The Agony and Ecstasy of Historical Writing

When I began writing this dissertation....a while ago.....I had some strong ideas about how the whole process would work.  I had written tons of papers and thought that I knew how to approach writing: research your topic, write your outline, churn out the first draft over the course of a few days (though, if I'm being honest, most papers I turned in for undergrad and grad seminars were hastily written in the day or two before they were due), make a few edits (mostly grammatical...perhaps deal with some structural issues, if I was feeling especially inspired), and then be done with the paper.  I naively thought that dissertating would just be a bigger/longer version of this exact process.  Ha.

Dissertating, for me at least, has looked more like this:

• Conduct research on what you think your topic is
• Return home, only to realize that you neglected to study some facet of your project that has inexplicably become important
• Write a chapter outline
• Begin writing (after 2-3 false starts, at the rate of about 350 words/day)
• Get seriously aggravated at your (in)ability to put words into sentences; make grand observations like, "the Church of Scotland was a hot mess in the eighteenth century" (yes, 10+ years of higher education got me to the point that I could make such insightful analytical statements)
• Search for jobs outside of academia; realize you're not qualified for anything; back to writing
• Over the course of writing the chapter, come to the slow conclusion that your original argument (see outline above) was entirely wrong; take break to write new outline
• Start writing again; cobble together a few pages of continuous narrative; still no argument for chapter, but you've got a story!
• Realize your story is not very compelling or interesting to read; lots of self-doubt ("obviously I'm the worst grad student ever and everyone else knows what they're doing")
• Back to writing
• Deep thoughts about how all these chapters are suppose to fit together; panic over whether or not your dissertation chapters make sense together; what is the argument again?
• Meet with advisor; discuss something thoroughly irrelevant to your work; look at jobs outside academia again
• Back to writing; have a string of good days--realize this topic is actually interesting and maybe, just maybe, you're writing something interesting
• Share work with others; remember why you like writing and academia
• Revise, which now means completely gutting the chapter and rethinking everything
• Begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel
• Submit draft to advisor....wait 3-4 weeks for feedback
• Think you're done with chapter...then realize there are MORE edits
• More edits
• More revisions
• More edits
• WILL. THIS. NEVER. END?
• More edits.
• Sigh.
• Finally, chapter is signed off on.

And repeat this process again...for. every. chapter.

Much of this process is painful, and causes you to doubt your abilities.  But then, often when you least expect it, you have a day that reminds you why you enjoy history and writing:  you make a breakthrough on a chapter, find a new source, talk with a friend. Those days save me, and my sanity.  January was filled mostly with good days--much was accomplished.  I went on a writing retreat for a weekend and focused all of my energies on writing and thinking about this project.  I am wrapping up three separate chapters right now, and feeling really good about all of them.  I still have not figured out my second chapter--it's a mess....a hot mess even...but it'll get sorted.  I expect some painful days dealing with it, though.  And then, hopefully, I'll be reminded of the joy that can be found in figuring it out....in getting it right.