A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-Four-Hundred-And-Three

Work on my essay is going well, I think.  In the past few days I have found it easy to present some of the more complex ideas in ways that feel clear and lucid, and I think that I have also benefitted from reading a great deal more on the general subject matter.  I have been researching quite a bit, but I made a few recent breakthroughs, finding direct textual evidence of things that is hard to deny.  Even more, that breakthrough led me to seeing new connections and recognizing parallels I had dismissed before.  I wrote a paragraph tonight that surprised me as I composed it, bringing together a number of complicated and disparate ideas in a way that felt very concise and simple.  I still have a number of issues I am finding thorny in the work, but I think that, as I am able to make these larger points, those become less daunting and easier to consider.  If I know I am already on a firm basis in other areas, I have a firm base from which to operate in discussing other aspects of the subject matter.  I still need to get those pieces written, of course.  I still need to think through the specifics of certain arguments and ideas, and see if I can find any direct support for some specific points I want to make, but I am happy with the progress I have been making.

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