My Writerly Blog

My supervisor brought to my attention today that she actually does read this thing (if anyone wonders, my supervisor is rad and awesome and the best ever. Ahem.), and that it's very interesting for her to read my post-supervisory meeting posts.  And I er, have not had a moment to post anything after our semesterly meeting last week. Sorry.  Here goes. I am becoming less nervous about these meetings, though I think I need to be watchful that I don't lull myself into thinking I'm safe.  If I want to finish this PhD before my funding runs out, I'm really going to have to get on top of things. At any rate, I find it always helps my mental state of being to compile a list of what I've actually been doing, so it doesn't look like I've done nothing. The list helps me see I'm not a total slacker. I brought in a preliminary outline of my critical thesis, and she promptly noted that each of my chapter titles contained an entire thesis.  Oops.  Narrowing in y...

I did indeed survive to write about my first yearly PhD supervisory committee meeting today. I came out roses, actually. Nice. I'd prepared a summary report a couple of weeks in advance, detailing my current research plan, my accomplishments this year (3 conference papers, 3 published short stories, 1 accepted paper, 2 conferences organized, various training schemes attended, background research conducted, classes taught), my difficulties (*cough* money *cough* resources *cough*), and my plan for next year. It turns out I've exceeded expectations. My committee felt my progress was more than sufficient for a full-time first year, much less a part-time. There was happiness all around. Mostly the session focused on the elements of the story that I will be building in the next few months, and some resources I should look into to help me think about them, which is always helpful. We did discuss something that weighed quite heavily on my mind all summer: whether or not I will sus...

I should have done this a couple of months ago... I guess I could post-date it, but I'll be all honest and stuff. At the beginning of this semester, I had a supervisor meeting, which inspired me to draw up a plan for how I'm going about this PhD. It's a good plan. Plans are great and all, but only as far as they actually work. So as I've used semesters (3 per year, fall, spring, summer) to milestone my plan, I'm going to post one of these at the end of each semester to see how I'm doing, and to see if I need to adjust my plan at all. Here goes. Semester 1 (Fall 2008) Plan & Outcomes: Plan: Explore idea, background of North Wales for inspiration for print novel Outcome : Did a lot of exploration, read some Welsh mythology, wandered around Anglesey taking pictures. I have a lot of ideas now for the novel, and not just based in Welsh mythology. I think this is going to take on a bit more of world mythology, sort of a globalization theme that reflects what ...