Skip to main content

The Diary of a PhD Student: Entry 1


I’m doing a PhD. It still feels weird to say that when people ask what I’m doing with myself these days. Although, the alternative answer of ‘I spend my days reading about murder’ would probably impress people a whole lot less than dropping the PhD-bomb seems to. That is, until I tell them that my PhD is in Creative Writing, then a whole other can of worms gets opened about why I’m doing a PhD course in such a widely put-down subject. But it’s probably best that I don’t get on my soap box about that just yet…

 I thought the idea of a PhD was that you went in with an outstandingly specific idea and carved a place for yourself in your industry, based around this innovative idea of yours. So when it came to writing my proposal, that’s what I tried to do.

 In isolating a specific area of both history and modern literature that I thought was under-explored, I gained my place on the course. I had very strict ideas about how I would research and develop my novel - because that’s what my PhD requires, an 80, 000 word novel, and that’s just part of it - and that would, in turn, shape the critical element of my thesis which will be around the 20, 000 word mark. Now I’m five weeks in, and this innovative, inspired, and totally original idea has completely changed. And - this will surprise no one more than it has surprised me - I’m totally okay with it.

 After my first work-sharing session with my fellow PhD people yesterday, everything changed for me. There was a notable shift, in my mind at least, that took me from research to creativity, and I didn’t realise exactly how much I’d missed that feeling until I got it back. 

 This morning I’m armed with not only a different research approach but also a boat-load of new questions about this novel that I’m going to be working on; questions that, prior to yesterday, I had only dreamed of thinking about because I simply didn’t feel ready to provide the answers. It’s a little terrifying, I’ll admit, to see an idea that you felt quite invested in take a dramatic shift in front of your eyes. Although, the more I think about it, the more I appreciate that that in itself is just another part of the process, no matter what you’re writing. 

 This blog post is a short introduction to what I hope will become more regular posts as my PhD continues, but I suppose I just wanted to introduce any readers to the ideas that I myself had revelled in yesterday. Seeing these changes happen was scary, but in a good sort of way, and I took away so much from yesterday’s time spent with my lecturer and my fellow students that I’m already feeling a new burst of life for a project that I haven’t even properly sunk my teeth into yet. And that, as far as I’m concerned, is a damn good feeling to start with. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Diary of a Whatever I Am Now: Transition period.

Transition: 'the process or the period of changing from one state or condition to another'. I wanted to make this blog more of a regular thing once my PhD was over, for several reasons. Partly it’s just to log what happens next and this, in itself, is two-fold: I want to have some kind of documentation of this recovery process (yes, that’s what I’m calling it) that follows the PhD, but I also live in hope that someone who is struggling with having finished their PhD might find this blog some day, and breathe a hefty sigh on realising that the weird grief-cum-relief they’re feeling right now isn’t totally abnormal – in fact, it might even be quite common. I also want to get into the habit of writing more – something I’m encouraging my own students to do now and I hate giving out writing advice that I haven’t/am not taking myself, and so here we are. This is my first post as a Whatever I Am Now (because I still don’t have balls big enough to write The Diary of a Writer in th...
2 comments
Read more

The Diary of a Whatever I Am Now: Corrupted Hard Drive.

Take a walk with me. We’ll go back to August 2010, late August, when I finally found out that despite my below par A-Level grades, there was a university in the country that was prepared to give me a chance. Praise be to them. Ahead of starting this journey, my generous mother bought me a laptop. A brand spanking new laptop. That my kind and patient sister, and her partner, set up for me and taught me how to use. They deliberately picked something that would suit the university life style – and they were bang on the money in that respect. That laptop lasted I-don’t-care-to-remember how many assignments and a 10,000 word undergraduate dissertation. Let’s not forget, either, that during my first and second summers home from university, I also wrote two “novels” (I use that word in a bland and unimpressed tone, incidentally) that were typed on that same laptop. From there, we moved to postgraduate studies. More assignments and eventually a 25,000 word dissertation. By this point ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Diary of a PhD Student: New year, same PhD.

Do you remember when these blog posts were all about emotional breakdowns and panic attacks? Don’t worry; I’m sure there are more to come. But, over the Christmas period, I seem to have had something that feels akin to an epiphany when it comes to my PhD – or more specifically, these final months of it. Three years ago I had all the time in the world to finish this degree; now I have around six months. That’s a self-imposed deadline, negotiated, somewhat optimistically perhaps, between my supervisor and myself – I can take more time if I really need it – but I also know that now I have June in mind for my submission, June is the cut off. And so somehow, my three years equals a lifetime theory has gone out of the window entirely, with those three years having been whittled down to just six months. In my last post I reported back a little conversation I had with my second supervisor during our pre-Christmas catch-up, where she told me how important it is to enjoy the next few months...
Post a Comment
Read more