The Diary of a Phd Student: Well, I'm still here.

It’s a teenie, tiny, I’m between things on my to-do list and I really should be doing other work right now, sort of update this time. After my recent editing-inspired-meltdown, it seemed like it would be worth checking in with anyone reading to assure them that a) I am perfectly fine and b) I have been through the first and second rounds of feedback provided by my supervisors, and everything is okay. I mean, I’ll be working 12 – 18 hour days forever, but apart from that everything is definitely okay.

I have a surprisingly manageable shopping list in terms of what needs to be addressed and edited in the second draft of my book/creative element and – if I’m being brutally honest with myself – as yet no one has given me feedback that I haven’t agreed with on some level. There are pacing issues galore and there are about a thousand missed opportunities for making the book richer – in terms of plot and character – than it currently stands.

The critic has taken over now – as if the critic operates as an entirely separate entity inside my writer’s brain – and frankly told the writer, ‘You can do better than this, you know?’

‘Yes, I know,’ said the writer.

And here we are.

The baby steps forward that I’ll be taking over the coming weeks will be to draw up a timeline of my book, as it stands, and then draw up a timeline of my book as I want it to stand. The first steps to fixing a problem are identifying chiefly that a problem exists, and then identifying specifically what the problem actually is – perhaps a slight bastardisation of an old adage, but it certainly works this way when it comes to editing a book.

With that said, if anyone needs me then I’ll be hiding under sheets of A3 paper surrounded by highlighters and two heavily annotated copies of my manuscript – probably trying to work out which piece of action belongs to which chapter, and which chapter belongs in the bin.

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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...

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...

The Diary of a (former) PhD Student: Now I actually have run out of work.

In case the title of this blog post didn’t give it away, let me clarify: I have handed in my PhD thesis. I handed it in exactly a week ago, actually, and I would have blogged a brag sooner if not for the fact that the day after my hand-in, a family member was taken into hospital, and the last week has sort of slipped away from me as a result of that. It’s been a while since I gave you an update at all, I know, and the last time we “talked”, I was in this blissfully ignorant place of not having any work to do. Let me catch you up from there: My readers were wonderful. All of those who read and provided feedback for the book part of the project were insightful, considerate, and careful with their responses. I ironed out technical issues and even one or two final plot holes and so, to those who read the manuscript ahead of hand-in, I cannot and will not ever be able to thank you enough. ...

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