It is coming up on the first six months of my PhD. A friend said that studying/researching for a PhD is an apprenticeship. It’s about learning to be an academic. Once the PhD is achieved there’s more work ahead if academia is the choice of occupation. Or more accurately, if one is lucky enough to get to work in academia afterwards. The message I get here at Uni is there is little work for PhD candidates after awarding of the degree and what jobs there are go to those who are known etc. Mine PhD is in creative writing so year… This is rather depressing really.
Coming from the public sector where in principle jobs are gained on merit, I can’t help react to the idea that it’s not the same outside of the APS. However, I try not to think about it and just get on with the work. Maybe that’s a skewed point of view. Anyway, I enjoy the work, or the research if you please. Perhaps I have faith in people. Perhaps I don’t know what my long term plans are. Perhaps I don’t believe what people say…
So, I have probably rabbited on about this paper I’ve been working on for months now. Yes, it has dragged on and on and on until I think I’m going to go insane or that the paper development, commentary/edits etc will never end. Not doing things right the first time feeds into my internal ‘I’m not good enough motif’. Lucky for me I’m also very persistent and somewhat driven. I have an excellent supervisor who doesn’t let me off the hook. Finally I think there is sunshine on my horizon.
My paper started off with everything I’d found to date about my topic. All shoved in there with big waving banners. Nothing given too much depth. Like a bit of jumping up and down at the beach and saying look at this castle I made before the wave comes in and washes it all away. That sort of thing…
Then my supervisor comments on the paper. In fact it’s an infestation of comment boxes. There’s something not quite right with my structure, he says. Perhaps I should thin it out a bit… so something along those lines.
I chuck out bits of the paper like flicking lint across the table and watching them fly off into the wind. Next go, mmm still not quite right with the structure. Perhaps I should just talk about three or four books in more detail. Perhaps I should reread them…do deeper textual analysis. (I then read some papers on textual analysis). This time I get the scissors and cut the paper like a string of paper dolls, a concertina of vague shapes snapping back and forth. I have to build it up again. I’m told not to throw anything out but start a new document. All that stuff is good, just not in this one paper.
I return to my key texts and start the process of really examining them, taking notes and figuring out how they work and how the issues are discussed within them. It takes heaps of time. I’ve also continued researching books and journal articles, adding more and more to the critique of romance and feminist critique of romance and anything else that I find interesting about romance. I read books, thank you Laura Vivanco and Pamela Regis.
Then I find I have a big, huge, lengthy paper that is well over my maximum word limit. I’m struggling with the structure. I’m working late on the paper at uni without even realizing it. Crazy!
So I know I have to restructure the damn thing. It’s too long and definitely unwieldy.
My supervisor is not available for structure rescuing and nor should he be. I know I can do it. I need distance. I read a paper on Untamed by Jodi McAlister and the structure is so straight forward, bam, bam, bam. I look at my paper. I stop wailing and pulling my hair and think-you can do that. It’s possible. Go with your gut instinct.
I take the paper home with me on the weekend but I don’t look at it. I need space. I go to a funeral and find I’m not up for working on it. All good I say. Distance and thinking is what is required. I talk to my daughter about the paper and about structure generally. Then I go into uni on Tuesday and just do it. The need to cut helps me. I cut things and try to keep it focused. I rearrange, put funny headings everywhere, try to make it flow into a new form. To me I think I’ve done it. I’ve improved it. I’ve focused it. I’m getting the idea.
I realise I am learning. I have been told by the other PhD candidates here at Uni that the first paper is the worst. It’s my first attempt at putting the research, part of it at least, into words and for others to see it. I feel my mind shifting gears. It doesn’t mean I won’t have structure issues again, but I probably won’t quail as much as I did this first time.
So yesterday I sent the paper off to my supervisor again. It will need a careful read and some tweaking but… My supervisor said the structure was better…I got positive vibes!!! I’m so excited by this. It’s not world domination (there are no spreadsheets involved) and it’s not the cure for cancer but it’s my paper….yay!
Okay so maybe I should calm down…but I am an apprentice. The apprenticeship grind is long. But maybe there is a small improvement in me right now.
Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 