Another week, and still not much progress. My thesis is trying to write itself in the best way it can, but there's no brain behind it. Or rather, no heart. The paragraphs I've strung together have technical finesse, but the words feel hollow and directionless, like a blurry facsimile of the real story I want somehow to tell. And the writer in me knows it. After letting the thesis grow so many lines of text, like mutant tentacles searching for a place to catch hold, my own brain balks. This just isn't going anywhere, it says.
I've hit the point in the narrative where the story is too big for me to see its arc again. Unfortunately, this isn't a block that can be solved by reading the words of other writers for reinvigoration. In a way, it's like I've been trying to work my way out of the center of a bull's eye. The tiny circle in the middle was the first chapter; the next ring out, the four that followed. Finding a vantage point from which to see that second group of chapters took months -- from last February to last August -- and I don't have the luxury of time anymore.
I have some twenty pages to fill and two years' worth of research. Even if the story isn't falling into place, my process of seeking answers is certainly well documented. So my plan, which I've now e-mailed my advisor, is to use all of that to write an afterword. It'll give voice to a lot of questions that haven't yet been asked within the narrative and reveal the as-yet-unaddressed pieces of the story, rough as their introduction there might feel to me.
It's not the way I want to finish this. But finished is what this needs to be.
Addendum 3/6: My laptop fried a portion of its hard drive today. First the adapter cord, now the disk itself? I'm not liking this trend.
Is Sourdough Bread Gluten Free?
4 months ago
7 comments:
Fried discs and technical assholery? Bring out the voodoo doll! Sending you writing vibes!
Thank you, Kitch!!! (Incidentally, my advisor nixed my plan, so now we're on to Option B. More on THAT later.)
Laptop meltdown? OMG. That's like an involuntary verbal partial lobotomy. Or 3 martinis when you're 5' tall.
Time for a long vay-kay. Or a bite-me moment. Or 2 months sleep, and when you wake, the files are magically restored and it was all a bad dream...
OMG OMG OMG. Yes, BLW, it was definitely a bite-me moment.
Fortunately, the files were backed up -- but the machine itself needed to be reconfigured. Perhaps the universe is telling me to take a break. (I did.) And now I'm back at it, hoping such a crash doesn't happen again!
P.S. Three martinis? I think you could still drink me under the table -- more than one would do it for me ;)
Nope. I can't drink a flea under the table. 3 martinis = comatose. (And I guess that was my point.)
My kids LAUGH at me. I mix a martini about an hour before I watch and episode of Mad Men. If I have finished the entire martini an hour AFTER (count 'em... that makes 3 hours), then I'm in about the same state as I was when those sneaky sisters at Momalom had us all half-hammered and participating in a writing challenge for a week!
But I do love the cool glasses that martinis come in. And vodka soaked olives? Ooooo baby!
I hope the tech issues are resolved and that you've stumbled onto something that will move the writing forward. So the advisor wasn't cool with the afterword idea? Hang in there! Do you need some port and dark chocolate? Or some good sorbet?
Port and chocolate, sign me up, GEW! Actually, we baked a carrot cake with some low-carb ingredients last week -- that has been a treat to keep me going (the carrot cake at the end of the stick?).
Yes, my advisor said no to the 20 pp. afterword. But she suggested some other tactics for getting to the finish line, and one is paying off. (Whew.)
I'm laughing because my word verification is "untan." Ya think, after all this time holed up with my thesis? ;)
Post a Comment