To Defend a Dissertation. Or Two.

I'd much rather not be thinking about the two books anymore. I feel quite burned out from the hybrid environmental memoir, especially, and I stupidly thought that once I turned it in to my committee that'd be that. I see now that the editing never ends, knowing full well that if a press takes it (oh happy orgasmic day), many more edits will occur--likely helpful ones, too, of course. But I'm tired.

I am thrilled and lucky to have such a good committee of thoughtful, caring, fascinating folks who are very talented writers. Even the biologist. And I look forward to their comments on my work, probably sometime next week. In fact, I'm very very very eager to hear what they thought.

Then I look forward to some paperwork. Then some running around campus to see how my abstract and front page formatting is. Eventually more paperwork and signatures, more formatting issues, more hidden fees to be paid, and then this incredibly stupid electronic dissertation filing system the university has adopted that gives your work an ISBN but does so sneakily. Kinda makes it hard to publish in a REAL venue after that point since it's already copyrighted with some other company you don't know from boo but who now own your writing. There's a temporary stopgap to the e-filing ISBN business, but I've come up with a more permanent one. You'll have to use your secret decoder ring to see how.

Anywho, I think April 1 will be when I defend* the memoir and poetry collection. I think April 1 is also when the memoir will make its full debut to publishers (the poetry is already out, and has been for some time, garnering favorable handwritten, one to two sentence rejections grrrr).

Now I've got some essays and stories to grade, an essay to edit and send back to a journal, a tree to find to block the view of my neighbor's front porch (dogwood, redbud?), and some beehive candy to eat.


*Defend means a nice congenial conversation with people you admire followed by bursts of suddenly intense questions (like a hailstorm) about your work that make you shutter to the core because you are A) fairly nervous even though you don't need to be so nervous omg B) you came with naive ideas of grandeur, mochas and delicate pastries, pats on the back, gifts, divine light and ascension on to some higher existence, et cetera C) you're a writer and can't express yourself coherently via oral expression so would much rather have the oral be a take home exam or even another 250 page book with paper handmade by you from your cat's fur.