So far it feels fairly reasonable to work through about one shelf (of a five-shelf bookcase) per day -- reviewing the pages I previously marked over the past year of reading, photocopying the salient passages, tagging the photocopies, and sorting them into a file folder for each respective chapter (or section of a chapter). The process is quite similar to the many long, research papers I have written in the past, except I'm working on a much larger canvas.

I am hopeful that I may even finish this major part of the sorting process by the end of next week, although that does not include sorting each of the individual folders into even more specific divisions within each chapter or section.

The sorting has begun.

I'm following a plan adapted from the book Destination Dissertation. So, I'm developing an outline, then I'll photocopy quotes I want to use and tag them based on my outline.

For now, I'm plowing through a bunch of notes I made for myself low these past few months. Now I have to organize them. I hope to emerge a week or two from now with a better map for moving forward.

I am essentially done reading, although I will, in reality, continue reading for my dissertation throughout the next year -- principally new books that will be released over the next year or so.

I'm, thus, in the process of shifting my focus from reading to outlining -- that is, directing my first and best energy toward outlining. I'm preaching this Sunday, but hopefully next week I'll be able to start outlining in earnest.

I finished Charles Taylor's breaktaking A Secular Age on Thursday, October 1, one day after my somewhat-arbitary, self-imposed deadline to finish reading by the end of September -- which is not too shabby since my original goal was to finish reading by the end of 2009.

Now I only have three books left, in addition to a few articles that I'm waiting to arrive from Interlibrary Loan. So, I hope to have most, if not all, of my outline done in October, so that I can start writing in November.