Running to Stay in Place

Here I am in the library, on a Thursday night at 11:18 p.m. I just e-mailed my advisor 14 pages of an introduction ahead of our meeting tomorrow. Let's not talk about why it took me three months to write 14 pages (the last time I gave her something to read—a draft of chapter 4—was back in June). And let's not talk about why, even after this burst of work, my overall diss word count still stands stubbornly at 42,391, defying my plans to acheive 60K by Christmas.

And let's really not talk about what crap the writing is—how it reads exactly like it's something churned out by rote to fill pages. Which is what it is.

Taking a Month Off from My Dissertation Is So Refreshing

April went by in a whirlwind of road trips, house guests, and that conference I had been helping organize. I think I saw and spoke to more people last month than in all the previous year, which had been dominated by lonely hours in the library study carrel. A good refresher for my social skills and general refresher in being human. Now I've come back to revive the wilting plants in the study carrel as well as my neglected dissertation.

Actually, looking at it with fresh eyes, I have new hope I can finish. I'd say I'm about halfway done, and it's been a year since I defended my prospectus. My secret hope is that I'll make the first deposit deadline of November 5th.

The Elevator Pitch

They say you should have a one-minute, three-minute, and ten-minute answers for the question, "What is your dissertation about?"

I've decided it should be one, three, and ten WORD, that dissertation ideas are best when they are communicable in as few words as possible. It shows you have a doable project with a hook. "Whitman and saloons" or "the dramatic monologue" are good ones I've heard lately. When you ask what mine is about, you get a lot of rambling about genre experimentation and women's experience. Bleah.

So I'm thinking this. One word: "affect." Three words: "affect and genre." Ten words: "Victorians using genre hybrids to reflect gendered notions of affect."

Oh, ugh. I think that last sentence just sucked all the air out of the room. I am not a sexy-concept person.