This will be my first article that will tell my story as a researcher. I am starting this one and will write every day for 30 minutes to hone my skill in writing and at the same time share my struggles and wins every day. For this time I will be writing every day for the next 30 days.
I have been intently writing about our research paper about siltation in the mining site. This is a long-due paper I cannot even remember why I lost the enthusiasm and the burning motivation to get this on the finish line. Anyways, when we finished our sampling way back in 2019, prior to the pandemic.
Just mid this year, when I started pushing it to completion, there are so many factors that play along the way that keep me at a slow pace. maybe that is the lack of skill in research article writing. I want to point fingers at my colleagues, but I guess if I really wanted this paper on the finish line. It is me who should carry the load to where it must be published and be able to contribute to the scientific community.
Other than the contribution to the scientific community a much short-term benefit will be that I can use this for my promotion points. Aside from the promotion point, it will also document how my skill in research and becoming a scientist will play along.
I should say that having a space where I can be alone and no one not even the kids to disturb me is definitely a must. It enables me to be in a flow. If I stay at home, even if no one disturbs me, my brain keeps on telling me, to do stuff that should not be done on the time allocated for writing like washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, feeding the chicken, and a whole lot of other chores.
Being in a secluded place, keep my brain in a rest mode because it knows that I am away from all those chores.
As for the writing, I noticed that when I am just about to give up on a certain revision and move on to the next because of lack of references when I just pushed to two or three more papers the answers just present themselves. I am just so amazed yesterday when I found more than 2 papers that are very similar to what we did and supported our data in similar values.
I could just be very grateful that I pushed even more to make this paper, acceptable to a journal. I know that the journey is not yet done, and I need to keep pushing every single day. But anyway, that's just how life seems to be. I mean if growth is what I seek, I need to stretch every day to unlock my potential.
Another thing is, I have some accountability group for my research writing stuff, and now I felt a little ashamed because I am not yet getting things done, done as I submitted it to the research journal. I think being able to write and report my progress through writing in a blog, will help me be more aware of how I spent my time and did I really push that hard to become better at my craft.
Yesterday I learn about the Z library, I haven't really explored it yet. A friend told me that it is more like sci-hub but Z library is legal. I have to check on this though. The articles I am getting in Z library was the full paper and are really helpful in making me understand some facts that will be useful in writing my research paper.
Initially, I thought that there are no references related to what we are doing but when we finally started writing and getting into the nitty gritty of things, references just pup up right before my eyes. So my advice to myself is just to keep moving towards your goal. Action cures all as Tom Bilyeu always says.
As I take action, other people like my professor has I think feel that I am doing the things that need to be done and so they also keep up with the reading of the paper that I gave to them and so comments come earlier which are better to I can look into where I should be doing the revisions. and hoping that I make the paper e little better every time I hand on the revised one.
I don't know why 30 minutes seems so long, I already run out of words to say. But I have to keep writing for the full 30 minutes.
