It’s been a while since I updated on my PhD journey. I may have mentioned that my ambition (intention…) is to complete the four year degree in two years. In theory, this means working full time – times two – every week, but this rigorous schedule is necessary if I am to submit at the earliest opportunity. Like a lot of people, I don’t feel I can be a student for four years. I’m not a young person with my career ahead of me. I am self-funding my degree. I also have a really exciting documentary film project coming up that will require creative space, time and energy. I’m well aware that I might end up taking four years to complete my degree, and that is absolutely fine too, but there’s noting wrong with trying to progress more quickly if I can manage it.
In August, I wrote about passing my first year review and becoming a big second year student. It’s hard to believe that I’m at this stage already. I know it sounds cliched, but the year has absolutely flown in. I’ve made good use of it, though.
I have submitted drafts of four of the five chapters I intend to write for my thesis. I’ve also outlined the final section and because of the concentrated way I’ve been writing I feel I know what I want to deliver in this chapter. My hope is to have a full draft of all five chapters by Christmas, and then spend the next six months immersed in the complete redraft, revising, reviewing, editing and slashing some of my lovely words! Yes, it’s too long. I’m already very close to the word count allowance and that’s before I’ve submitted my final chapter and written the introduction and conclusion.
However, I’m not overly daunted by this. I see the process very much like editing a documentary film. When I’m in edit with a documentary, I create a draft of the film and the editor and I work with this complete version on the timeline. This is always over duration. However, when I focus on the narrative in its complete form I can gently prise it into shape. I think it will be the same with the PhD. Sections that I’ve carefully written and currently see as invaluable and essential to the story, will come to have no part in the final arc. That’s just how it is. It’s how I create. Whilst it seems impossible now, saying goodbye to a sequence I’ve grown to love will become easier.
In my process, I have given everyone (contributors, academic argument) and everything ( my filmmaking analysis, my autoethnography) a chance to shine in the first draft. In the next stage, I will curate the strongest elements and siphon off the weaker threads. This is where a director (documentary) or writer (PhD thesis) reaches another exciting stage of the creative process. It is empowering shaping the finer details of a story. When the ambition is for your project to have creative impact, be that with a documentary film or a PhD thesis, being ruthless with the narrative shape is essential. It is hard work, but it is rewarding.
I love the writing stage too. Writing is an amazing buzz, especially when it flows and you are completely in the zone. But it also physically exhausting. It seems to take forever for thoughts to translate from my head to my fingers! If only we could vomit our thoughts onto the page….Actually, I’ll be careful what I wish for. We don’t need AI taking over this level of creativity too! I’ll focus on finding ways to lessen the pain in my fingers and wrists and remember that our creative thoughts are important, no matter how physically draining it can be to articulate them into the physical words that form the story.
Once I have a full story, I can guide it and visualise it on the page (timeline) rather than just as fragments of ideas that take time to form words.
Of course, there’s always additional drama in my life, be that my own health, work or family. I do what I can when I can. You never know what tomorrow might bring. My life could all come crashing down around me at any time and being aware of this keeps me going. Don’t put off until tomorrow what I may only be capable of delivering today.
I hope your PhD journey is going well too, whatever route you choose to reach your goal. We’re in this together, however diverse our physical journey may be.
Margot McCuaig 