This, however, is just another excuse. And I'm really tired of making excuses for myself. Truthfully, I have been making a very diligent effort to at least *look* at my work daily. I tweak a few lines here and there, move some paragraphs around, huff, puff, scratch my head in frustration, and then generally go back to checking CNN for the umpteen millionth time for the day. Obviously, it's better than nothing, but not by much. The summer is almost over and I've made considerably less progress than I wanted, and than I needed to make. So, because good intentions are nice, but actually following through on them is better, I'm trying a radical experiment inspired by this recent Lifehacker post (yes, another blog I check about 20x daily).

No, I’m not putting myself on a webcam 24/7. I’m neither insane nor enough of an exhibitionist to do that. But I am repurposing the Rat Blog for daily progress reports on how much work I’ve done. Now, the idea is not for this to some narcissistic, twitter-like, “omg! you guys should totally hear how many times I went to the bathroom today because I’m so special even my poo is worth writing about” kind of public diary. It is, however, supposed to help me keep track of how I waste my time and to subsequently shame myself into being productive. Now, whether it’s possible to do that without there being an element of narcissism and poo stories will only be determined with time. ;-)