Back to work. Finally.

[lollardfish]

So I am back to work, and writing less here. I get up, I go to the library, I read, I take breaks and wander around the Piazza and Piazzale San Marco and ogle the wierdness of that church, and watch the tourists feed the pigeons (it's quite a sight. The pigeons, disease infected and, well, filled with sculpture rotting birdshit, climb all over the tourists and eat seed from their hands, and it's all a little gross. But quite a scene none the less.

The library, for those who didn't hear about it last time, sits on the water's edge of the piazzale San Marco, the smaller of the two big central squares in Venice (they are connected). You get to feel like quite the special case as you stroll past the tourists peaking in the door, walk past the ENTRANCE IS FORBIDDEN (to people not reading at the library), check your bags, and enter one of the two rooms. The nicer of the rooms is for manuscripts, and I'll be in there eventually. I have some more journals and 17th-19th century sources to read for the first week or so. They are things I need to cover or review first, and they are easier, not being in medieval handwritten Latin. I have yet to see the elderly reference Librarian I found so helpful last year, but have hopes she's still around. It makes all the difference not having to break in a new librarian.

Anyway, the work is going very well, and I am writing again. This is actually big news. I was going along at a fairly inspired clip last fall. Venice had been fabulous, I was filled with ideas, my advisors were enthusiastic, I had a great day in late October talking to an emminent Venetianist who was in town to give a lecture at the U., and then early November was filled with disaster, culminating in the day that Lilah left me. I really haven't done any serious writing since then. A few grant proposals cribbed from old text (one of which got me to Venice right now), a huge number of lectures, but none of the real writing for my disseration. After awhile, when staring at a computer screen or notepad got too much, I just turned to doing some of the background (and foreground) reading on my list, and that was fairly productive, but still not writing.

Last week, I put together a new paper proposal that, in five hundred words or so, neatly encapsulated the central thesis of my dissertation (it was accepted by the session chair for a conference in May). Over the weekend, I wrote a four+ page detailed outline of my dissertation, the first outline which I actually believe in. Each chapter flows nicely to the next, and now, for the first time, I think I know what my dissertation might look like. It gives me a framework to start hanging text off of, and that is very exciting.

I also, at the end of last week, was beginning to feel the pressure of my dissertation weighing me down and interfering with my concentration. I actually finished the outline in the morning, and today at the library, as I read, I was able to think "aha, this bit is relevant for chapter four!," and such things. A new feeling for me!

I am going to tidy up the outline and cut it down to about two pages and email it to my advisors. If anyone is desparately interested (all sorts of wierdos out there), I'd be happy to email it to you.

No mail yet!

Comments

[creidylad.livejournal.com]

Me, me, I want to read it!