Buh?

The NaNo verification thing came up with something like 300 more words than I thought I had. Strange. Not complaining, just mildly confused. I still can't believe I have 50k - all I can think about is all the stuff that still needs to happen (like introducing the MC's cat, which does need to happen, or, um, any sort of denouement which is still realistically 15K away at least). Also, I almost don't even want to think about revisions except that I want to keep writing to get the draft done so that I can take some time away from it (er, um - write my dissertation) so that I ca get back to it with better, fresher eyes and revise and revise and revise. And then if my ego has gone insane, see what I can do with it.

Realistically, the story isn't done yet. Not really even all that close. If I keep the word count for the fourth part of the book in the same area as the other three, it should be about 15K or so, but I've already got 5K and it feels like there's more than 10K left to do. We'll see.

Thank goodness for low-key Thanksgiving breaks - that's the only way this thing is as far as it is right now. If I could only have another 3 months of this, I'd be golden. Unfortunately, the emails from students are starting to pile up as they stress out about the last week of classes, and at some point I really do need to remember that I'm *supposed* to be a graduate student.

Real life blows. November has been a fun fake life month.

a propos of some great romantic tale

I've hit the point with the NaNo that it's been going along blisteringly quickly (well, sort of - I haven't had to be on campus since Monday afternoon and so I've been glued to my computer transcribing the conversations in my head) until late last night. Thursday night was particularly awesome. Something about turkey nomming and staying up until 3am writing was awesome - there's actually some sort of a chance that I'll hit 50K by the end of the month. Weirdness. I really didn't think I'd get anywhere near that.

Anyway, so I finally hit the point where I could reintroduce the romantic interest to the MC and I've realized that what I'm attempting to do is more or less a combination of Jane Austen's Persuasion and the film Before Sunset (the Before Sunrise part, as long as I'm thinking of it in those terms, is mixed in via flashbacks to the first part of the book. I think. It's all written out separately and waiting for me to figure out how to order it in). Part of me is amused by this since I'm roughly the age of the protagonists of Before Sunset and only a year older that Miss Anne Eliot - I find myself wondering if there's something about hitting almost-30 that makes one prone to reexamining those first loves (recognizing at the same time that Austen herself was well beyond 30 when she actually wrote Persuasion, but, you know, details or whatever). Maybe there really aren't any new ideas at all anymore (not that I ever thought I was covering anything new).

The other thing that I think is sort of strange about all of this is that I didn't have one of those grandly all-encompassing loves when I was in my very early 20s that I could then reflect back on now. I've certainly spent time rethinking the old romances, but part of that has happened in realizing that I never had one of the really big crazy "I'm devoting my whole soul to you" type romances at a young age. I was prone to the occasional life-threatening crush, especially on one particular guy in college with these ridiculously blue eyes who was kind enough to be friends with me but never take me to bed. He treated the women he dated really badly (he was hot, knew he was hot, and responded to this by cheating on his girlfriends all the time), and so I think I was really lucky that I never got mixed up in any of that. The way things were, he just got to be a crush. We used to walk to class together when we both lived in the dorms, just talking about whatever, and I remember really specifically one hangover where I ran into him in the cafeteria right before it closed as I was attempting, in my pajamas, to convince myself that if I were to eat some scrambled eggs that they'd stay down. He took pity on me, sat with me while I ate (erm, attempted to eat) and regaled me with a few of his choicer hangover stories. He knew I thought he was gorgeous (I told him so at the bus stop one day after an English class) - he probably just enjoyed having an ardent (if nauseous) audience for his stories. We managed to overlap at parties all the way through college, and through some weird accident he ended up seated directly behind me at graduation (a good feat, given there were something like 6,000 people graduating that day and we weren't the same major). For all that, I don't think we ever even hugged. I have no clue what happened to him, and no desire to find out. It's interesting to me though that when I think through this, he's the one that comes to mind - not any of the guys I actually dated or loved or anything else - what I think of is the almost- but ultimately un-attainable crush.

Brownie forever says that I'm not a romantic. I can't decide if I think he's right or not. I know romance as such is something that I tend to keep very much internalized - it's there, but no one, often even my husband, really experiences it - and Brownie's experienced more of it than anyone else. I'm nervous to death to let anyone else read the NaNo writings because so much of the internalized romance is out there, even if in the muted, disillusioned way that I usually externalize it - that sort of mode that is captured so masterfully in the texts mentioned above (and which I would dearly love to kid myself I'd be someday capable of imitating). I don't know what it says about me that I was in love with Persuasion by the end of junior high but didn't discover cheesy high school romance novels until late in grad school (although who am I kidding - it's partially to figure that shit out that I'm scribbling this all down now).

Dammit. I feel like I had it for a moment, but lost it as I was typing out that last parenthetical. Keep thinking.

Maybe what I really like is the idea of being able to (re)gain a sense of romance after severe disillusionment or disappointment - the idea that love doesn't end with high school or college, that love stories are just as potent (if not moreso, more honest) when we've experienced enough to have a better sense of what's out there and how great and terrible it can be. That when we're smarter and jaded about everything, there can still be that magic. It may be harder to find, but that might make it all the more wonderful.

But it was going so well...

I need a little writer's blocked smiley icon to put here or something. I haven't written much of anything since Friday. I *tried* to write last night, but managed something like 350 words of utter shit that will be deleted and gave up. I haven't counted those words toward the word count. I've got 2 different storylines going that need to be wrapped up to a certain point before I can launch into the last major plot arch. One of the storylines doesn't seem like it should be too difficult but for some reason I'm having issues with just getting writing down. The other storyline needs to incorporate the MC's new cat, new apartment, new job, new friends and new etc before I can introduce the love interest. I've gotten the friends about halfway in (insofar as they're introduced) and I've seen the cat once. She's gotten the job but hasn't started it. She's met her soon-to-be landlord's German Shepherd but doesn't know where she'll be living at the moment. It's like I know what I need to have happen but actually writing it all is just NOT. WORKING. I guess I'll go back to trying to slam through the rest of the other storyline first so that I can catch everything up to where I am now in storyline 2 and then go from there.

I doubt most of that will make any real sense. I'm just trying to get a bit of the frustration out so that maybe I can get something more written in an attempt to catch back up. I kinda feel like once I get the love interest involved it'll get easier to write, but I don't feel like I should start his section until I've gotten through the rest of it so that I know exactly what sort of mental/emotional state the MC is in when she meets him.

Also, kitty went to the vet on Friday due to continued UTI-type stuff. They took a urine sample and an earwax sample and I'm currently sitting around and waiting for a phone call from the vet to tell me what's going on. I hate waiting. I hope she's okay. She's not dealing with the antibiotics well - she keeps puking.

Odds and Ends

We got digital cable today. A+ for that. We also got a modem upgrade, so that the modem no longer DIALS UP. FFS, if I ever have to hear that noise again, it'll be too soon.

I'm obsessed with the song "1901" by Phoenix. You've heard it. It's in a commercial for I think a cell phone. And I feel like a total loser for loving a song that has been blessed by giant corporations and which they are using to make me think that something is ZOMG cool. At the same time, that's not the song's fault, and it is a good song. And I feel like a wanker for even worrying about it for a moment. It's a good song. Just enjoy the song and stop making it difficult, self.

I'm sort of stuck in a couple of places with NaNo. Mostly I've realized that MC is a giant PITA self-obsessed whiner, and I'm trying to figure out how to change that. So I'm finding myself revising certain chunks, adding in more conversation, etc. I also feel like some of the problem is the situation she's in, and when I finally let her get out of it (and when I have scenes that are not involved with the main situation I've been writing lately) she'll get better and less whiny and less self-reflective and maybe remember to pay attention to everything around her. But as a writer it's like I've gotten so stuck trying to figure my way through her thought pattern in the current situation that I'm not paying attention to anything else, including the characters she's interacting with. So that's a major problem that I'm glad I've figured out at least so that I can address it from here on out and then fix more later. I've got to stop with the revisions though, since that is NOT helping my word count. I need to get about 2000 in today to make sure I'm staying up to speed, which is do-able, but I'd like to try and get ahead over this week/weekend so that when Sparklefest hits next weekend, I'll be able to take a few days off.

Finally, I'm meeting with awesome non-hosebeast advisor to meet her kid today. I'm hoping hosebeast advisor does not come up because I just don't want to talk about her. At all. And I don't really want to have to explain why I haven't talked to hosebeast since January, since I'm perfectly aware that not talking to her has been hugely unprofessional on my part, but hosebeast makes me feel like horseshit and the very act of trying to talk *about* her has a tendency to reduce me to tears. So I'm going to try and avoid the topic. We'll see if that works.

Weirdness from the NaNo World

I for serious cannot believe I've been researching popular Omaha hangouts during the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting so that I can get some ideas as to where Warren Buffett might hang out because for some reason I now need this knowledge in my novel. FFS. Also, you can get a lot of information about people through their cell phones. Also good to know for the novel.

The novel which is pretty much turning into a love story.

I swear I don't know what all is in my head right now but. I should probably make myself write for a while this afternoon.

Scribbling away

I've hit a pretty good stride with the NaNo. I have a hard time writing during the day (or even really during hours I should even be awake). However, I end up thinking a lot about where I am in the novel so that I have a lot to write when I'm feeling writerly, and consequently have hit the just over 10,000 word mark. YAY! I can't believe I've made it so far already. Also, I have a tentative possible title that will change 800 more times because I'm terrible at titles. Terrible. Horrible.

And I perused the NaNo forums long enough to realize that I'm writing LitFic, which probably shouldn't be a surprise. I seem to fall under the category of "by the time you take out all the SRS BZNS themes, it's about a girl who does stuff." I hope I don't come across as a wanker. Or even if I do, I hope it's readable wanking instead of hyper-pretentious wanking.

Taking a brief noveling break this afternoon to make dinner for Brownie's parents. I've dismembered a pumpkin, roasted it, roasted the seeds, and turned part of the pumpkin into ravioli filling. The rest will probably be fed via teaspoons to the cats or turned into pumpkin bread. Brownie's starting the pasta dough now. Then we'll roll out the dough, slap the filling in, cut the ravioli up, cook it and serve it in a brown-butter sage sauce. With pumpkin seed garnish.

And typing that out and realizing that the only thing I've had to eat today is a raisin bran muffin with my coffee, I'm thinking I should go eat. Or at least demolish half the pumpkin seeds.

Harvard Magazine's "The Ph.D. Problem"

One of my old professors linked to this article on his facebook. I read it and promptly stuck it up on mine. They bring up a couple of issues with getting a Ph.D. in the humanities:
- the median time to degree is 9 years
- 50% drop out before they finish the program
- of the 50% who complete, only half ever get a tenure-track job
- humanities doctoral programs are admitting more and graduating more students every year
- the within-the-academy humanities job market is miserably bad
- spending so much time working on such specialized knowledge often eliminates outside-the-university job opportunities (which are obviously badly needed)
- the dissertation process does not produce particularly good research or research that is necessarily something that will help broaden our knowledge
- it takes longer to do a dissertation in the humanities than it does in the social or hard sciences because despite the lack of experimentation or much archival research, there is so much pressure to find a way to say something new or different about the same texts (i.e., to spin something in a new way, basically) that dissertations become even more difficult
- universities like having grad students around to teach their courses (i.e., cheap labor)
- the system seems built to produce ABDs rather than full-fledged Ph.D.s
- these problems deter many potential students, so that the only students who end up even starting grad school are exact duplicates of the professoriate, leading to very little in the way of new or challenging thought

So in general, yes to all. The stats are dire and have been for a good fifteen years at this point. The article points out it's really been this bad since the 70's.

Basically, I've been thinking about the article in terms of my own 6+ years of graduate school experience. I do tend to agree that the system works to produce ABDs. I am one. Getting through coursework was relatively simple and made sense. The process stopped making quite so much sense when I got to exams, but I got there and got through them. I've been ABD now for 2+ years. I was stymied and left without any real guidance or mentorship when it came to my dissertation proposal. It started out badly with my disclosure to my advisors of my ADHD - they responded both by telling me in essence it was just something I was going to have to get over because "adult scholars don't need deadlines" and then proceeding to give me zero helpful advice on what I should do to craft a workable proposal until mid-December, when the advisor I generally like sat me down and went through everything with me in detail, helped me understand what she didn't think was working and so on. The next draft passed no problem. Since then, nice advisor hasn't been particularly available (sabbatical followed by pregnancy/accompanying family leave) and hosebeast advisor has done everything in her power (from "I get the sense that this project is going to take a LONG TIME" to "I really don't think you're doing this right" without then telling me what she thinks would be right) to make me feel inadequate and unable to finish. I think this is mostly my fault: apparently I shouldn't have told them about the ADHD, but more I should be better about being my own advocate and in asking them point blank what the hell it is they're looking for since I seem unable to read their minds (particularly the mind of hosebeast). Add in the complete and total lack of departmental support, and things aren't going well for me or for the other students in my department that I've talked through this all with. Brownie aside, most people I've talked to don't seem to have a clue how to finish their dissertations because they keep getting drafts back marked "been said before." Well, yes - when there's 4 shelves full of books in our pitifully understocked library on a particular text, it's damned difficult to find anything new to say.

Ultimately, I think I'm angry that I had no idea about how dire things were for graduated Ph.D.s before I began my doctorate - I'm not entirely sure I would have even started it. And it sucks watching a bunch of intelligent, articulate, thoughtful people falling apart because the dissertation isn't working out right, or rotting away in graduate school when they could be doing something that gives them a better work/life balance, etc.

Perversely, I'm still not convinced I can quit without having the dissertation finished. And I think if I do, I'll probably end up being an asshole to people who are considering starting, and wearing my "grad school dropout" badge with too much "I'm covering up for my insecurities" type pride. You know, the type of pride that tends to create douchebags. So if I end up doing this, I can only hope my friends like me enough to tell me.

This Whole Noveling Thing

I can't work on it while Brownie's in the room. I almost can't work on it when he's in the apartment unless he's asleep. He's completely supportive about this whole idea, but I'm petrified to show him anything. I don't get myself on this one. I can't decide if I'm afraid that he won't like it or afraid that he actually will. Not that there's way too much to show him yet. Or that I'm writing in order, or have written enough of anything that it would make sense to anyone else.

I do like how the characters are only sort of paying attention to the personality traits I had listed for them. Certain things will work but as I get them in dialogue, they suddenly do something else and I find myself thinking 'okay, that made sense, but that wasn't what I was expecting.'

Finally, I wish I could get it out of my head that I'm just pretending to do this, or that I'm somehow pretending to write fiction just because I've never had a class in creative writing or really done all that much of it (see: failed attempts at bad poetry in high school). As I know from cooking, I don't need a class to become good at something. Maybe I have a block on this because it involves writing - like after all the college classes and grad school classes I don't feel like I should write anything that I haven't had lengthy discussions about beforehand.

So I lack self-confidence. Fuck it. That hasn't stopped me from doing things before, and I almost always lack self-confidence. Ergo, lacking self-confidence here shouldn't stop me from scribbling more. So what if I think I sound like an eighth-grader sometimes. That's what revisions are for, right?

Beginneth the crazy

NaNoWriMo starts today. I haven't had time to do anything yet - Brownie's dad got us tickets to a wine-tasting/Habitat for Humanity benefit, so we're leaving for that in half an hour. When we get home I'm going to eat dinner and then lock myself in the office and see if I can get the intro fairy tale written. If I can do that, I'll feel good for having gotten something done while getting over my hangover from last night. Will report back later!