Thesis writing and den building

I have some friends who are in that painful writing-up stage of their PhDs. I was sending them sympathy on Facebook when I was reminded of the philosophy I developed as I was writing my thesis a few years back ...

Writing a thesis is like building a den from sticks - did you ever do that when you were a kid? You just need to start building, believing it’s going to work. From time to time you need to give it a bit of a shake to see if it’ll stand up, but don’t shake it too hard or too often or it’s sure to fall down. Sometimes it’ll give a bit, but you just need to keep adding in more sticks, weaving them in a bit more and it’ll grow more sound.

Well, it worked for me anyway!!