Thesis, a necessary evil

Last Saturday, after perpetually crossing my fingers, and offering my personal intentions at every Sunday Mass leading to that fateful Saturday, my thesis proposal was finally approved. I wanted to shout hurray! from the mountaintops, sadly, there are no mountain ranges in geologically-challenged Manila. I was able to share my ecstatic state with my good friend, Anne though, who happened to be there, and whose last class had been cancelled due to the professor's absence. We celebrated by going to the nearest fast food restaurant, ordering, and eventually devouring extraordinarily unhealthy processed food, which, sadly, I had been prohibited to eat by my nutritionist. Oh well, I was hungry, having brisk- walked back and forth from one building to the other. I have only written about 11,000 words so far, and am in serious panic-mode. I guess I'll be praying to St. Francis de Sales for inspiration. (I wince and hold my breath in anticipation of divine inspiration.)

Running out of words

Thesis writing - It is a necessary evil - something all graduate students have to do. 

Last month, I enrolled in Thesis Writing 1, confident that I had the perfect topic in mind. Being a Creative Writing major, I have to write a creative thesis, and up until two weeks ago, I was so sure that I would write a work of fiction - maybe a few short stories (poetry was out of the question.) 

And then I realized that I already had the perfect story in mind - my story. The one I'd written in Creative Non-Fiction class. And then I went ahead and reread my work - something I wrote three years ago. Oh my! It was so bad, the only way I could salvage it would be to delete the whole thing and start over. 

Calling on the Holy Spirit for inspiration. I haven't even begun yet, and I already feel like I'm running out of words. 

Manuscript Revisited

Perhaps the scariest thing I have ever done (to date) was to revisit a manuscript I had written years ago. I used to maintain a blog, mostly for family and friends, and was told that I could write. So armed with a newfound confidence, I ventured into creative writing, convinced that I would sell the manuscript right away. Why wouldn't they be interested in me? I was funny and witty which, I thought translated to my protagonist's sense of humor, charm and wit.

After finishing writing the manuscript, I sent it to two publishing houses, one in Manila, and one abroad. At around the same time, I started attending graduate school, with the prodding of my sister. She had told me that if I really wanted to write, then I should study how to write.

This was four years ago, and just yesterday, I finished rewriting the very same manuscript that I had submitted to the publishers. The whole process was horrifying, as my original work read like a work of horror. What happened? And then I realized something... My character was me. Bitter, overweight, loveless, (at the time), old me. I didn't know how to separate myself from my character, perhaps a blunder that neophyte writers often commit. Also, there was no plot (something one of my professors told me after she had read the first few chapters, which kind of bruised my ego, but then I moved on). I had written pages upon pages of detailed descriptions of characters and what they are going through, explaining why they behave a certain way.

Thank God for people who critique your work for free. Thank you, Ma'am Jing. Thank you, Ms. Ines.

Yesterday I sent the revised manuscript to Ms. Ines of Summit Media. She has already replied and says she is looking forward to reading it.

After four years, I'm still keeping my fingers crossed.