writing my senior thesis

Hi, guys! It’s been a hot second since I’ve written for this blog. Rather than giving y’all any number of good excuses (like the fact that my laptop could be classified as an antique), I’m just going to jump back in! After all, what better time to resurrect my blog than a global pandemic when everyone is stuck inside & looking for ways to occupy their time? *cough* subscribe to my blog *cough*

What I'm supposed to be doing right now is writing my senior thesis--or doing homework. Online classes start tomorrow, & I am not. prepared. I had all this momentum from the beginning of senior year, and then last week happened. Now here I am, dazed and confused, mourning the future I'll never get to have & trying to pick myself up off the ground. I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling this way, so my prayers are with y'all.

But back to my senior thesis... I knew since I started at Messiah that I wanted to complete & present an honors project in literature, but it took me forever to come up with a topic. I started trying to brainstorm at the end of sophomore year, only to realize there was nothing I was well-versed in & passionate enough about to write a 30-50 page undergraduate thesis on. Somehow, I managed to come up with a topic in the week before proposals were due & got accepted to research the evolution of the coming-of-age novel. The catch was that I'd only have from January to April of this year to complete the entire project.

This summer I created a rigorous reading schedule for myself that was entirely unrealistic, given my 55-hour work week. I tried to catch up over the fall semester, but that was busy, too. When I officially "started" in J-term, I was already exhausted. I spent the month reading the rest of my primary texts and taking notes, & by the end I had a prospectus & a tentative outline. Then spring semester started.

Now we're halfway through the spring semester, and I have 4 pages of actual content supplemented by 12 or so pages of quotes. I'm supposed to have my first draft completed by the end of the month, but I have no motivation, no ideas, & no sense of where to begin. I've been at this place before; in fact, last semester I wrote the majority of my senior project for Literature Seminar in one weekend. It clocked in at about 24 pages, including the works cited, & I got an A. So I know I can produce quality work under a time crunch (which has led my friend Sarah to label me as a "crunchy English major"), but I really should break that habit for multiple reasons. #1: It's not good for my mental health--or my sleep schedule--to stress so much about school & complete assignments at the eleventh hour. #2: All good writers know that the most successful work is the result of multiple drafts & periods of editing/revising. & #3: This habit will not be viable in grad school when I will have a lot more things demanding my time.

Thus far, we've established that I feel awful, I'm behind schedule, & I'm entertaining bad habits, so why haven't I changed? Maybe it's my perfectionism, or maybe it's my over-reliance on motivation to carry me through the difficulties, but I know I've got to get my ass in gear. Well, the month's not over yet! I've still got about a week left to get this first draft out. And then I'll have a month to revise, so it doesn't matter if I produce complete trash. That's the silver lining to this problem.

Plus, I'm really excited about my topic. It's since shifted to an investigation of the trajectory of the American Bildungsroman (similar to coming-of-age, but more specific), with a special emphasis on what the genre looks like in the 21st century & why it has evolved in this direction. I'll be presenting via Zoom the last week of April, so if you're interested, message/email me for specifics.

xx Liz

How are you coping with COVID-19 & all of the ensuing changes?