Time-out, feat. "Ze little coach in my head"

[Whistle blows]

Coach:  OK, time to regroup. What exactly do you think it is you're doing?
Me:       ...Sorry. The writing keeps getting away from me. There's so little left until I'm finished but... ugh, my brain is made of chewing gum.
Coach:  Well, you're keeping all of yourself stuck here at the office for no good reason if you don't finish that paper and send it to your co-authors.
Me:       True.
Coach:  All right, can we at least agree that you need to finish before you go home?
Me:       Sure.
Coach:  Say that you want it.
Me:       OK, I want it.
Coach:  No, no, that won't do, you're just trying to placate me. DO you want it?
Me:       I... I don't know, I'm not feeling it.
Coach:  And we both know that with two weeks left...
Me:       Uugh. Shut uuuup.
Coach:  Hey. Listen. Listen. Now concentrate. Picture the finished thing. Picture that...
Me:       [zoning out, hearing tune] What's in your heee-ead, in your he-e-e-ead...
Coach:  HEY. STOP. COME BACK TO ME.
Me:       Um?
Coach:  Look at your fingertip. The index one on the right.
Me:       [looking at fingertip]
Coach:  Now close your eyes for a minute. HARD. Now imagine the feeling when you press 'send'. DO IT.

Me:       [closing eyes and feeling tingling in fingertip]

Coach:  Now tell me what it was like.
Me:       I... it was relaxed. A staccato movement, my whole hand lifted when I pressed the button. ...  My shoulders relaxed.  I felt light.
Coach:  Very good. Now can you tell me the things you KNOW you wrote in those last few sections?
Me:      I... Ok, first I wrote summaries of what's in the diagrams... General patterns, similarities and differences between my interview groups. And then I compared the findings to some literature that's already in my other article. I added TWO more references... And then I hand-wrote the Implications list by hand before typing. It was full of arrows.

Coach:  THERE you go. So now you've done it once already.
Me:      Hm. Yeah. Sort of.
Coach:  WELL WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR! Get out there and do it again, this time with feeling!

[Whistle blows and the game resumes]