- Off to the Gold Coast again today, in order to learn how to be a PhD student. One might think that after so many years I’d have worked out how by now, but one would be mistaken (said without snark – there’s been a gear-shift in the process recently, and I’m the kind of driver who grinds gears until someone points out the various ways that’s a bad idea).
- Finally made it to the post-office during work hours yesterday, which meant I could pick up some of the packages of awesomeness waiting for me (a copy of Couch, courtesy of Ben Francisco, and copies of both Cory Doctrow’s Overclocked and a collection of Hugo award winners courtesy of Jason Fischer – thanks to both of you, for they were awesome things to discover).
- Reason my thesis leaves me a funk #29: I haven’t actually finished and submitted a *new* story (as opposed to resubmitting something that’s already been out) since November of last year.
- Fortunately I have a half-dozen stories that have gone through multiple drafts and critiques just waiting for me to have the time to work on them. I feel the need to do something about that, rather powerfully. This evening I will come up with a plan, pending possible distractions following the PhD workshops (to whit, I need to mark some assignments at some point).
- If I promise wit and lucid commentary on the world tomorrow, would you think me a liar? Yes? Well, that’s very wise of you…
Thesis
The Thesis March, an update
Yesterday was the last full day I’d get to spend on the thesis for over a week, and by the time I collapsed into my bed in the wee hours of morning I remember feeling upset by how little I’d achieved. Today I feel pretty good about it; frustrated, to be sure, but object enough to recognise that yesterday’s wordcount was actually pretty good by my standards.
The reason I stalled out around three AM is because I realised that while I could identify the function genre plays in the process of editing work, I wasn’t yet doing anything with the realisation except pointing out that it’s there – it’s an example in need of practical application and I’m not yet sure how to do so without actively editing a piece within the exegesis itself (and, I’ll be honest, I’ve already played that trick in the preface when addressing the genre of the exegesis). While I’m not quite at a loss on how to approach this, the idea I do have for addressing it largely involves discussing the active problems I’m having critting someone else’s work at present due to genre concerns; I could ask permission and stretch some friendships in order to do this, but it’s sufficiently awkward that I keep setting it aside and looking for something else.
In any case, the current state of the exegesis is: 12,000 words drafted; one and a half chapters close to being done; eighteen thousand words to go. I’ve got a window of about four hours in which to work on things this afternoon, which represents the longest stretch of continual time I have to work on it until Sunday morning. Tonight I have dinner with Chris Lynch and the inestimable Ben Francisco (in town from New York to wow us with his fabulousness), tomorrow I play tour guide for Ben while Chris is work, and Friday is errand day and work meetings and dinner with my Dad for his birthday. Admittedly the Saturday plans are kinda mutable – I can cancel, and may yet do so when the guilt at shirking off the thesis bears down on me – but I’m safely going to say that this will not be done by the end of February and that’s going to be cutting things very very fine with the overall completion deadline. And even if cancelling on Ben and my Dad were things I need to do, I’m pretty sure I should be taking a break soon anyway: I’ve developing a pronounced hunch after spending too many continious hours bent over the keyboard without adequate back support (curse you, broken office chair) and my body is starting to protest the lack of sleep.
Still, for all that, I feel pretty good at the moment. Yes, the February deadline is as unmet as the January one was, but both are progress deadlines (as opposed to the May Deadline of Death). The project has limped into the zone where I’m actually excited by it, rather than daunted by, and that makes the deadline of death seem achievable rather than nightmarish.
Thesis Update
Just dropping in with the following reports:
- The official wordcount (aka words actually in draft documents, rather than random notes) just topped 10k.
- I have, for the first time since I started the damn thing, actually finished a chapter.
- I have, for the first time since I started the damn thing, actually got a plan for proceeding that seems workable.
This, of course, just means I have to get 20,000 words written between now and Wednesday evening. That’s a far worse thing than it sounds, incidently; I could probably get 5000 words a day done in a pinch, but I’ll be utterly useless for anything else afterwards and that’s not a luxury I’m going to get anytime soon.
I suspect there will be some measure of begging for mercy in my near future.