Tag Archives: Grad school

Thesis Emesis

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thesis-cover-imageWell, it’s official: I’ve submitted the first draft of my thesis for review, and the process was just as much of a pain in the ass as I’d heard it would be.

From a body of program work comprising more than thirty pieces, I needed to select a maximum of sixty pages. In preparation, I spent weeks revisiting all of them, trying to identify which pieces felt strongest, and ultimately narrowed it down to five.

I’d been contemplating doing a collection of linked stories, but initially, I worried that the five pieces I thought were my strongest didn’t have a readily apparent link. The more time I spent with them, however, the clearer their connection became. Once I understood that, the rest of the process suddenly seemed like a piece of cake:

cake_30

If my rough draft were a cake.

But you don’t sacrifice this much time, blood and sweat and tears and coffee addiction, working on something, only to stop at the finish line–even if you are ready to vomit.

Needless to say, after several days more of revising; six hours of formatting (Can we just all agree that the phrase “Should adhere to official university and program format and style” is code for “You are now entering the ninth circle of Hell”?); one wasted hour of tracking down ink for the new printer; one hour of printing; one hour of reprinting; one hour of obsessively line-checking each page; one hour of driving into D.C. to hand-deliver the draft; ten minutes of arguing with the parking garage attendant that yes, I LITERALLY* ONLY NEED TEN MINUTES BECAUSE I’M JUST DROPPING SOMETHING OFF SO PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LET ME PARK HERE AND I’LL GIVE YOU ALL THE CASH IN MY WALLET; five minutes of hyperventilating in front of the locked door to a clearly empty office; two minutes of grateful weeping on the shoulder of the office staffer who promised to get my thesis to my advisor; thirty seconds of sprinting back to the garage to make my ten-minute window; and one hour of driving home from D.C. (my sincerest apologies to all the motorists I passed on the way, who clearly did not appreciate the volume of my music), the job was done: I could finally relax…

Me, at every stoplight.

Me, at every stoplight.

…at least until the revision process with my faculty advisor begins.

*Acceptable usage in this case–and ONLY in this case.

Loafing with the Devil

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25cfab14a0876544_lazylionMotivation. Some days you have it, some days you don’t.

I would say that today is a don’t, except that, before beginning this post, I looked up the definition of motivation:

 n. the general desire or willingness of someone to do something.

Aha! That’s when I realized that my problem today is not a lack of motivation, desire, or willingness. On the contrary, I’m positively bursting at the seams with that. The problem, my friends, is with the “something” I have a general desire or willingness to do. Because today, instead of feeling motivated to put my butt-in-chair and write, I have an irresistible motivation to put ass-on-couch and watch reruns of Sons of Anarchy or The Voice until naptime rolls around. Surf, snooze, repeat as needed.  

I’ll say it again: Just because I’m not motivated to do anything productive today does not mean I’m unmotivated.

What’s that face for?

All right. You caught me. To be perfectly frank, I’m not exactly sure what that means, other than that I probably won’t be very productive, but it certainly does make me wonder what’s happened with my focus since my last post. (Obviously, I’m having no problem with my motivation to italicize today. Go figure.)

photo-75It could be lack of coffee, though I am, in fact, on cup #2. Hmm. Just looked at my cup, and noticed it has a really bad attitude problem. Could my cup be the culprit? Hold on; I’m going to go pour the dregs into my I Love Mondays cup and drink the rest of it ironically.

It could be that I’ve had another contractor in the house all week (This one’s ridiculously chatty and chipper; are you seriously whistling while you work? Who does that outside of Disney movies? How do you expect me to pretend you’re not here with all this friendliness?), one that, while still preventing me from doing laundry, has left my kitchen accessible, full of dirty dishes yet compellingly inviting.

Maybe it’s that, after weeks of sweating it, my grad school application was finally marked “Complete” this morning, and this is just the post-sweat cool-down. (Yes, folks, here we go again: 6 weeks of angsty waiting for the verdict of the review board. And yes, I will post about it. Again. Apologizing in advance.) Like how you need to rest after running a marathon? I wouldn’t know what that feels like, personally, but I’m guessing it’s similar enough to work metaphorically.

Writer’s block? Headache? Post-government shutdown hangover? Barometric pressure changes? Demonic—or angelic—possession? (My daughter did make me watch an episode of Supernatural with her yesterday when she was home sick…

SPN-Castiel-supernatural-8177301-500-313Castiel? Is that you? Are you sending out a message on angel radio that yes, yes, YES! I should just lie down on that couch and loaf all day, doing absolutely nothing productive, not just for my own good but for the good of all mankind? Hmph. You almost had me, but I’m guessing that’s more likely Satan, talking—you know, idle hands and all. But I digress. Plenty of motivation for that, apparently; hell, my whole day so far has been one big digression.)

Ugh. I got nuthin’. Not one single good reason for being motivated to do less than my best. Yeah, that’s right, you heard me: I have no excuse. (And this is what I looked like when I said that, too. We could be twins, I’m so NO-EXCUSEY. Whoa, all caps! Maybe there’s hope for today after all.)

Well, she sighed, I think we all know the best, perhaps the only cure for a lack of, or the wrong type of, motivation: Brute force—and more coffee. Hello, cup #3, help me get my butt back into my chair. Maybe I’ll catch a nap this afternoon? Shut up, Satan.

Rusty

photo-53That’s how I’m feeling today: rusty. I’m resuming so many activities now, things I’ve been doing for so many years (writing, back-to-school routines, friend-making) that they should seem familiar and easy, but they don’t. I feel like I’m bumbling and stumbling at every turn. But, as we all know, it’s just the first week of school, and once I get these rusty joints moving again, everything will move much more smoothly. (It doesn’t help that I just found out yesterday that I now need bifocals. If that doesn’t scream approaching middle-age, I’m not sure what does. And since I’ve been 27 for so long now, I’m not sure why this is happening to me. I mean, come on! I’ve been practically blind from nearsightedness and astigmatism since I was a kid; I guess I always just assumed that when I started to become farsighted, at some point, the two would have to meet in the middle and I’d wind up having 20/20 vision, but my optometrist tells me it doesn’t work that way. Nuts. Totally unfair.) Anyway, I may be rusty and blind and wearing cheaters over my glasses until my new lenses come in, but hey, I’m still moving, and that’s the point of today’s post, so let’s get on with it.

What have I been up to since my last post? Well, I joined a local writers’ group and have agreed to share some of my novel-in-progress for critique. That’s a little nerve-wracking, to say the least. I’ve never shown anyone a work that wasn’t at least finished, let alone shown a group of people I’ll be meeting for the first time when they critique it. Ah, well. Nothing like jumping right in feet first, is there? Can you say, “Cannonball!”?

I also discovered a local branch of the state writers’ conference and just signed up with them. I’m very excited to see they sponsor a huge writers’ conference in April, and have already marked my calendar. Creeeeeeaaaaak. What was that? Oh, I think that was one of those rusty joints I mentioned earlier; they’re groaning a lot from lack of use. Hmm…what else…I rediscovered my virtual book tour, which I began this spring and which is, apparently, still under way. (Thank God someone was paying attention, because I clearly wasn’t). It’s been fun this week, catching up on the reviews and interviews, though own my promotional activities around the tour are still pretty spotty, to say the least. In that light, here’s a link to one of my recent stops, an interview—Errrrrrrrkkkkkk. Oooo, there goes another joint.

I’ve also started researching grad schools–again. I know, I know. This again? Well, what can I say? It’s always bothered me that I’ve never finished my M.F.A., so I’m thinking maybe new state, new school, new chance for admission into a new program. I hate having unfinished business. I’ll keep you posted on that one–at least I don’t have to take the G.R.E. again–thank God for that.

I finally watched the video of my last appearance on “It’s A Woman’s World.” That brought back some great memories, and as soon as I can remember how I converted it from DVD to YouTube-uploadable format the last time, I’ll be sharing that with you, too, but if you missed some of the earlier ones, here’s a link. Snapcracklepop! Ouch, I think something just snapped in half! It’s amazing how fast you can lose momentum and turn into a rusted bag of bolts…let me see–what else? I’ve worked out some plot points on The Water Bearers (in case you don’t remember, that’s the working title of my second novel) and cleared up a couple of plot holes, which was probably a good thing to complete prior to sharing my work with my new writers’ group. If I can ever get past obsessively editing the first nine chapters, I’ll be in good shape to start writing the new ones.

So–I’m no longer whining (well, at least not as much, and most of that is my joints’ fault); in fact, I’m starting to feel pretty limber again, getting back into my writing groove. Boy, does it feel good. Glad you’re along for the ride!

 

 

Never, never, never–aww, you know the rest.

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It’s “give up.” The end of that quote from Winston Churchill. It’s “Never, never, never, never give up.” Easy for him to say, he was Winston Churchill.

As you might have surmised (and I predicted), the enduring silence from the university did, in fact, mean that I was not accepted again. Sigh. The timing of when I learned my fate (at least as far as grad school this year) was actually perfect, however: first, my favorite writers’ magazine was doing a whole issue this week on dealing with rejection; and second, my in-laws were coming for the weekend, leaving me an entire house to clean furiously and upon which I unloaded all of my terrible angst.

Once again, there was the standard “blah, blah, blah, lots of applicants, blah, blah, blah, stiff competition, blah, blah, blah, even those put on the waiting list had multiple offers from universities across the country, blah, blah, blah…” Good thing I’m not the bitter type.

So what’s next? Well, since Winston Churchill is, in fact, my hero (he is the king of the lovable curmudgeons, an archetype near and dear to my heart, as well as being the poster child for perseverance), don’t think this will make me give up. It did make me cry, but it won’t make me give up.

I am reaching out to a well-respected book doctor this week, to start working with someone objective to finally finish this manuscript once and for all (I hope); I’m attending a Writers’ Festival this weekend, where I will participate in several workshops about which I’m very excited; I’m receiving more nibbles and interest for various other writing and editing jobs, which is encouraging, although none has yet borne fruit; and I am contemplating launching (formally, anyway) my own editing and proofreading business.

So–I’ve picked myself up (again), dusted myself off (again), and I am ready to begin (again). As my hero said, “Success is not final; failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Just call me Captain Courageous. Thanks for listening.

A Watched Pot…

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…never boils. I used that expression on a 4th grader at my son’s school the other day, while he was waiting for his disagreeably slow computer to boot up in the lab. I had to explain the expression to  him, its (accurate) assertion that the more attention you focus on something for which you are waiting, the longer it seems to take to arrive. He listened politely to my explanation, then went right back to staring intently at the screen, body tensed and quivering with the stress of his watching, hand poised to lightning-click the minute the monitor showed any signs of life.

I am, apparently, no more patient than a 4th grader.

If you read my last post, you know that I have been waiting for news of my application to grad school. No news is yet forthcoming, so I have begun spending part of each day (I decline to disclose  just how large a part) obsessively checking each of my e-mail accounts, meticulously combing through even the junk mail, in search of a reply.  

I’ve even taken to checking the program web site, in hopes that at least there might be a mass message posted there: “We’ve already sent out the acceptance letters, so if you haven’t heard back from us yet, give up now–you won’t.”

There was a mass update posted there on at least one of the times I checked, advising applicants that now (since the “late February” deadline had come and gone) they could expect word of their status sometime “in early March.”

That made me feel so much better, because now I can stop asking the question “When will I get my rejection letter?” and obsess instead about questions such as “What does early March mean? Does it mean the 8th? When do they start calling it mid-March–the 15th? That would be halfway through the month, approximately, wouldn’t it?”

Sigh. And I had promised myself that this year, I’d behave myself better about this waiting thing.

But apparently, I’m no better than a 4th grader.