Booking It--Grammar

In honor of National Grammar Day … it was “March Fourth” after all … do you have any grammar books? Punctuation? Writing guidelines? Style books?

More importantly, have you read them?

How do you feel about grammar in general? Important? Vital? Unnecessary? Fussy?

Well, in my office I have several grammar handbooks, and I have one at home. The Little, Brown Handbook is my favorite, probably because it was my undergrad grammar textbook/handbook. Of course I have Strunk and White's Elements of Style--who doesn't? Other than that, I have Eats, Shoot, and Leaves, but I must confess that I haven't read it. Grammar, to me, is important and necessary--vital, even. However, it doesn't rate as entertainment. I'd rather spend my time reading correctly punctuated, grammatically correct, well-written literature than reading about grammar. But, hey, if that's your thing, don't let my negativity hinder you!

Furthermore, I don't enjoy reading "how-to" books about writing, either. They are so technical, and they seem to rob the craft of its mystique and authors of their personality. However, I do love it when good writers write about how they write (writing that sentence made me smile)--especially when they get away from the technicalities of writing to the realities of being a writer. What really intrigues me is how the ways they choose to live and experience life impacts their writing and their analysis of this connection. I really enjoyed Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings, and Anne Lamott is a favorite. I've got Stephen King's On Writing, but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. I've read plenty more "writing memoirs," but I can't recall them right now. Mostly, what these books do for me is remind me that each life has moments worthy of preserving through the written word, if one is only observant enough, thoughtful enough, and willing to do the hard work of expressing life and meaning through the written word.

Revision Rage

In October, I'll be presenting at the annual general meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America. The JASNA AGMs are always wonderful--interesting presentations and prestigious plenary speakers in great locations. I've attended AGMs in Seattle, Toronto, and Tucson. This year it's in Philadelphia, and I'm really looking forward to it. I can't wait to see the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, all the historic sights.

This year's theme is "Jane Austen's Brothers and Sisters." JASNA requires proposals to be sent in a year in advance, and, as luck would have it, I'd already planned for one of my dissertation chapters to be about the role of physical beauty within families, so I sent in my proposal hoping I'd get some mileage out of something I had to write anyway.

My proposal, "'Not half so handsome as Jane'; Sisters, Brothers, and Beauty in Austen's Novels," was accepted, and unlike many conferences, I'm actually alloted about forty minutes speaking time (with ten or fifteen left for questions and discussion), so I'll have time to present almost the whole essay and then be able to discuss it with other Austen scholars. Believe me, this can spoil you.

But right now I'm just plain aggravated. Why? Although I have plenty of time to present, if I want to submit my essay for possible publication in Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal (which, of course, I do), I have to shorten my essay to 4000 words. Aaaarrrrgggghhh. I struggle to carefully construct an argument, and then I have to butcher it. I've done this before, and it hasn't gotten any easier. I think it's harder to cut huge chunks out of a finished essay than it is to write it in the first place. Aggravation is giving way to frustration.

What's the antidote for Revision Rage?

Overwhelmed. Again.

I'm a slow learner, I guess. Last Monday, after receiving suggestions from my dissertation director, I sat down to begin the process of revising my dissertation. I was pumped, and I worked hard all day long--until my brain refused to cooperate and informed me the work day was over.

Tuesday morning, though, I started thinking of all those pages of work ahead of me, and I simply could not force myself to sit down in front of the computer and start. I exercised, cleaned the kitchen, read the paper, made up the bed, checked Facebook, dusted the living room, read some blogs, did laundry, all the time promising myself I'd get to work on that pesky dissertation just as soon as I finished __________. My procrastination went on all day.

That night I decided that, if I ever hoped to finish this thing, I had to have a plan. I divided my dissertation up into a very manageable number of pages per day. Then, all that I had to ask of myself each day was to revise those pages. If it took an hour, I had the rest of the day to do whatever I wanted. No guilt. If it took all day, well, then at least I'd know that every day wouldn't be that bad. I'd be making measurable progress but still be able to have a life along the way. For the last week or so, my plan's worked. (Although I haven't had a day yet where I finished my work in one hour. I couldn't be that lucky.)

Sure seems like I've been here and done this before.

Nose Back to the Grindstone

For once, I had impeccable timing. On Saturday, I read the last page of Breaking Dawn, then walked out to get my mail, only to discover a packet from my dissertation director with revision suggestions. I knew it was coming. I'd just been trying to push the thought to the back of my mind while I enjoyed a couple of weeks of recreational reading.

Of course, I would have loved to have opened it up and read the words, "It's perfect! You're done!" but I'm not that naive. Actually, it wasn't that bad. He gave me two choices. He said that my committee would accept it with minor cosmetic revisions, BUT he thought it had the possibility of being an exceptional dissertation if I'd make the revisions he suggested in a seven page letter and detailed marginal comments. The question is, he said, "How good do you want to make it?"

Aaaaaarrrrgggghhhh. Having a Type A personality costs you.

A friend whom I really respect and who has already been through this process told me early in my doctoral studies to remember that I don't have to write the perfect dissertation; I just have to get four signatures and the diploma. And he's right. I have no illusions of being able to write the perfect dissertation and I'm really ready to get that diploma. But I don't want to finish by doing the least amount of work possible. I want four signatures, the diploma, and the satisfaction of a job well done.

So now I'm looking at about a month of revision, and every day as I sit down to work I can think of about a million things I'd rather be doing. My self discipline is wearing thin.

Not There Yet

OK. I know I'm not finished. I have to wait for feedback from my committee, make the necessary revisions, and the defend the final version.

But, man, it sure feels good to have a little bit of time without any doctoral work hanging over my head. As soon as classes were over last spring, I began preparing for written comps. As soon as written comps were over, I began preparing for oral comps. After passing them, I began working on the dissertation prospectus. As soon as it was successfully defended, I began work on the actual dissertation. Sure, I've taken a few days off here and there, but not without that guilty feeling that I really should be working.

This is the first time in a year that I simply can't do anything. At least not until I hear back from them. Ahhhhh.

Ta Da!

I submitted a complete, finished draft of my dissertation yesterday. And what did I do to celebrate?

I cleaned house to the accompaniment of Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

So, now you're wondering what I'm going to do to celebrate after the defense?

Well, for one thing, I'm going to have a ceremonial note card burning. Any other suggestions?

Winding Down

As regular readers of my blog know, I've been struggling with dissertation burnout lately. But, guess what?

I'm working on the conclusion!

I hate conclusions. By the end of a long paper I usually feel that I've already said all I have to say on a subject. I ask myself the big "So What?" question, and, at first, I usually have no answer. But if I just let it rest, give it time to sit on the back burner, eventually--there it is.

With a dissertation, multiply the aggravation times about a million. I mean, I've already had to answer a "So What?" question at the end of every chapter. Now, I'm faced with the "SOOOO WHAAAAAT??" question. And, true to form but equally exaggerated, at first my brain answered: "I've said absolutely everything there is to say about this subject, I'm tired and aggravated, and I've used up the next twenty years' supply of self-discipline. I really just want to watch movies or read escapist fiction and be LEFT ALONE, preferably fully supplied with some form of chocolate. Enough already!!!"

But ever the good little girl, I couldn't rebel for long. I wrote the first paragraph of my conclusion on Friday, took off for the weekend, and came back strong on Monday.

The end is in sight!

The Problem with Perfectionism

My writing's been going a little bit better the last few days. One of the problems I've been having (besides my brain turning to sludge) is that I kept finding myself sitting in front of the computer, thinking and thinking and trying to come up with the perfect sentence or the perfect word without actually WRITING anything.

I realized that when I wrote on the computer I felt like I had to produce polished, quality writing, but if I turned to my pad and pencil instead, I could let myself just spill out ideas without that editor's voice taking over the process. Then, after brainstorming all those ideas and letting them flow wherever they wanted to--often to surprising insights, it was not nearly so hard to turn that fertile mess into passable prose.

Of course, I already knew this. I do teach writing, after all. But it's funny. I got so involved in the idea of getting through that I forgot to do what I know.

The Rabbit or the Turtle

I've really been battling Dissertation Burnout lately. All through the process, I've set daily goals--read a certain amount, take notes and develop an organizational plan today, write X number of pages--and for the most part I met them. I was submitting chapters regularly, and that stack of typed pages was growing steadily higher.

Until I hit the last chapter. Then my brain turned to mush. Instead of writing several pages a day, some days I'd sit and stare at the computer screen and, by the end of the day, be lucky if I'd finished a whole paragraph. Aaaarrrgggghh. I couldn't hold a train of thought, I wasn't sure if what I'd written made sense, and I'd have to keep reading the previous pages to make sure I was going where I intended to. Very frustrating.

But I talked to an old friend who's been through the process, and he gave me some great advice. He said to remember that getting a PhD is like a marathon, not a sprint. By the end, it's not about speed. It's about not quitting. This really made sense to me because I've run a marathon. And I remember at about mile 20 really just wanting to walk over and sit down on the curb. But instead, I kept putting one foot in front of the other and repeating in my head "I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit . . ." And I didn't.

And I won't.

Sunday Funnies

Pete and Repeat

Bad writing habits may not make such a big difference on a small paper, but when writing a dissertation, they can really derail the whole project. And boy, do your bad writing habits come floating to the surface when writing is your job every day.

One bad writing habit I’ve been struggling with is re-reading the whole chapter I’m working on, no matter how long it is, and tinkering with diction and sentence structure. Every day.

There’s a logical reason that I fell into this habit. Each morning, when I start back to work, it takes a while to get my head back into the project. So, re-reading’s a logical place to start, right?

Well, yes, but not the way I was doing it. The longer the chapter got, the more time it took to read, and adjust, and tinker, and change, and switch, and substitute . . . You get the idea. You can pass a whole morning that way.

So my solution was to limit myself to the last three or four pages. I can usually read, make minor proofreading changes, and be ready to move into the next section within half an hour or so. That's pretty reasonable, I think.

Another thing I’ve been doing to help ease my return is never to stop without making a note about the next point I plan to cover. Then, when I return, I’m not faced with figuring out what the next big structural element will be. It’s already been decided. All I have to do is write about it.

As if that’s not enough . . .

Gleanings from My Readings

Happy Valentines Day!
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"A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill."
---Jane Austen, in Pride and Prejudice

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Since I’ve been doing a lot more writing than reading lately, this week’s quotes are all observations about writing from Joan Bolker’s Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day (yes, the book I griped about last week).

“The only rules there are in the dissertation-writing process are the useful ones you make up for yourself.” (7)

“What does ‘ownership’ of your writing mean? It means that your writing belongs, for better or for worse, to you, and you alone. . . . Other people own their responses to it, but you own the writing.” (17)

“Sometimes writing a dissertation is a bit like having a serious, but not mortal, illness: it takes enormous energy to sustain life, you have to take very good care of yourself so you don’t collapse, and your defenses—in this case not white blood cells, but psychological defenses—are sky high. One symptom of this ‘illness’ is ‘dissertation paranoia,’ the powerful, not totally rational feeling that other people are out to harm you, and that you must be vigilant and fierce in order to protect yourself and your work. . . . Dissertation paranoia, fortunately . . . is time limited; It tends to disappear when your final draft has been accepted.” (27)

“Remember that you are entitled to put your dissertation first (not for several years, but for a while). Realize that it’s time you stopped asking other people’s permission to do so.” (66)

“It’s more common for the students I’ve worked with to read too much than to read too little. They use reading as a distraction, or as a way to avoid having to think their own thoughts, or as a magic charm: ‘If I read everything in the field, then I’ll be able to write and be sure I haven’t missed anything.” (69-70)

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Happy Reading! Or, maybe today it should be “Happy Writing!”

Validation

I have to be fair. Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day may have a misleading title, but it’s not completely worthless. It’s not so much about the mechanics of writing (but wouldn’t you assume anyone who’s made it this far, at least in the humanities, would have that part down pat?), but about overcoming mental roadblocks and peripheral issues that can derail your efforts.

If nothing else, I’m glad I found this book because of one passage on page 56. Normally, when I read about “The Writing Process,” it never matches with mine. It’s either so neat and completely thought-out that I’d have to write the paper and go backwards to achieve that level of organization on my outlines and notecards, or it is so freeform that I’d go crazy—days and days of freewriting leading to multiple uncontrolled drafts that are somehow supposed to morph into a finished product.

But in her discussion of writing styles, a man named Peter shares his:

I don’t know whether my procedure for papers will work for chapters, although I suspect it will. Perhaps the word “procedure” implies more planning and organization than actually gets done. My mess stage generally consists of an assortment of notes jotted down here and there, a pile of books full of stickies, many of which have a few notes jotted down on them, and an array of thoughts floating around in my head. Sometimes I make a rough outline to sort out what to present when. Sometimes I structure my first couple of paragraphs in such a way that they provide a roadmap I use for writing. Sometimes I have an idea in my head of the way the paper should progress. Then I sit down and write. Sometimes what I write follows the outline, but often the outline changes as I progress through the paper. I often use quotations or passages that I am analyzing as moorings for my thoughts. When I am writing I also tend to do a fair amount of in-process sentence-level editing. I know that this “procedure” would be a recipe for disaster for certain types of writers, but it seems to work for me.

Copy cat.

False Advertising

OK. I’m a sucker, I know. But how could I resist a book called Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day?

I’m not completely stupid. I didn’t actually expect to be able to shorten my work day down to fifteen minutes, but since mine’s more like fifteen hours than fifteen minutes [hyperbole alert], I figured author Joan Bolker might have a few tricks up her sleeve that I could use.

My hopes were soon dashed. Before I even got to Chapter 1, right there in the Introduction, I found this disclaimer: “One of the most important pieces of advice in this book is, Do some work on your thesis every day, even if it’s only for fifteen minutes. Although I’ve known people who have produced finished theses in widely varying lengths of time, anywhere from six weeks to ten years, I don’t actually know anyone who’s done it in fifteen minutes a day. But I do know many who began the process that led them to complete their dissertations by writing for only a very short time every day.” Duh.

I guess Pope was right. Hope does spring eternal.

Dissertation Decor

Since our children are all out of the house, I've taken over the second story as a work area for writing my dissertation.

Everything may look nice and neat downstairs, but believe me, upstairs it looks as if a book and notecard factory has exploded. Piles of books. Books in the chair, books on the bed, books on the floor, books on the table. Open books, closed books, books with papers sticking out of them. Blue notecards, yellow notecards, green notecards, orange notecards. Paper-clipped notecards, rubber-banded notecards, stacks of notecards turned in alternate directions. Notebooks, legal pads, three-ring binders full of photocopied journal articles. You get the picture.

If you come for a visit before I'm finished, I'm warning you: Upstairs is off limits. Don't even ask. Of course, it's not a bad as it looks. Order might not be discernable to the untrained eye, but I promise, there's method in my madness.

Slow Going

I didn't get quite as much read last week as I'd hoped. Totally unnecessary things like dentist appointments and departmental meetings got in my way. Oh, and grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, exercise . . .

I did finish three of the novels--Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey, so it's not like I didn't get anything done. That leaves Emma, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion for this week.

It's funny. I'm anxious to finish reading through the novels so that I can start writing, yet I have a suspicion that reading through them is partly a delaying tactic so I don't have to start writing yet.

I guess, when it comes to writing, there's a little bit of a procrastinator in us all.

Jane Austen (yes, again)

I'm spending this week reading Jane Austen's novels. Yes, again. I've read them all several times before, but, since I'm doing my dissertation on her novels, I need them all fresh in my mind as I actually begin to write. Another reason I'm rereading is that, now that I've settled on the theme of each of my chapters, I want to approach the novels as a whole with those lenses in place, to see what I can discover, to gather ideas. That's something that always amazes me about great literature--the layers and complexities that you can see if you take the time and put forth the effort to look.

So, Monday was Sense & Sensibility. Yesterday I began Pride & Prejudice, and so it goes . . .

I thought you might enjoy one of Connie Ogle’s posts on her blog Between the Covers for The Miami Herald. It’s titled "In Praise of Pride and Prejudice (yes, again).” It also talks about another of my favorite books, Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran.

You can read it HERE.

Gleanings from My Readings

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
---Jane Austen, in Pride and Prejudice

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“Fortunately, I enjoy fooling with letters, moving them around, going back and forth over them, over and over, screaming . . . The terrible thing about writing is also the great thing about it: you can keep on changing it. ‘We say that we perfect diction,’ wrote Wallace Stevens. ‘We simply grow tired.’ But it’s a good tired.”
---Ray Blount, Jr., in the Introduction to Alphabet Juice

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“A powerful agent is the right word . . . Whenever we come upon one of these intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.”
---Mark Twain

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“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.”
---William Faulkner

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“She tried to remember that last time she’d tucked herself in to the pages of a good book or outsmarted a crossword puzzle or patronized the musicians in the park of been mindless in a movie theater or drunk on a poem.”
---Patricia Cornwell, in her latest novel Scarpetta

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From Robert Herrick’s poem “To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time”: (1648)

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.”

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From Ben Jonson’s poem “To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author Mr. William Shakespeare”:

“He was not of an age, but for all time!”

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Happy Reading!

Let the Flailing Begin

If you’ve been reading my “Gleanings from My Readings” posts lately, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve found Anne Lamott to be an especially quotable writer. In her book Plan B: More Thoughts on Faith, she observes, “I know that with writing, you start where you are, and you flail around for a while, and if you keep doing it, every day you get closer to something good.”

Well, I’m ready. I let myself have a couple of weeks off, for several reasons. One is that I haven’t really taken any time off from my studies since I began three years ago. Another is that I wanted to enjoy my family over the holidays. And the final reason is that I just can’t work in fits and spurts. When I write, it becomes my second religion—I have to do it with my whole heart, mind, and soul, and I knew I couldn’t devote that kind of uninterrupted time to my dissertation during the holiday season.

But it’s over now. This is the last lap. I’m ready. Let the flailing begin.

The Back Burner

I am currently in the process of writing my dissertation prospectus. It’s a lot of work that I wish could be directed toward the dissertation itself, but, alas, there are rules about these kinds of things. At least it’s the next-to-last big check mark on the requirements list.

The prospectus is to consist of several parts. The first major part is an introduction of sorts. It should create a shaped context for the project, giving chronological, national, sociological, or other relevant parameters. It should explain if historical or literary periods have any bearing, if gender or class is relevant, and if so, why. If there are formal or aesthetic issues, these should be addressed. It should contain a map of relevant broad criticism on the topic.

The next section should precisely identify and support the actual issue at hand. It should relate how I came to this topic and, within a mini-survey of existing scholarship, argue for its place in the field. It should explain important underlying issues, make connections, define key concepts, and present my methodology.

Next comes an expanded outline. Chapter titles should be listed, along with one-to-two page proposals for each chapter. These should set out the theme for each chapter, the questions that will be explored, what I expect to find, the ideas or problems that intrigue me.

And finally, I must include a prospectus bibliography, a list of works I will consult during the project.

Well, the bibliography has been a work-in-progress for some time, so I started there. It took only half a day to do a little more research, add some sources I’d found recently, and pretty much wrap it up.

So, logically, I moved to the beginning, the introduction, and here’s where the problems began. Introductions have always been the hardest part of a paper for me to write, for a couple of reasons. One is that it does not follow that just because I have a good idea for a particular project I also have a good idea for the introduction. Introductions are important—they are an invitation for the reader to enter my argument, they are a bridge from the reader’s world into my own. I can’t take that lightly. And, as I’ve told you before, I’m not a fast thinker when it comes to the writing process. I have to allow myself time to let ideas simmer on the back burner and trust myself that they will eventually reach a boil. I’ve been at this long enough to know that they will; I just can’t predict the timing.

The second problem is my perfectionist tendencies. Some people just begin writing with a brain dump. They spill all their ideas onto paper quickly, with no restraint, and clean up later. Not me. I will sit there in front of the computer, unwilling to write until I have the perfect beginning sentence, and then a perfect second sentence, and so on, tinkering with wording and sentence structure until I am finally satisfied. This is not a process that lends itself to swift writing.

Added to these regularly recurring problems was the fact that this project is just so huge. My mind kept darting in different directions, thinking about the subject itself, the larger context, the existing criticism, what I’ve already discovered, what I hope to explore, and so on, and so forth. After a day, I had a page and a half of text, but nothing I was even remotely pleased with. I went to bed that night giving my brain the assignment of sorting all this out while I slept.

And the next morning, I had an idea. Not for the introduction, but for a way to begin working. I realized that I already had an outline of chapter titles and a list of thoughts/questions about each one. Why not start with the chapter proposals? I’d be getting another section of the prospectus done (very important, because I’m working against a deadline), and while spending time focusing on the sub-topics and all their ramifications, I’d also be allowing my brain much-needed time to sort out a way into project.

The first day I completed two chapter proposals. That night, I had a couple of ideas for the introduction. Since then, they’ve been trickling in slowly. Of course, I write each one down. And gradually, over the last few days, a kind of structure has been forming in my head—where to begin, how to link these two areas, a new way to present an idea, what to discard.

I’m starting to believe I’m gonna get there.