I’m writing a dissertation for the first time in my life, and it’s harder than expected. Not that I expected it would be easy. I am making progress, but it feels like it is often a few steps forward and a few steps backward. Instead of going straightforward in a line, I am winding myself through a maze with quite a few inevitable dead-ends.
Sometimes I write thousands of words and then immediately think how I am going to reframe the whole thing. And often, despite working on a chapter for weeks, I don’t have much to show for it at all, but I know I’ve been working, and I know that the work was necessary. Sometimes you don’t know where to go until you’ve explored around a bit.
But I’ve also felt terrified of my dissertation. I wondered at that, because I’ve written book-length projects before, and I’ve written academic papers, and there is nothing about this dissertation that I haven’t really done before. Except for one thing: I have a committee who will read this. I’ve never had a committee before, and they are made up of exceptionally talented people who are all more intelligent than I am. It’s intimidating, even though I know that they are there to help me.
I have written over 20,000 words on my dissertation, but I do believe I will rewrite and redo almost all of that, so it’s as if I’ve written nothing. And yet, the next 20,000 words will be a whole lot easier because of that foundation I have.
I think one conclusion is that when things take longer than you expect, it’s not necessarily your fault. Maybe you are doing something wrong, and maybe there are quicker ways of doing it, but you learn a lot from going the wrong way for a while. You build yourself up by making mistakes. Projects are not straightforward, and in the turns and curves and backtracks, they become much richer and more interesting.
Heather Hoyt 