It’s the first of August. There are just over six months till maximum submission of my DVA and I’m taking account of what I’ve done and what’s left to do.

I have just over 300 graphic pages sitting in Manga Studio at varying stages of completion. Some of them could be published as they are, but the vast majority of them are close to illegible. Rough lines, rudely improvised faces, wonky compositions. The dialogue reads in parts as if written by a child. There are a few scenes that work, however most of the scenes that really gel are in the latter half of the script which I won’t have time to finish within the doctorate. I need to start finishing the pages traditionally and compiling it all for print, yet I can’t stop fussing around with the digital draft pages. My exegesis is a mess. Chapters are scattered, there is no single thread of idea that runs through it all. I don’t know how to pull it together. I can’t read all the things I need to read, I don’t know how to prioritise my time to get through it all.

The only thing that stops the panic is to keep working. Stay in the moment. Productivity is the only way to stay ahead of these thoughts.