Tag Archives: Graduate School

Dissertation Days (6): The Lies We Tell Ourselves

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So, I have to fess up to something. I didn’t, in fact, end up writing anything at all of Chapter 4 last night, and I don’t think I will today either. I was being a little overly optimistic in my estimation of how much I would end up getting done.

However, I did make some solid progress on Chapter 3. Met the word count for today, and I’m pretty happy with the way that the writing turned out. I made some important points about understanding Delilah as an inheritor of the tradition of the vamp, thus working around the critical impasse that sees her as little more than a femme fatale, a projection of male desires and fantasies. I tend to see as more of a vamp, a potential site of resistance to heteronormative closure, the color schemes associated with her registering an embrace of the emotions, the self, and desire rather than the burdens of history. If you’ve seen the almost lurid Technicolor design of the film, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

I have noticed a pesky habit, though. Since I’m so scattered in my composition process, often bouncing from one paragraph to another without finishing a full thought sometimes, I end up repeating something that I forgot that I already wrote. This can be quite the pain in the ass, particularly since it’s very wrenching to delete words of any sort.

Still,, sometimes you just have to accept your writing process, even if it isn’t always the most productive way of getting things done.

Well, tomorrow I’m going to aim for another 1,000. I think I can do this, and I also want to begin sculpting the raw material that I have into what will be the final form. Some of the paragraphs are mostly done, but there are also several that need some finessing in order to reach their final form. Getting those tidied up will definitely be the major writing agenda item from here on in. Going to scale back on new material and focus on strong and focused revision.

I really want to get this submitted by the middle of May (end of May at the latest). I just…need to get this version approved as soon as possible so I can resume my intensive work on Chapter 4.

Speaking of. I am definitely going to work on Chapter 4. Need to keep actual forward momentum going.

Let’s go!

Dissertation Days (2): All Over the Place

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I’m a little all over the map today. Got some strong work done this afternoon, and I think the early bits of contextualization are coming together somewhat coherently. I wrote some new material in those early sections, primarily about the postwar desire for children as a bulwark against the terrors of the atomic age and some stuff about the ambiguity of the postwar figuring of the atomic bomb as explicitly female (it’s weird, believe me). So, that felt good.

This evening…well, I’ve cannibalized a lot from an earlier draft, which isn’t a bad thing, but it rather makes me feel like I’m cheating when I tell people I’ve written 2,000 words today. But still, it’s not entirely cheating if you also do some revision on those bits that you’re copying and pasting from that earlier draft, right?

I feel like the three close readings that I offer are coming together. It would probably help if I wasn’t so scattershot in my composition process, bouncing from one section to another with basically no rhyme or reason, but that’s basically my writing process, as weird as that sounds. It sometimes does a number on my productivity, but I think at this point I’ve actually managed to harness it into a force for productivity.

I’m going to take the weekend off, as is my usual practice. I’ll probably still be thinking over the project the whole time, mulling over ideas, trying to think if there is a better, more concise, more accurate way of representing the chaos of jumbled ideas in my head on the actual page. That’s always the hardest part for me. I know that I’m onto something important and that I have a contribution to make; it’s just getting it into written words that’s always the hard part.

I suppose I should also keep a record of my word count. It’s currently sitting at a little over 9,000 words. The upper limit of this chapter is 18,000, so I’m basically halfway there. At this rate, I should be ready to submit a revised draft to my adviser by the second week of May. That will mark roughly a month and a half of revision time which, for me, isn’t so bad.

Well, I’m almost at my 400-word limit. TLDR version: I wrote some stuff today, some of it coherent. Monday, I’m going to make sure 5 pages are ready. 

I can do this.