This is my life right now:
I’ve spent the past couple of days in thesis-land, and for that I’m grateful. I had the sinking feeling that I would find myself inundated with story ideas and completely unable to focus on my day job, but after the spurt of fictional pursuits earlier in the week, I’ve transitioned back to my research.
When it comes to my weekly goals, then, I somehow managed to meet both my thesis and fiction-writing goals. Luckily, I spent the beginning of the week binging on fiction; I wrote about 3475 words for Path to the Peacock Throne, which is a hair under my 3500 word goal. For my thesis I’ve also written roughly 3500 words, so yay! I’ve managed to complete Week 1 of ROW80 and remain on target.
Right now, I’m crossing my fingers that I can have a section of my findings drafted and delivered to my advisor by Tuesday. In case I haven’t mentioned this, I’m a historical/cultural sociologist, and my MA thesis is a textual analysis of 1920s etiquette books. There are a number of things that I’m doing with this project, including a study of wedding etiquette and a larger discussion of the author’s role in interpreting the laws of so-called “polite society” for the reader. I’ve been working on the thesis for almost 3 years now, and I’m ready to be finished, so as much as I’d like to work on fiction, I really do need to tackle my day job first.
I’m also looking forward to going to Las Vegas for my first trip with my parents and younger sister in 3 years. This means that I might be a little absent over the next week, as I’m not sure what internet access is going to look like. If I can, I’ll post ROW80 checkins via mobile, but we’ll see.
At any rate, I hope that everyone has had a wonderful weekend! Good luck on progress for the rest of this week. If you can, hop on over to visit the other ROW80 participants and cheer them on!
July 10, 2011 at 11:08 pm
Well done for not letting the day job get completely in the way of your ROW 80 goals this week. It must be intense though working on a thesis at the same time as writing! Have a great week and a lovely break! You deserve it!
July 10, 2011 at 11:26 pm
When I told my mom that I was going to try and work on my fiction, she gave me the whole “But you have a thesis to write!” lecture, hahaha. It’s a little sticky trying to juggle it all (I basically have about 4 different ‘worlds’ floating around in my brain at any given time, one of them being the thesis, and I have to try to center myself to keep from completely flying off the handle), but when I can do it well, it’s pretty gratifying. 😀
I’m SO looking forward to this vacation, though I can’t believe it’s here already. We started planning for this months ago, and I am so very happy that it’s actually going to happen. I see my family roughly 4 times a year, so this is going to be a welcome treat.
July 11, 2011 at 8:50 am
I can not imagine working on a thesis and meeting my ROW80 goal. Kudos to you! 🙂
July 11, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Wow, good for you! What accomplishments! Good up the good work.
July 15, 2011 at 11:06 am
Thanks so much! Hope your week has gone well!