 87 goddamn page version of this material. Also, I'm using the mental trick of it doesn't matter all that much--it will be just yet another paper presented at a conference, with part of the audience falling asleep, and with everybody getting antsy for the coffee break.

I don't want to jinx myself though--I still have to write up the field monitoring results and the simulation work, and then conclusions. But still, it's a nice feeling that I'm not going to spend an entire week in a panic.