Dissertating...or planning to dissertate

So I've read two books full of advice for surviving a dissertation (Mauch, James E. 1998. Guide to the Successful Thesis and Dissertation a Handbook for Students and Faculty. 4th ed. Vol. 58. Books in Library and Information Science. New York: M. Dekker and Ogden, Evelyn Ogden. 2007. Complete Your Dissertation or Thesis in Two Semesters or Less. 3rd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.). They're quite different and offer different kinds of advice for navigating the process and the institution. I was disappointed to discover that I can't actually complete my dissertation in two semesters because of the deadlines the TWU has in place (e.g. they must have two final copies of your dissertation in their office a month before commencement as opposed to Ogden's book that says that the typical timing for a defense is at least two weeks before commencement)...sigh. But it did force me to create a realistic time line that uses Ogden's time line as a skeleton modified with TWU's deadlines. And that might allow me to finish by August 2009...if I stop blogging and start working that is :-)