what i do-- or a really long justification/explanation for taking nearly three years to write 60 pages

so since i arrive thirteen minutes early to my office hours--70% norwegian chocolate, cafe au lait and cookie monster abc cookies in hand--i thought i'd do something i'd been promising (mostly to my dad) i'd do. and that's explain what it is i do when i have 'office hours.' and in doing so i'll also achieve something i always try to do when i sit down to work (but always end up postponing)--and that's begin by writing.

the black and white of it is this. i'm an abd phd with an ma in english literature. which means i've completed all the necessary coursework and passed my comprehensive oral and written exams for the phd. which is a step away from being a doctor--not, mind you, of anything life-saving (at least not medically so) but of paper. technically, of philosophy. the 'abd' literally means: all but dissertation. and that's where i'm and and where i've been for going on two and a half years. one of those years was spent with a glorious writing fellowship from my department during which time i wrote what's called the 'prospectus' which is a layout/proposal in essay-ish form about what my disseration will be about. the 'prospectus' is in some way the-cart-before-the-horse kind of thing because it's supposed to lay out all of the arguments, present the research and thread together nicely the two-hundred-odd pages you plan to write. and as all advisors will tell you--it's something you have to write your way through even though odds are what you write will be nothing like that.

my prospectus more or less says that i will write five chapters including an introduction (which is basically the prospectus) that argues that twentieth century literature can be read as a series of "deafened encounters." i argue for a 'modernism' that is tied by the era's preoccupation with not sound, but silences as a kind of counter to the "loudness" that is implicit in a century that sees the birth of the city (as in railroad tracks that don't yet go anywhere--but will eventually in Sister Carrie's evocation of Chicago) the machinery of two world wars (Dos Passos' USA trilogy is amazing for documenting this) and nothing short of a revolution in language (visual prose that seeks to mimic the sounds of movement as in Gertrude Stein's 'automatic' poetry). i propose to start across the atlantic with my beloved Virginia Woolf and stream of consciousness (a new way of writing that mimics the way we think and associate rather than the way we speak) and end somewhere with Joy Kogawa's Obasan which renders the silence of internment camps and the way they infect, so to speak, the body. In between I argue for a kind of "sign language" that literature engages--something, of course, close to home and something i discovered i've been bookmarking in my reading all along.

so actually, now that i've written that it all sounds pretty good. it's the in-between, of course, where you get lost. so back to my glorious fellowship--i did finish the prospectus which meant a lot of research. as one of my professors describes it--you bury yourself with books and reading and then eventually you write your way out. i read a lot about literary 'modernism' and a lot about a new field called 'disability studies' and tried to connect five chapters and come up with that one defining sentence that encompasses all of my readings.

that was the first year--oh, and being pregnant and mostly just wanting to sleep all the time. so in some ways i was really fortunate to have a pregnancy fellowship which was invaluable and has produced, if i say so myself, a beautiful, brilliant little boy. not as much paper, but definitely more love.

the second year i spent on what is conceivably my second chapter about carson mccullers. she was a queer little southern writer who wrote her first novel barely out of high school--and thanks to oprah you may be familiar with it: heart is a lonely hunter. it has, at its center, a 'deaf-mute' who all of these lonely townspeople are obsessed with. and it seemed like the perfect place to begin. my question of course was, why a deaf man? but of course i had to start with the burying-myself-with books and for me that meant obsessively reading every novel, short story, review and biography (there are three and one unfinished memoir) written about mcculers. and it's her life mostly that gets written about--she lived in a house with many famous writers and had horrible health (her first stroke happened in her twenties). in august i finished a draft of about 60 pages and am still revising.

the end goal is a tenure-track professorship at a university. but here's where it gets crazy. it's not a job that people pay a lot for, and there are many many many more people who want these jobs than there are available. like all industries, academia is going the way of part-time, temporary contracted workers which means droves of abds are teaching a class at a community college here and a class at a small university there--usually for less that minimum wage by the time you count up driving time, grading time, and office hours in an office that you don't have. oh, and of course all taht driving around and shuffling means you don't finish writing.

so early on michael and i decided that spending time writing and finishing made much more sense than running in place. and of course, when baby owen arrived, teaching a class here and there just to pay for daycare seemed absurd as well. the challenge has been of course, how to focus and sustain the writing with a new baby who suddenly is no longer a baby any more. to move forward towards goals that no longer seem so appealing. and much of my writing energy went to places like this--our family blog--and elsewhere with other new mothers and writers who were trying to make motherhood coexist with writing and careers that are considered frivolous by an increasiingly bottom-line world. but that's fodder for another post.

so, short answer. i'm working on my dissertation. there is no 'due date.' there is the 'job market' which posts available tenure track positions annually around october. sometimes there are ten jobs that you qualify for in your field--i could apply for an american literature job, a modernist job, or a geneeral twentieth century literature job as well as stretch myself for a disability studies job or a women's studies job. and someitmes there are three. i'm told applying for a job is a three-year process which means that whether there are three or thirty jobs there are usually hundreds of people applying for htem. usually with "better" degrees, more publications, more experience etc. but that in the end it comes down to "fit." i need to have two chapters done, at least, to apply for these jobs--one to submit, one for a job talk in the event that i get invited to interview and then get invited to give a 'talk.' i'd need to be done with both of these chapters conceivably by summer of the previous fall to give faculty time to write letters of recommendation and to begin putting together my portfolio--teaching statements, professional statments, evaluations etc.

so far i'm not there yet. and i may not be there next fall. in a few days i have a meeting with my chair to talk about where i'm at in my revisions of this chapter. i have some new ideas about how to frame it--and i'm excited about that. michael wrote me an amaziing valentine's letter and it's relevant because he reminded me about patience--reassured me that we didn't have to have everything figured out today, or even tomorrow. because in three weeks we're moving out of the country for anywhere from 3-4 months. and i'll take my laptop and i'll take my books. but i'll also take my toddler. and i may or may not come home with a baby on the way. we may or may not return to norway. and i may or may not apply for jobs next fall. right now i'm going to keep writing, keep reading (and this includes lots of dr. seuss and chicka chicka boom boom).

right now, this is what i'm working on and i think it's amazing in itself--it's the last few lines of walt whitman's "song of myself". which if you haven't read i highly recommend. i had ignored it for a long, long time. and i think, at least to me, this is love--or at least how we imagine or hope it to be so.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,

And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,

Missing me one place search another,

I stop somewhere waiting for you.