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Showing posts from March, 2016

The Diary of a PhD Student: Pulling my book apart...

Two posts in two weeks; it’s almost, almost , like I’m getting a better hang on this blogging thing. Or perhaps the more likely explanation is that I need somewhere to hang my editorial woes and, given that my characters have taken over much of my dining room at present – I’ll explain that part in a second – the internet seems like the best place to air this writerly laundry. It’s Monday morning. The sun is coming in through the open doors behind me and I have a cup of tea sitting to the left of me. Over the weekend I completed a ‘tidy up’ of my book which has left me in a reasonably good position to start the next round of edits. On the topic of that next round of edits: I actually have a plan in place. A real, ordered, seems-totally-feasible-to-edit-a-book this way plan. ‘What’s the catch?’ you ask. I’ll let you know when I find it. For now, though, my dining room is quickly turning into a physical representation of what the inside of my head looks like – maybe that’s the ca

The Diary of a Phd Student: Well, I'm still here.

It’s a teenie, tiny, I’m between things on my to-do list and I really should be doing other work right now, sort of update this time. After my recent editing-inspired-meltdown, it seemed like it would be worth checking in with anyone reading to assure them that a) I am perfectly fine and b) I have been through the first and second rounds of feedback provided by my supervisors, and everything is okay. I mean, I’ll be working 12 – 18 hour days forever, but apart from that everything is definitely okay.   I have a surprisingly manageable shopping list in terms of what needs to be addressed and edited in the second draft of my book/creative element and – if I’m being brutally honest with myself – as yet no one has given me feedback that I haven’t agreed with on some level. There are pacing issues galore and there are about a thousand missed opportunities for making the book richer – in terms of plot and character – than it currently stands. The critic has taken over now – as if th