Good evening folks (or whenever you are reading this, I’m a night owl). Just in case the title didn’t do its job, this is a little progress report on how my thesis is going. We are entering into the last week of June (wow!) and I am pleased to say I am keeping on schedule. When I first met my supervisors they asked me if having a set deadline would help me organize my time and work more effectively. Every writer has their own unique process, (it would take too long to explain mine in detail, I intended for this post to be a shorter one) and I have always found deadlines useful, it just helps having something to aim for.
Using my passable mathematical skills I have worked out that my thesis is going to be around 16,000 words long, thus I have set myself the challenge of writing at least 500 words a day. Along with keeping up with re-reading the texts I am focusing on (currently going back over A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and doing secondary source research I am being kept busy. This is the scholar life I chose.
It cannot be understated that time management is one of the most important skills that all degrees teach. When you could have a presentation, an exam and several essays due in the same month you become accustomed to juggling a packed schedule. Its good preparation for a potentially busy workplace environment and a useful life skill in general (one that regularly graces the opening lines of my CV). I will be meeting my supervisors again this week to discuss my progress and any improvements that could be made to what I have written so far.
All and all I feel that everything is going positively with no sign of writer’s block. Here’s to whatever July has in store and then August of the summer of the MA thesis.
Featured image: The actual Scholar’s Notebook. Note: other pages are actually filled with ideas and writings and I don’t usually write with a quill.
The Scholar’s Notebook 
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