Jonathan Lovell has been leading writing workshops for many years.

In this delightful post, he describes his struggle to finish his own dissertation, and the flights of fancy that kept blocking his path.

He uses graphics creatively to reflect his state of mind. You watch his thinking evolve.

Watch a writer at work and lament with him that the Obama administration eliminated the minimal funding needed to keep more than 200 sites of the National Writing Project alive, summer institutes where teachers experience the love of learning without the threat of test scores and VAM. No utilitarian purpose, just freedom to think and create.