dissertation: started
A historic day y’all. I STARTED MY THESIS.
I’ve been thinking about putting my first words ‘down on paper’ for almost three weeks now. To be honest there are concepts and one liners scattered through my notes app as I started thinking about the writing, so maybe technically I started it already, but today is the first day I opened up a brand new Google Doc and typed out my first words.
I set up my NaNoWriMo for 80,000 word first draft. Depending on my data collection, I would love to have an entire first draft complete by the end of the calendar year. You can tell me I’m delusional in the comments, that’s okay.
It’s strange because I love writing - as evidenced by me making a short form platform a long form space in the comments - but I don’t enjoy academic writing. I don’t like the rhythm or structure of it. I don’t like that people accept that hardly anyone will read it. I don’t like the stopping writing to cite or else I’ll never find it again. It does make me interested to know how writing at this length would feel, as I’ve always held dreams of being a published writer. And although technically I am, there’s a capacity I want to know I have to complete this dissertation.
I know the writing for me is a chaotic process - or maybe uneven is a gentler way to say that. I frequently write in bursts - like six hours a day and then don’t touch it for a week. I have never been a word count by day person, and I am not sure if I will need to figure out how to become one for this project. I may never get my writing badges on NaNoWriMo lol Theses are deeply personal processes and I am entirely unsure what writing mine will be like, and I’m excited by the unknown of that. The doing something I’ve never done before of that. And to be in the emotional position I am to be kind to myself with whatever my process is, I do hope it isn’t a source of wounding in the future.
December Sydney will probably look back at this and I wonder if she’ll be able to access what I’m feeling now. Or understand what it meant to be recovering from covid in bed while starting the dissertation - a stark difference from the dark academia library vision that 2021 Sydney would have imagined.
Onward.