Tips: Mid-Minute Paper Writing

I have been whinging lately to just about everyone I know about this one paper that I have had to write.

I have to write another one, and a research proposal, but those aren't as much an issue as this one was.

See, the problem with this paper is that

a) I didn't know where to start;
b) I wasn't at all inspired;
c) The last real paper I wrote was my Dorian Gray paper, which I tremendously enjoyed doing, partially because I wrote it while stretched out on the lawn in my dad's garden;
d) I was pressuring myself into making it perfect because I want not just my MSc, I want it with Distinction.

But I started last week (finally) as inspiration struck (while I was watching Mary Poppins, which was annoying). I'm close to finishing it now... no, scratch that, I have finished it, all I'm doing now is polishing.

I still didn't know where to start when I begun, so I checked my reading list for the course, but of course all the good books had already been checked out of the library. Nevertheless, by making use of e-books and massloads of journal articles (which created its own challenge, in that I like to print stuff but then end up with a pile of articles to look at and a genuine fear of attacking said pile), I managed it. I still have two weeks before I have to hand it in; it's not like I started last-minute.

More likely, I started mid-minute. Still too late.

So here's my list of steps for mid-minute paper writing:

1. Genuinely start early, or as early as you can make yourself start.
2. Begin by reading overview books. You know, 'The Oxford Handbook of X' or 'The Routledge Handbook of Y', as well as course books, 'Essential Theories of Z'.
3. Note down every single piece of research in these chapters that seems even marginally useful.
4. Find out that all the good books have already been taken from the library, no matter how early you start.
5. Collect all the journal articles. Stick them in a computer file or print them out, either way, collect as many as possible.
6. Examine the essay question.
7. Write the essay outline.
8. Find out half the articles are irrelevant. Work them into your essay anyway.
9. Start writing.
10. Find out that the really good book, the absolutely necessary book, is on a shelf in the library. Attempt to loan it; find out it has been reserved by another person and all the access you would've had to the book is now taken from you as it is put with the other reserved books. Really, you should've stayed in the library with it until you were done with it.
11. Fit the semi-relevant books into your essay.
12. Print your essay.
13. Identify each segment.
14. Put the segments in a reasonably decent order.
15. Rewrite your essay.
16. Spend your leftover time polishing the essay.
17. 30 seconds before the deadline, find out that your essay only marginally sticks to the original brief. Hand it in anyway.

Next time, I'm going to start early I'm going to do the same.