Writing fer Money, Reward in Trash

I wish that little anonymouse I had a few months ago would come back... I'm sure she would have something to say about the fact that I'm writing a friend's thesis. ;-)

For money, of course, so that's ok since it's Capitalism. And maybe it isn't a friend.. you know.. an acquaintance, more or less..

But here's the interesting bit .... I cranked out 1000 words tonight without the slightest problem or second thought. Just line after line of prose as I peered at journal articles on Questia. And it's probably as good as any writing as I do. Which makes me wonder why I have such a hard time with my own writing. If the quality were higher when I was writing for myself, that would mean one thing. But this stuff was sleek, academic, and gloriously, gloriously empty. It will certainly get a degree.

As a reward for that writing I stayed up late and watched.... whatever William Shatner is now starring in. And it is spectacular trash. And by spectacular I mean totally trashy and awesome.....

Aaah.. and I bookmarked all those lovely jobs in Korea...

"Harvest Fest" and Harvesting Silly Seeds..

Spent the evening at a "Harvest Fest" with a local church - the can't call it Halloween because Satan might come, and the we'd all be covered in blood-red, ropey splooge or something. Still, plenty of fun as the kiddies went wild for our games and giveaways and we had three members of our Women's Softball team there and they are always wildly enthusiastic and full of incredible energy. They had just come from school and directly after practice, without eating anything, but delivered for the kids. I feel a little *sniffle* coming on.

Got home and I've had another paper accepted for conference presentation. Hilton Head, South Carolina, Mid January. Maybe take the BAG and make it holiday-like. I am getting good at the "means nothing but sounds like a conference title" thing. Because I'm working on a review of "The Dwarf," I came up with this monstrosity:

Representing Modernization: Infinity and Inversion in Selected Work of Kim Yong-Ik and Cho Sehui

Now that's just shameless, since I have no idea what I will write about. Still, it will be another trip to someplace..... else... and another notch on the publication/presentation bedpost.

And, of course, plenty of fun to write as I will have to delve much more deeply into the Modernization/Industrialization of Korea, which was a pretty interesting period.

Ho hum...

"SLO" Instructors? Redundant, right?

MCAA Conference paper is growing in leaps and bounds, since I am at a conference on "Strengthening Students Success." The conference is at the Moderately Nice Conference Hotel, and as a volunteer my only real job is to drink coffee and ensure that session evaluations aren't filled out by the session leaders.

About 200 educators are here from around the state, which virtually guarantees that Student Success will increase, at least for a few days, in their districts. The "theme' is Student Learning Outcomes (SLO), which is the flavor du jour in semi-administrative academia. It comes with the standard, "how dare you judge me?" reaction from faculty.

But all this nice time allows me to search the web for examples of conference papers (and boggle at how stupid I am - my writing style is linear as algebra compared to most of this papers) and lift little bits and approaches. Between this thing and a quick round-trip flight to LA this weekend, I should have the paper done by the weekend's end.

And the presentation I was going to wait for on Sunday seems to have been cancelled, which will save me the cost of another night in the Hotel. All goodage..

Entering the Academic Borg

When you can write a jargon-filled sack of shit like:

Kim Yong Ik (1909-1996) was a pioneering Korean-American author. His use of language and close attention to local custom, whether in Korea or the United States, was married to an often nearly arid approach to culture which initially seems without judgment almost intentionally acultural while at the same time larded with cultural Golems and reference points. His work was simultaneously traditional and nearly post-modern – it stood at a diasporic crossroad where perception is crossed by praxis. It was also deceptively simple, using language carefully, typically with a strongly defined narrative center.

you might just have been in academia too long!

But, you know... props to me!

The Rubber Stamp is In

The Division Chair chimes in and I am done...

I join with Professor (Name Redacted) in approving your thesis. It was well written and interesting. I will be submitting a change of grade form in about a week (I am away from the office currently) and you are ready for graduation. Please contact the graduation department for further information. Attached is information about binding your thesis. Congratulations, you have done a great job.

His failure to use the word "genius", "inspired" or phrase "for the ages" irks me. But I will take my sheepskin and skulk away.

Wheee...

CV for Korea done and will go out this weekend after looks at it..

relentless tinkering on the thesis but now it is surely done and I will send it off tomorrow goddamit! Up to 18,500 words which is just excessive!

all that's left is the abstract for MACCA...

BAG graduated last weekend and I should get pictures of that soon.

Mr. Korea became Mr. USA and I will see him this weekend to celebrate...

Yeesh!

I finally got a scuffle with my gym worked out and got my card back today. Which caused me to walk over there and work out. Let's say things are not well ... if my body is a temple its the freaking Parthenon. A three mile round trip interrupted by a simple all-body lifting routine (with extra light weights) and I might was well have been hit by a truck.. ;-) At least I listened to some Korean language on the walk section of my slow-motion suicide. So if I keep doing this it should be a study aid as well.

The last MLA changes to the thesis occur tonight and then it will be off to the department head for rubber stamp. Also tonight I need to finish my abstract for MACCA in October. That and polish up the CV for Korean eyes and I will be in good shape on my exit strategy....

BugFiddlery Redux..

17,737 words.. but much stronger...

Lovely advisor returns manana and I will send this off to get his final stamp of approval...

then I will have to stop for actual printing. ;-)

Will it never end?

The question is, of course, rhetorical.

Of course it will end and badly at that.

But how cruel is a advisor to ok a thesis and then scarper off to parts unknown until June 5th. I just sit here and obsessively pick at the thing. I've become a more productive version of Oscar Wilde who once wrote that he "spent all morning putting in a comma and all afternoon taking it out."

As I read over that last paragraph I realize the word "productive" isn't quite right, since it implies some kind of useful product.. I have been... protean?... or maybe the paper has become protean and I've become some combination of Narcissus and Mickey Mouse as the sorcerer's apprentice.

Who knows, I never understood British mythology anyway...

But the damned thing is growing again... 17,566 words.

Like the moron I am? I'm going to print out another version and edit the thing...

moron!

Upon Holding a New Manuscript

There is something frightening about holding, fresh from the mailbox, a manila envelope which contains one of the last two unread works by My Big Korean Author. Because my thesis, already away to the evil powers that be, is done and I don't need anything upsetting the analytic applecart I have painfully constructed from lies, alcohol, hotel stays and misanthropy.

Which is why it is a brilliant that this work brilliantly fits with my brilliant analysis. This is sort of on the bonus "I'm a Genius (As I have always suspected)!" tip. In fact the mystery new piece is a rewriting (or similarly timed) of the problematic piece My Big Korean Author wrote. It is interesting to see that MBKA is bluntly addressing the US and Korea and how our cultures interact. Some of it is still a bit too obvious (The female narrator is named "Han E. Moon") but in general it is a really nice piece and it touches on a wide variety of cultural interactions, both good and bad. If more widely read I'm sure it would offend gyopo and wayguk alike. Which is all one can really ask.

If it ever gets to the book stage, this thing will flow in like butter...

Long Time No Post: Work And Thesis

It is the death-march time at work.... two weeks of ridiculous events to be planned and run all with the lovely interference of the District Office, which as usual has no idea what is actually happening on the campus. Every time there is a moment to breathe the DO sends down some other insane request. Add to this weekends full of sports playoffs and evenings spent studying Hangul. Busy busy

On an amusing work note, the "Hispanic/Latino" advertising firm which works at our sister college somehow managed to completely miss Cinco De Mayo and not get into the biggest local Spanish-Newspaper. Another triumph for consultancy! This, kind of incompetence, of course, will not stop the chancellor from ramming this firm down our throats, since their president is the brother of an important staff member at the District Office. Famiglia baby!

The "final rough draft" of the thesis has gone off to the advisor. It is 17,359 words of text (footnotes included) and it has gone to a total of 74 pages merely by virtue of adjusting the margins to MLA standards for binding. Amazing. Now I wait with bated breath for the advisor's response. If it is good it is all just formatting after that. And to figure out the paperwork and get graduated.

Assuming graduation, I then begin looking for work in Korea. I would take a job in September if one arose. This is the mid-point of the Korean academic year, so jobs are a bit fewer. It would also be a bit of a rush at this point, but I am ready if it comes to that. If that doesn't pan out I would go in March, but quit work in early January so I can spend some time on the road with the fambly. This would also allow me to bank a bit more.. well.. bank.. Which would be a good thing, as we say.

The BAG is nearly convinced that she should follow shortly thereafter. She has concluded her BA in English and decided she wants to be a teacher. I go and blaze the trail for 6 months or so (and sleep with a lot of Korean chicks!) and she follows for a year. She gets to try teaching, I get my teaching in Korea and we don't have to endure a two-year separation. Love is grand, and all, but two-years might be too much.

This much is certain, once I'm out of my current job it is unlikely that I will take another one much like it. I'll probably also never make this much money again, but at this point that seems unimportant. There is only so much soul to suck.

Since my research in Korea is going to make me a world-famous writer, cultural arbiter and man of wealth and taste, I suppose I shan't need a job.

It is a lovely vision! ;-)

Drafted...

The second rough draft of the thesis is now complete at 17,057 words excluding footnotes. Now it goes out to the various readers: The Sister, The Korean, and The Professor. Give them a week to digest the thing (while continuing to do some line-editing) and when it comes back roll it all in and send it off to The Advisor. After his changes, formatting and then, dare I say it(?), approval and binding?

An amusing note about “Barely Accredited Master’s University.” Apparently I need to file some notification of intent to graduate paperwork. How did I find this out? A random meeting with my academic advisor as she sat at a table in our “College Transfer” day. I’m sure they would have got around to officially notifying me about this.

Eventually?

Farkery and Thesis

A lovely summery day here in Big City. I have almost forgotten last month's snow and frigid temperatures. I decided that rather than doing anything useful or social I would grab my camera and take a ramble.

Just a little bit of useless fuckery, wander around out in the sun for no reason. Once I get out there I realize I should do a bit more useless fuckery. All this work has been boring and since the whole universe is premised on useless fuckery, it's not going anywhere.. well, it's expanding, but it's not going anywhere.. so why should I be any different? Except maybe not expand as much.

Not good for a fat guy.

Anyway, I don't want to stop at any of the bars along the way, so I decide to take a pill. On top of my desk/cabinet/mirror thingie I have a motley collection of pills, in sets of one or two. These have been collected from prescriptions over the years for various ailments and if I don't finish a prescription I just toss the remaining few onto the cabinet. One downside of this is I have no idea what they are. I know that the 3 big blue ones are some kind of anti-psychotic a friend gave me that he said would calm me down if I was nervous. I took one and nearly flipped out, so I really don't want those. I should probably grind them into some hamburger and feed them to the dog next door, or something. But after looking at my options, I picked one of three lovely pinkish and little ones and had it with a cup of coffee. I sure hope I don't get addicted.

I walk a few blocks and realize that I forgot to bring something to write on. I see an Office Depot and decide to go inside. Just inside the door is a lovely row of small digital tape recorders and I realize I must have one. After 20 minutes of puzzling, I make my choice. Then, standing in line as the woman is unpacking it from its protective case in the store, which is just as difficult for her to open as it is for me to open the package when I get out on the street (see the lovely picture of my cut finger - boohoo for me!), I start freaking out because I haven't picked up the pad and pen I came in for. The whole time I'm in there I'm peering over at the “school supplies” area to try to figure out if I have time to run over there and get the pen and pad before she rings me up. There is not such an amount of time. It isn't until I get out of the store that I remember that the I paid 49 dollars for a digital tape-recorder so I wouldn't have to use a pad and pen while I was walking.

So now I'm thinking that pinkish pill was pretty good!

And then some delicious coffee from 7-11 powered by ginseng, guarana and yurba mate. So now I'm wondering about (or is that hoping for?) potential complicative interactions between the pinkish pill and all the hippie-drugs in my caffeine. When I get outside the sun seems a bit brighter, the sky a bit bluer, and the sidewalk a bit more like undulating polka-dotted taffy. So I think it worked.

Further down I walk past the sign that influenced one of my Spanish-language adverts on the last campaign. It is here right above the advert. I'm not sure “influenced” isn't overstating it. It's the "Se Habla" part and I liked it and the advertising did work. :-) Anyway, I need to use the bitching stars in the next one!

Got down to a Mega-store and purchased polarizing something or others to cover my lenses. Unfortunately the store did not have a lens cap for the lens missing one, neither did it have the screw on cover I need for the back of one of my lenses. I'll pick those up tomorrow at Funky Little Kamera Store over by work. Then I'll have my camera kit in order, should I ever decide to leave the job and become an itinerant photo-blogger.

Up the stairs to the gym for some drug-addled exercises to protect the old back, and then back home with a lovely slice of NY style thin-crust cheese pizza on the way.

Tonight all about typing in latest version of edits on the thesis.. it is getting very close now.. 16,343 words. Still a bit long even with huge chunks cut out in revision. I've kept each substantial re-write of the piece, so all the bits that are out.. descriptive style, social ironist, even country by country analysis… are all on the computer somewhere.

The lovely BAG is coming over tomorrow night and she is working on her final papers. This leads to my favorite kind of couple night - close proximity and occasional chatter, but not the relentless conversational navel-gazing that women like. Men are so much better at communicating things than women are. If a picture is worth a thousand words? A grunt is worth a thousand pictures.

Anyway, at some point I'll have to declare the writing done, get to the formatting, and then get to the turning in and publishing.

Oh yeah, also saw a nice bumper sticker. Just about two weeks ago I was talking with some co-workers about how you don't see the stupid "W" bumper stickers anymore (This is Big City, after all, not Bumbfuck Tejas). I laughed.

What Good News Looks Like:

Hello Charles;

I enjoyed reading your draft and your insightful critique of (The Author)'s writings. I made my observations directly on the copy. In terms of overall structure, I have the following suggestions:

a) Make sure to reread your thesis for fluidity. There are certain sections that are repetitious and need clarification.

b) You may consider attenuating the biographical component of (The Author)'s life. You have enough text analysis that speaks of (The Author)'s condition as author and individual. You could omit a few passages about his past without compromising the integrity of your analysis.

c) Think about the choice of certain key terms: dislocation, relocation, dissociation, etc. and their application to the context at hand. Are you using these terms in a consistent manner?

c) Lastly, polish up your draft. The content is clearly there, but you need to go over your thesis and
clarify and reword certain areas.


Your overall thesis is solid, insightful, and unique. You should now concentrate on making the necessary modifications so that you can submit it.


Nice Work!

Holy Cow of the Blessed Sciences of Cowology.

Last night I walked home from work. Primarily to start working off some the tremendous layer of blubber I’ve laid on working on these degrees. It’s a lovely little 4-mile jaunt and with about 1.5 miles to go (at the point where I can see the last stoplight before I turn off Main St.) I was pondering how far off that seemed and POW.. it hit me…. Location… The Author is all about location. Specifically dislocation and relocation. And all palaver I’d been typing about vague concepts like “outsiderness” and “vision” were really ways to address dislocation and returning home.

Go fucking figure!

I got home and quickly re-wrote the first 30 pages and suddenly it all flows together and I’m not trying to stitch mis-matched half-ideas together. Now Confucius fits with exile, vision is not attempting to uneasily cohabit with writing style, and the story that didn’t fit is a clear steppingstone on the way to where The Author was working when he expired (probably from reflexive Anti-Americanism!).

The bonus to all this is that I also re-ordered the last 30 pages (they still need to be rewritten) and cut large swaths of off-point stuff (all of which I saved, since it was good analysis, just about other things) and still have 15 minutes before House comes on the air.

Now that’s a productive night.

And if only House had actually been on TV tonight. ;-)

I guess I don’t watch enough TV to know.

Something to work on when the degree is complete

14,000 words in the rearview mirror...

This is getting tougher, since I keep chopping out vast sections of stupidity, but it goes along - Every time I take a break to read something I have additions.. just added a fragment of his final (unfinished) novel to the list of works I discuss... it seems to show that his late-career alteration in style was heading somewhere..

I wonder how far off of my original proposal I am allowed to go? ;-)

Suweeeeeeet!

Advisor just returned and also returned my thesis proposal. No substantive changes and a few nice catches to boot...

Now it's time to get the old afterburners fired up again and start writing this puppah!

This will be a bit complicated by the fact I will also be training to play Women's Softball (it's complicated, but requires no surgery or hormones) with an every-day regimen. Actually, I hope the two disciplines overlap....

off to ponder......

Everybody's Happy Nowadays?

The Program Director has officially signed off on my thesis proposal. My advisor, now in Paraguentina or somewhere, now needs to chime in and I'm off to the races...

In news from the musically unlikely, the AARP has begun using The Buzzcocks' "Everybody's Happy Nowadays" as theme music in their adverts.

proposal is in...

not very impressive as I'm more interested in archaeology than ideology.. and I'm sure I didn't spell one of those words correctly...

but no more writing til it is accepted. Off to up the hill and a weekend of natural this or that.. unless my propoal is accepted. Then I will type furiously, weeping over my keyboard, as I look outside at the big mountains.. ;-)

creeping towards February..

13,175 words completed and my proposal a few sentences away from ready to send…

305 words per day.. this represents some slippage, but the numbers are getting small enough so that I’m less concerned about that then doing good analyses of the stories and novels. Once the rough draft is done that will happen anyway… a good re-reading and a crud load of analysis.

For now.. after having to do some actual work at home, I’m going to sleep..

Plenty of other amusing things going on.. but the thesis is consumed of my brainness...

How did I get to Fifty Pages?

Just a little bit of boinking around (I’ve been a bit uninspired) and I’m up to 12,733 words and it occurs to my I might well go above 15k by a substantial margin. This thing is creepy…

To get to 15k I only need about 250 words a day… which will be written, but in chunks..

That’s less than 10 pages and this tumor of a thing won’t be done growing at that point..

Weird.. I feel wildly unproductive and yet I’m closing in on my first goal here..

It will be very funny if my advisor doesn’t like my proposal, since the thesis is essentially written.

For now.. with the stinking Patriots out of the SuperBowl, it’s off to sleep..

It Ain't the Kill, It's the Thrill of the Chase.....

Ho-hum….

Did I mention that the book of short stories I got is remaindered from the U.S. Army recreational center in Granite City Illinois? This means that every time I open it I am immediately surrounded by a cloud of 40 year old cigarette smoke. I mean the smell is obnoxious – and I’m not one of those pantywaists who want to ban smoking in bars or in public (I think it should be mandatory in birth-wards and rest homes – let’s get to the farking Darwinism!).

Anyway, I ground out some more tonight… I’m up to 11,516 words completed.. which leaves 3,484 measly little words to go.. This also means my daily word count only needs to be 268, which is getting to be quite reasonable and if I pound a couple thousand words out over the weekend I will be able to leave my computer at home when I go a-visiting in two weekends (or, conversely, bring it and really pound this thing into the ground).

I have also entered into a little reading/support group with some of my compatriots. In this group I learned we actually have six months after the end of the course to turn the thing in. I should be done well in time and suspect I’ll be of more use to the rest of the group than they to me – only because I’ll ready to edit their work with mine already in the bag. Well, advisor and Division Chair willing.

Anyway, it’s cold here and I am tired.. Had a lovely day at work – I caused the CEO to erupt violently at one of the VPs and anytime a slug gets hollered at it’s a darned good thing! Our numbers are still way up, and it’s at least partly due to my work, so it looks like this gig will continue to bankroll me until I leave for Korea, whenever that might be.

Thesis - Cranking Along

11,051 words completed after some dorking around last night... still narrowing in on my thesis, but this is getting much closer... the evolution of outsider's vision in the work of my boy.. something like that..

Also played around with my little proposal that is due by next week...

Hotel Medicine again, probably this weekend..

2/3 of a rough draft...

6868 New Words
3340 Old words

10,208 total words and .666 of the way to my draft…

The Hotel Medicine kind of worked… since I doubled my New Words and still have some of today to go… from now on all my new words need to be critical analysis though, no more literature research or context or blah blah blah...

When I got home I re-arranged my bedroom so that my laptop can go on my desk and I have a little table for papers right next to that.. certainly has already helped since I sat there for an hour or so and cranked things out… this new word count is in spite of the fact that I pruned out a couple of stupid things that I had in there… so I guess the editing has begun. I think I need to swing over to my course page and see if I owe any instructor type any instructional type thing…

When this is done I guess I’d better resurrect my “Who Is Michael Breen and Why Does He Hate the Koreans?” piece…

3/5 of the way to a rough draft...

9,000 words just now... so 36 pages... this thing may turn out to be longer than 60 pages by the time I hit my draft....

Well, I am sort of losing steam here.. I blame the fact that the Bears-Seahawks game hasn't been very interesting.. it's just starting to pick up so maybe that will get the old adrenaline going... and there's the holiday tomorrow. It would still be sweet to get to 10k pages today...

I can't imagine how anyone writes a freaking book.... ;-)

Thesis Watch -- Saturday at 9:30

So, with some writing done and the BAG in the hotel room watching Dr. Phil and other TV atrocities, I had a chance to pop open the last piece of important works that Kim wrote – well, that is the last piece that I received. It’s a book of short stories entitled and it coincidentally contains the first story of Kim’s that I ever read, “They Won’t Crack it Open.

The stories are short, elegant, and punch well above their apparent weight. The stories are all of small but heartbreaking losses and my lad was writing at his best when he did these. This morning (coffee, crackers and cheese, mmmm!) I read his last story and in it he overdoes all his traditional themes to the point that the story is obvious and overwrought. Interesting since he had been in the US for quite a long time when he wrote it and I think that shows.. the subtlety is gone … the Asian desire not to judge (publicly) and reduce “face” is gone from his writing and that reduces its charm substantially..

5,157
3340
6,503 to go..

and that means just less that 2,000 words done in this bout of hotel medicine. Currently that means I need to do about 384 words a day, but if they next two days are productive that should drop substantially…

If I do another round of hotel medicine this long weekend I should hit my goal of 10K before the week begins…

1:30 Thesis Update...

Had to run to a printer and proof something for work - which broke up the day. Also worked on my brilliant table showing all of the author’s work. Since I will have only one table , I need to make it a special one ;-)

came down to the Mexican restaurant and there must be a big community of Koreans around here somewhere because the drink refrigerator has cokes, agua frescas (?), coke and soju! I am now eating a veggie burrito, drinking a Heineken and swiping someone’s signal because the hotel wireless is no longer doling out IP addresses..

I have 4,836 words of new writing and still
3,340 words of the old
which means 6,824 to go and I sure would like to get to a total of 10k done before I leave this here place.. Still.. it is nice to see the halfway hump well behind me and the .666 hump ahead….

10 AM Update..

well.. now the research is beginning to pay off as I have written and cut and pasted from my notes on one of the novels and my count has hopped up..

I have 4,549 words of new writing and still
3,340 words of the old
which means 7,111 to go and I am more that halfway through my first cut at the thing..

And I think this means I will do the hotel thing again... spend all week reading and taking notes and next weekend assembling the brute... Heck, I haven't even really stepped to my theoretical approaches (read, "critical wankery") section yet.. that ought to be good for three or four pages of vapor...

The coffee seems to be hitting...

Friday Morning 9:30 Thesis Watch

Of course Hotel living meant drinking beer last night, so I woke up a bit soft-headed. It is also bitterly cold outside and I left my toothbrush at home. Ideal writing conditions, I think. ;-)

Went out and got coffee and a bagel and sat down to watch playoff coverage on ESPN. Fired up the Dolls on iTunes and finally did a bit of work.. as of 9:30 we are...


I have 3,718 words of new writing and still
3,340 words of the old
which means 7,942 to go and I am approaching halfway through..

Stalling... stalling.. staaaaaaaaaaalling!

Reading the two examples they have given me for theses and getting cranky. One is ridiculously jargon-ridden piece arguing that Virginia Woolf was a great writer and not insane – certainly both are possible, but apparently you need to take sides. Worse, the second one compared Walt Whitman to Jim Morrison and somehow managed to avoid the phrase “bloated egotist.” I’m not sure how this is possible? The second one is even shorter than the first, not even making it to 13K words. So I still like my goal of 15k.

Did some research and found two more post-collection stories that may be available through inter-library loan. Have to check on that tomorrow. The Muse Project and MELVYL reveal no other folks who have done any criticism on the dude, so I am even more reassured that I may be the lone ranger

I think this week is to re-read all the pieces and take notes… so here we are..

I have 3,383 words of new writing and still
3,340 words of the old (added a few!)
which means 8,277 to go
(and I guess means that new words will surpass old ones over this weekend)

So I’m at about 345 words needed per day…

Thursday and Friday night I will be in a hotel with the Bizarre Alien Girlfriend and Friday morning she has to work.. so I will just sit there and type… It would be “An Excellent Thing” to be at about 40 pages by the weekend.

Took a lovely walk this afternoon.. intarwebs still down despite landlady’s attempts to fix her router… also did some work-work… so that’s a bonus type thing…

Thesissification

Ho hum.

Got a new short story and a very slight biographical essay. Read both and finished the two things I hadn’t read. Took about 1,000 words of notes, but that doesn’t count for anything until it’s in the rough draft.

Got publication dates into my database which is very useful in tracking Kim’s development (If I get completely mad I may pop all this into a relational database with character traits, symbols, locations, etc, and see what pops up that my bloodshot eyes are missing.). Still waiting on the book of short stories which is the most important of the two pieces I have on order. Tomorrow I’ll order the last book I need.

Then it will be finishing up notes on all the books and a bit more writing. After that (Sunday night?) have everything printed out and hop skip and jump over it to nail down my thesis. Class does begin on Monday, after all… ;-) I’ll also have to print out the example thesis they sent me to steal a bit of structure, which I am currently in dire need of.

I have 3,021 words of new writing and still
3,304 words of the old
which means 8,675 to go
(and I guess means that new words will surpass old ones over this weekend)

But all that means in instead of 340 words a day I must now produce 347 (Interesting how this number slips incrementally – a little finger-based math seems to indicate that if I just whacked out 175 words right now I’d hold to the 340 line – amusing, when you consider this blog post is already almost double that 175 I’d need).

Also, to hit the “Just Barely Accredited Master’s Program” model I will need at least 11 more non-authorial citations, which won’t be easy to find for an author no one has ever heard of or written on (I have no idea how someone would have done this research before the intarwebs).

Doublin’ down on the “That Ain’t Gonna Happen” (from now on the “TAGH”) quotient!

Thesis and Thethat

After two days of hard work at Swamp Valley College I was able to return to the thesis tonight.

Like the asshole that I am, I have decided that I need 15,000 words, so now I am even more behind. ;-)

Received an anthology which included a more complete biography of Kim as well as an interview and a fragment of an unfinished novel. The bio also had some dates of writing/publication. So after a bit of desultory writing I made a lovely excel spreadsheet with all known books and short stories. Now I know what I have, what is on order, and the one book I apparently still need to get. I swear I already purchased it. Oh well, the spreadsheet has a lovely area from comments so I can keep better track of these things and how the interlace.

I have 2,516 words of new writing and still
3,304 words of the old
which means 9,180 to go

as well as a lovely database and the vague realization I had better print all this crap out over the weekend and come up with some kind of narrowed thesis for the thing. Maybe it’s time to write the initial abstract? That’ll add 150 words to the thing without even having to think about it.

Ah well.. now I need an even 340 words a day to hit my target of rough draft by February… never gonna happened kiddies. ;-)

Oh, Yeah.. also time to burn a backup CD just out of general feelings of paranoia.

Master's Update

I forgot I had done 10 pages of work on the original paper... which means I actually have

2,239 new words
3,304 old words

5,543 total words which puts me at about .33 of where I need to be by the end of the month. No intarwebs connection at home last night so I pounded above 2k on the new words.

Also found the text I need to give the analysis of multicultural literature which will provide my measuring rubric. I plan to put this into "definitions" and work bits of it into the body of the thing. Still feeling my way towards my abstract, but I think a week more will bring this clear. Also, ordered the last existing piece of (known) printed lit for the man.....

I might even get this done... ;-)

Thesis Watch - Prelude

So here I am.... author in hand (Kim Yong Ik) and more or less of a topic (Vision/Divison Perception/Reception and how that works for Kim as a multicultural writer). Now it is to write the thing.

And I have a plan, oh, do I have a plan.

I have approximately 1,000 words written out of a proposed 13,000. 13,000 would be 50 good pages of text not counting all the other stuff involved in the thesis. That should be a good start.

Class begins on the 8th of January and ends on the 3rd of March.

So, I'd like to have my rough draft in place by the end of January which would give me a month for revisions. This means, if I write nothing else before the first, in January I will need to write 400 words a day.

Of course this will never happen in a million years, but what must it be like to have an entire month for nothing but revision? ;-)