Great conversation with my capstone adviser yesterday.
I had been concerned with my progress. The introduction was fine, but as I was getting into writing what I’m calling my “baselining” sections, background information on Rome and the literary theory frameworks that form the foundation of my work, I was getting bogged down…
I wasn’t sure if it was that I just wasn’t “into” writing the sections, or that I felt somehow unsure of them–I kept re-diving into the research to find more…”stuff”–but I just felt stymied. Yet I didn’t want to skip them and move onto the literature because I was worried about flow.
He asked if I was usually a linear writer. Yeah, pretty much. Well, don’t forget that this first draft is supposed to be shitty. It’s supposed to be torn apart and reconstructed. So what if the transitions don’t work…transitions are stylistic accompaniment that be added later. Hell, the whole structure may change and what was the conclusion might become the intro, and the order of sections may change.
You mean, don’t worry about it?
Don’t worry about it.
And that’s what I needed. Three solid paragraphs yesterday (it would have been four or five, but I got sidetracked created a table outlining parental references in Shakespeare)… Coriolanus is half-done. He wants at least a 75%-content-finished first (shitty) draft done by the end of week six (this is week four), with revision happening in weeks 7-9. Next weekend we take Jack up to SJSU… I’m a little nervous, but I know this is all gonna be fine.
about those tables…
I’m trying to show how and where Shakespeare uses parents/children in the works (mothers without fathers, fathers without mothers, intact parental pairs, no children/parent relationships, and children mentioned but never seen)… I’ve got a version with details…
and a version with just boxes…
not sure which to use…