thesis – Page 3 – Lena Corazon

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ROW80: Trying to Shake the Panic

I’m trying to reconcile myself to the fact that August is rapidly coming to a close. The thought fills me with a bit of melancholy. My younger sister will be headed back to LA for her sophomore year of college at the end of the week, and I’ll be leaving for Santa Barbara in about a month. In the meantime, I have a lot of work to do on the thesis, and I’m feeling that familiar wave of panic over getting this first draft completed.

I’m also starting to stress out about the workload that I’ll have to tackle in the upcoming quarter: finishing and defending the thesis, taking two seminars, and teaching two discussion sections is a lot more than I’ve had to deal with in a while. I haven’t taught a discussion section in over a year, and while I love being in front of a classroom, I’m definitely a little rusty. Add this to the fact that I’m actually just tired of taking classes (only 4 left till I’m free of them!), and it makes for a fair amount of trepidation.

Anyway, onto some positive things. The highlights for the week included:

Catching up on my CampNaNo word count. tell me no lies is now 32.5k long, and I am slowly imposing structure upon the mad tangle of scenes that I’ve written. Only 17,438 words to go!
Diagnosing the plot problem that has plagued Path to the Peacock Throne for the better part of two months. The solution, however, means that the story is going to be a two-parter, but for the saga and adventure that I have in mind, I’ll need two books to tell Liandre’s tale. It’s a lofty goal, but one that I can’t wait to tackle. This might just be one of my Round 4 goals. 😀
Overhauling the “Novels In-Progress” page on the blog and adding new synopses for the three stories that I’m juggling. This has been a goal for a while now.
Following the #ASA2011 twitter feed for the annual American Sociological Association meeting, currently happening in Las Vegas. The venue of course means that there are many pithy observations about consumption and commodities, along with highlights from the sessions. Someone has also gone and made twitter accounts for social theorists Emile Durkheim (@emiledurkheim) and Talcott Parsons (@talcottparsons), which are hilarious, and filled with lots of nerdy soc jokes. For example:

Finally, I read a book! This has been on my to-do list for a few weeks now. I devoured Elizabeth Redfern’s Music of the Spheres, which is a murder mystery that takes place in 18th century London. It actually reminds me a fair bit of what I’m trying to do with tell me no lies, so it was both entertaining and useful.

Today is a hard-core work day, so I’m off to make some headway on the thesis, and hopefully add another 1600 words or so to my WIP. Have a wonderful week, all!

Introducing Thesis Thursdays

August 11, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 9 Comments

PhD Comics: "Relationship Status"

So in the midst of juggling all my blogging-writing-thesisizing crazy, I totally let this post slip by the wayside and accidentally posted a barely-finished draft this morning (note to self: do not schedule posts unless they are 100% complete). This, my friends, is the downside of multi-tasking.

At any rate, here I am. My name is Lena, and I happen to be an academic — a sociologist, to be exact. I have been in trying to write a MA thesis for almost four years, and I am finally seeing the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. By the end of September I should have a complete draft in hand, and by December I should have that draft all shiny, pretty, and ready to be defended.

One of the difficulties of scholarly research is the highly limited audience. Because of the nature of the work (jargon-y terms, specialized knowledge, etc.), as well as the publications where it’s eventually found (academic journals that can only be accessed through university libraries or personal subscription), it’s easy to feel as though one is writing for only a handful of people. In my case, my guaranteed readers are the three members of my committee, a couple of friends, and maybe my parents.

Okay, so *sometimes* academic jargon can be deciphered. Source: PhD Comics, "Deciphering Academese"

But I like to share the things that I’ve learned, and after almost four years, my brain is bursting at the seams with fascinating facts, historical tidbits, and other odds and ends that I’ve acquired. So every Thursday until I defend my thesis, I’ll be offering these wee shining jewels of knowledge for public consumption.

The Project.

By this point, I’m sure you’re scratching your head and asking, “But Lena, what exactly is this magical, wonderful thesis about? What exactly are you trying to study?”

ROW80: Recovering from Vacation

July 20, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 8 Comments

Happy Hump Day!

I’m back home from the family holiday, and it feels good to be snug in my little apartment once again. Flying always takes a lot out of me, especially when I have to deal with layovers (and Santa Barbara airport is so tiny that I almost always have at least one layover), so all I want to do today is curl up with a blanket and a good book and do absolutely nothing. The instructor that I’m TA’ing for is wonderful and told me to go ahead and take today off, so I plan to devour one (or two!) of the Georgette Heyer regency romance novels I have sitting on the shelf. Grading and thesis-work will commence tomorrow once I’m rested up.

The second half of the trip was absolutely wonderful. We left my grandfather’s house in southern Nevada Sunday afternoon and made our way to the Las Vegas Strip, where my parents renewed their vows to mark their 25 wedding anniversary.

The Happy Couple

The event turned into a mini-Jamison reunion, with my mom’s younger brother and sister, niece, and father in attendance.

The family (except for me, as I am taking the picture)

All in all, it was a wonderful trip, especially because it was the first family vacation that we’ve taken since I moved out of the house for grad school, three years ago. Now that my sister has moved out to go to college, finding time for all four of us to be together is a major challenge. It’s good to be back in Santa Barbara and to have a little quiet time (three women in one family = lots of squabbling), but I do miss having all of them around. However, I don’t have to despair for long: summer session ends next Wednesday and fall quarter doesn’t begin until the 3rd week of September, so I’ll be driving back to San Francisco next weekend. I will have six weeks for lots of family time, and even better, lots of non-school time. I’ll also be able to work on the thesis without other distractions, which means that I should be pretty productive.

Now, for my ROW80 check-in. I didn’t have internet access Sunday-Tuesday, so I basically worked my smartphone to the bone. I now know how to utilize my Twitter app, the WordPress app, the MS Word app, and the copy/paste function — all incredibly useful tools for when I’m on-the-go. I also managed to write for an hour or so each night since the last check-in. Yesterday was the exception, as I was basically was sitting in an airport or airplane for six hours straight with nothing but my ipod, a blank notebook, and pen (that sounds like some sort of desert island challenge!), so I did a lot more brainstorming.

The breakdown, project-by-project:

Thesis: I took a break from the behemoth that is my thesis for the last few days. I have a check-in meeting with my advisor by the weekend, so cross your fingers that her feedback is favorable!

Strange Bedfellows: The characters for this story won’t shut up, so at the moment I am a slave to their whims. However, I was able to put a hold on the snappy and snarky dialogue to focus on developing the first couple of chapters, which is good, because I’ve been writing scenes out of order, just to get them out of my head. I added another 1400 words to this, which brings the current MS up to about 12,700 words. I went through my notes the other day and realized that this project took over my life at the beginning of July, so yeah, I’m a little shocked at this total word count.

Path to the Peacock Throne: I haven’t written anything new, but I devoted all of yesterday to working on backstory, world-building, and character development. There’s a lot of stuff that goes down in this tale before the story even begins, so the challenge is (1) getting the details all straightened out and (2) finding a way to allude to the backstory without a major infodump. I now have many handwritten pages with notes about systems of magic, and fictional civil wars, and my MC’s personality. She is shy and a bit aloof, I think, with a secret wish to travel and explore the world. She’ll get her wish in Act 2, though not quite in the way she imagined.

That’s all from me right now. Off to do a bit of bloghopping, and once I am done with that, to grab a book and enjoy a decadently lazy day.

ROW80: Last-Minute Rally!

July 17, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 21 Comments

Another short post from me today. Vacation continues, and we’re having an excellent time. The highlights so far have included catching the midnight showing of Harry Potter, and taking a daytrip to Zion National Park, where we took a short tour via shuttle bus, and took many, many photographs of pretty rocks. I’ll post those sometime in the coming week, when I get the chance to upload them to my computer.

When it comes to progress, I seem to have done better over the past few days than I did earlier in the week. I’ve noticed that it’s easier for me to satisfy my goals between Wednesday – Sunday, probably because the weekend makes my responsibilities a bit lighter, so I’ll have to see how I can take this knowledge and use it to my advantage. I’ll potentially end up saving up my writing for the latter half of the week, when I know I’ll be able to have the time to go beyond 500/night.

So, without further ado, this week’s accomplishments:

Thesis: I finally managed to tidy up the latest section of my findings and send it off to my advisor. As I’ve warned her, it’s a very, very rough first draft, there are holes and things that are missing, and many things that will need to be cut. All the same, it is 19 pages long (almost 6000 words), which brings the current draft to about 40 pages in length. I estimate that I’ll need another 15-20 pages to talk about the next set of findings, along with another 10-15 pages to encompass other details (methodology, conclusion, etc.) which means that the complete first draft will approach somewhere upwards of 80+ pages. Granted, I don’t know what will happen during the editing process, but I feel rather proud of myself. After three years of stressing and reading and pursuing countless ideas, I’m finally at the point where I feel like I can say, unequivocally, that I will finish this. When I am done, I have promised myself that I am going to utilize my esoteric knowledge of 1920s etiquette and apply it to a new story, one that involves flappers and bootleggers and vampires, or something paranormal. 😀

tell me no lies: I managed to get some research done last night. As a grad student I have access to digital newspaper archives, so I availed myself of the San Francisco Chronicle‘s collection of issues from 1887, when “tell me no lies” takes place. I started combing through all the stories on crime and murder (a cheery topic, let me tell you, though infinitely fascinating), and stumbled upon some real gems, including a trial for the murder of a “Chinese highbinder.” From what I can tell, highbinders seem to have been the Chinese version of the Italian mafia. An article from an 1886 issue of Harper’s Weekly compares the Highbinders to the Freemasons, except with lots more blackmail and bribery. It’s a fascinating read, for anyone who is interested, though it drips with the casual racism that was prevalent during the period.

Strange Bedfellows: I added about 2000 words to this between Wednesday night and late Saturday night. I’d like to say that it was difficult, but at the moment I feel like I’m just eavesdropping on my characters’ conversations and transcribing them. Out of all my WIPs, I know these characters the best. They’ve been salvaged from earlier abandoned projects, and so we’ve managed to “form a rapport,” if you will. The hardest thing about this story is slowing myself down long enough to scrawl out some decent descriptions, but I managed to hammer out an opening scene (the aftermath of a very bloody battle) that will satisfy me until it’s time for rewrites and edits.

All in all, not too bad. If I am doing the math properly, it looks like I more or less squeaked past the goal post by the skin of my teeth this week! I’d say that this is an excellent time to head to Las Vegas, as a bit of partying is in order. 🙂

How’s everyone else holding up? Has anyone met or exceeded their goals for the week? Anyone else need to tweak things a bit?

ROW80 Social Media Roundup + Progress Update

July 15, 2011 / Lena Corazon / Comments Off

Over on the homepage for A Round of Words in 80 Days, Kait Nolan has invited participants to share our Twitter accounts and Google+ pages. I’m trying to get back into the swing of Twitter, and I’ve just picked up a Google+ account that I don’t quite know what to do with (currently poking at it with a stick to see what it will do), but I’ve posted mine over there nonetheless. I love connecting with my fellow writers in all ways possible, so add me on G+ and/or follow me on Twitter. 😀 Better yet, check out the rest of the lovelies from ROW80! They’re listing Google+ accounts, as well as Twitter accounts.

In other news, the whole family made it to Nevada in one piece. We all came together in a rather circuitous way, with Dad leaving San Francisco a day early to drive down (he has to take off a day early to get back to work), Mom and Rowena, my sister, flying from San Francisco on Wednesday, and me flying from Santa Barbara on Wednesday as well. But we’re relaxing at my grandfather’s gorgeously wonderful retirement house, and although the heat is more than our thin-skinned, Pacific Coast-selves can handle, it’s fun for everyone to be together.

On the writing front: On Wednesday night I hammered out 594 words of a new scene for Strange Bedfellows, along with 1379 words worth of brainstorming. I also started drafting a blog post (currently at 704 words) for Sunday’s ROW80 check-in, since I’ll be on the road to Vegas and potentially without internet access until next Wednesday morning. And then yesterday I suffered through a migraine and forced myself to edit twenty pages worth of thesis. I’m not finished with rewrites, sadly, but I abandoned ship to head off and catch the midnight showing of Harry Potter (infinitely more important that limping through edits, I think). Hopefully I can pull things together by tomorrow morning so I can send it off to my advisor.

Anyway, the family is slowly dressing (one thing that I always forget — how long it takes to get four people showered, dressed, and out of the house) so we can drive into Utah for breakfast, and then onwards to Zion National Park to poke around at nature.

Hope everyone has had a grand week! Any exciting developments? Who saw Harry Potter?

ROW80: Hijacked by the Day Job

July 10, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 6 Comments

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!

Daily Progress Update!

July 5, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 1 Comment

Okay, so I’m trying something a bit new. In addition to the bi-weekly ROW80 updates, I thought that perhaps I’d try adding a quick aside each day to sum up the day’s progress, so I can have a more detailed history of what I’ve done and where I’d like to go in the next few days. We’ll see how it goes.

Today’s success was facilitated by a video chat session with my best friend who lives in San Francisco, which forced me to sit in my chair and just work for a few hours. I managed to do the following:

Thesis: I managed to hammer out 1000 words discussing the use of mythopoesis (or the use of anecdotes and storytelling) in etiquette books. Okay, so I cheated a little and employed the substantial use of quotes to make it to 1000 words, but excerpts are important, right? Tomorrow’s goal is to clean up what I’ve written and add more, as I’d like to have a rough draft done by the end of the day.
Path to the Peacock Throne: I’ve been horribly stuck with this story, but I was somehow able to add a little over 1300 words in the form of edits and tweaking, as well as starting a new chapter. I’m pretty confident that I’m going to have to rewrite the pivotal chapter where Liandre learns the truth of her parentage and origins, but I’m now convinced that I’m not going to know exactly how it should go until I’m finished. Instead, I’m moving on to the next two chapters, which follow Liandre on her journey across the sea to Vao Artan, the mysterious and legendary land of her birth. The ship is crewed, I’ve decided, by a handful of women who are unlike any that the princess has ever met, and they will help to ease her transition into the new world she will encounter.

And that’s it for me! I’m going to have to switch gears soon to start contemplating my steampunk tale, which is the one downside of trying to juggle multiple WIPs: constantly disengaging and reengaging in different ‘verses and worlds and characters. But it keeps me on my toes, if nothing else!

Lena Corazon

Flights of Fancy