I Did Not Fail, Because I Did Not Quit

On November 18, 2015, I passed my Doctoral Qualifying Exams.*

Once I began to breathe again, my brain began to itch and twitch. Immediately upon finishing my exams, I put all my academic history and culture books away on the highest shelves of my cabin walls and escaped into the urban fantasy lives of Mercy Thompson, Meg Corbyn, and Eve Dallas. And I wanted more, more than just to read about these character’s lives, I wanted to create my own character.

This was the push I needed to get my own journal out and started writing again. I am writing every day and my engine feels waterlogged and frozen. My mind is a giant tractor left out in the rain of a fertile but barren field with the pistons rusted in place.  Reading earlier blog post, I know it is going to take me time to get back to writing the way I was before. I need tremendous willpower to unstick my mind from the muck, but I have a plan and this blog is going to help me.

During my extended absenteeism, I actually did manage to write more short stories, attend regular writing workshops and submit the stories to publications. I have also improved my academic writing. Both forms of writing will be making appearances throughout the blog as I continue this literary/cultural/historical writing adventure.

I am assigning myself two writing projects because everyone says I need to write what I read… And I tend to read two very different things, one for learning and one for escapism. The first is to write my Doctoral proposal (by May 2016) which will ultimately go into my dissertation (due May 2018). The second is to write an urban fantasy novel (by May 2020).

As a result, this blog is going to twist in another strand of writing.

*(Much has happened between October 2013 and November 2015. I did not keep up with the blog because I was in a state of shock having attended 9 funerals of close family within a 2 year period. The resulting stress in addition to work at the museum tripling and the push to finish my coursework sent me to therapy. It took longer than 18 months to pass the qualifying exams and find some stability in my life again, but I didn't quit and I passed.)

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