...because this is the only way I can remain interested in writing it and/or keep doing so.
Let me explain.
As you know, I have a 5-to-8-page analytical paper I have to write for my Grad Studies in Fiction lit course. We've read four books in there thus far -- Moll Flanders, Evelina, Persuasion, and Madame Bovary. All of them, as you can see, are "classic" novels. And, as you probably guessed through my writings here in recent weeks, I also hated all of them, and have no literary interest whatsoever in any of them. However, I was presented with a dilemma -- I must write a paper on one of them for the first of two papers in this class, both of which are worth a large number of points. Because of this, I have to pick the one I understood the most and/or hated the least. This just happened to be Madame Bovary.
Don't get me wrong; I still hate Madame Bovary. I love the writing style, but I hate the novel and I hate the same old boring, tired, Victorian-era story it tells, even if the title character kills herself near the end (spoiler alert). As you know if you read my post here when I was live-blogging the reading of it, for a book labeled "the most scandalous novel of all time," it left me quite disappointed and bored for the most part. While it may have been shocking or graphic in the 1860s after its original publication, it's certainly not in 2011.
It is a book, though, that I read in the span of one day -- from early afternoon until the nighttime hours -- and thus know the ins and outs of, however they may bore me, so it became over the course of the past week, the ideal candidate to write about. After trying to figure out a topic or angle, I looked at the syllabus again to see exactly what the paper's requirements were. He wants a paper that involves close analysis of one of the novels in some way, as long as it responds to "the class focus on narrative. Sources are not required."
So, basically, it's a formalist, or new critic's paper. Okay. I can do that. Me and the text. And it has to involve narrative in some way. Well, the novel has a very strong focus on narrative, as its omniscient narrator basically lets us into (or otherwise leaps into) the head of every character and paints the entire pictu....hey, there's a topic! Omniscient narration and how it functions!
With that settled as my topic, I drafted out a five-body paper plan. I tend to be good at this; I can't write a paper without some sort of plan or template to follow, otherwise its organization will be all over the place and the paper's overall quality will suffer. I need to know where I'm going from the start, what I'm going to do within the paper, and how I'm going to wrap everything up. This is usually the hardest part of writing a paper for any class. The plan for this paper took over an hour, and I did it while I was installing/reinstalling/upgrading my OS on my computer Saturday night.
I did not, however, start writing the paper until last night, Sunday night. Here, folks, is how the process went:
10:40PM Sunday:
Created Works Cited page for the paper, listing both the eBook version and the print version of Madame Bovary I used for the class. Found that there's no set way to cite an eBook version without a listed translator or publisher. Winged it, listed it as a web source, cited the website and provided a link.
11PM:
Added an Annotated Bibliography after the Works Cited page, even though it's not required or requested, to explain the citation problems of the PDF eBook I used for the class and will cite in the paper, in hopes that my professor will see it as "good enough."
11:40PM:
Created the paper itself, including proper layout and title: "Unsatisfactory Lives Discovered: The Revelations of Omniscient Narration in Madame Bovary." Begin writing introduction.
12AM Monday:
Almost completely change introduction from what I've written in my original paper plan. Continue writing it.
12:40AM:
Discover mind is fuzzy and it's hard to concentrate, more than likely due to the amount of work I've been doing all day. First time I debate going to bed for the night.
12:45AM:
Saying "screw it," I crack open a Mountain Dew Game Fuel and unwrap a new pack of cigarettes. It's on.
1:25AM:
I finish the introduction. It fills the full first page and bleeds two lines onto the second. Technically, I'm 20% done with the paper if I decide to write the bare minimum of five pages only.
1:31AM:
I realize that I have no discernible thesis statement and have no clue what exactly I'm going to write for one.
1:56AM:
Mountain Dew emptied, on cigarette number three, I have written three different thesis statements and scrapped them all. I have not had this much trouble starting or writing a paper in a very, very long time.
2:01AM:
I finish my thesis statement. It is somewhat vague and specific at the same time. I delete a few sections of a few lines from the intro to make said lines flow better, and tack them onto the thesis.
2:05AM:
I completely finish the intro and thesis statement after multiple small revisions. I am 1/4 of the way down page 2, but rapidly running out of steam for the night. I consider giving up for the night and going to bed a second time. Deciding against it, I begin drinking coffee and start on body section one, which discusses the character of Emma (Madame Bovary herself) and how she benefits from the omniscient narration of the novel, as well as briefly mentions her husband Charles as the novel starts in first person with his narration.
2:13AM:
I realize I left the link to the Mountain Dew Wikipedia page open (the one I linked to above) and become sidetracked by reading it for a few minutes. Everything else on the internet is so fucking interesting when there's work to be done. Debate a third time on whether or not I should just go to bed, and decide this time that I probably should.
2:14AM:
I save my work and log off the computer for bed, intending to finish when I wake up.
2:14PM:
Exactly twelve hours later (I couldn't have planned that better, actually), and after a full night of sleep, half a pot of coffee, and several cigarettes, I am cold and irritable, and open up my paper again to begin work on it -- with the intent of finishing said paper this afternoon. I'm becoming increasingly more frustrated that words aren't coming to me as easily as they do normally when I'm writing a paper. I send an email to Suri about it, as the woman remains my one and only true confidante (and I know she's having similar problems).
2:34PM:
Halfway down page 2, I'm getting into body section one pretty deeply. Words start coming a little easier. I relax a bit.
2:38PM:
It occurs to me that based on the paper I'm writing, I will more than likely have to change the title, thesis statement, and introduction around a bit more once I'm finished.
2:41PM:
Page 3 is breached, still on body section 1. Technically, I'm more than halfway done with the bare-minimum requirements for the paper, and begin to realize that it may take me the full 8 pages to make my points.
3:08PM:
Sadie meows at my door to be let in to sleep on my feet. I am three lines into page 4, and am finally wrapping up body section 1. It sounds good. Better than I expected it to sound.
3:11PM:
Sadie wants to be my lap kitty for a while. I take a break and hold her for a few minutes. She purrs hard. I read a story about someone writing an "official" sequel to Pride and Prejudice and post it to Suri's Facebook wall, as I know it will at least mildly interest her.
3:16PM:
I open my Works Cited page file again, and edit out the PDF edition of the book, as well as delete the (not required) annotated bibliography I included. The parts of the novel I'm paraphrasing/quoting/citing are coming directly from the 1965 Paul de Man translation of Madame Bovary, and though said translation is awful, it at least gives me a frame of reference and a clear way to cite things. It also simplifies the paper greatly.
3:22PM:
I wrap up body section 1 and move on to body section 2.
3:27PM:
I go back and add/edit a bit of the end of body section 1 to make it flow better into body section 2. My confidence in my writing abilities is slowly returning, and I'm beginning to see the whole picture a bit clearer and how I'm going to accomplish the writing of the rest of this paper.
3:34PM:
Sadie lays on my feet. I'm getting hungry. I take a break long enough to make a bologna sandwich and eat it -- using, in the process, the last slice of cheese I have in the house -- and I am reminded that I still have to go grocery shopping either tonight or tomorrow. Fuck. I'm cold. I look at the thermostat, and find that it is 64 degrees in the house, and 68 in my room.
3:45PM:
I begin work in earnest on body section 2.
4:05PM:
I'm lost. I'm at the bottom of page 4, about 1/3 of the way through body section 2, and I'm lost. I light a cigarette and run my hands through my hair, trying to figure out a) how I can make this paper go where I want it to go, and b) how I can do that without horribly overshooting the number of pages required and thus making more work for myself. I'm tired, worn down, and burnt-out, and realize that I've been working on this paper for almost two hours now. I stand up and stretch, pace around the room.
4:11PM:
I resume work on body section 2. I realize that this will be the longest section of the paper, but I have to get through it -- I know where body section 3 and the conclusion will go already. Getting through section 2 is the hardest part.
4:13PM:
Sadie, who left my room when I took a break to eat, is now meowing to get back in. I tell her to go away, through the door, as having her constantly meowing at me distracts me.
4:25PM:
I have once more hit my stride and am now halfway down page 5, moving at a good clip.
4:30PM:
I get to use the tongue-twister of a phrase "a moral dilemma for Emma, a dilemma..." in a sentence. It sounds awesome when read aloud over and over.
4:39PM:
Page 6 breached. Only halfway through body section 2. The paper will easily be ten pages long, I'm sure -- there's no way to avoid it.
4:58PM:
I finish the most difficult part of body section 2, and take a break. I put on a pair of pajama pants to retrieve the mail and the garbage cans from the driveway. It is cold. Very cold, and windy. The Weather Channel says it's 56 outside, but I somehow doubt it's that warm. I also see that the low temperature on Wednesday morning is supposed to drop below freezing, to 30. I hope, aloud to myself, that the Monte Carlo has a good heater and/or defroster, as I've never had to use it.
5:06PM:
I continue with the rest of body section 2.
5:14PM:
Bottom of page 6. Again moving along at a good clip.
5:25PM:
1/3 of the way down page 7, beginning to wrap up body section 2.
5:34PM:
Body section 2 finished, I realize that body section 3 will need to be a bit longer than I originally intended it to be. I am halfway down page 7, with expectations to take the paper to around page 9 before the conclusion. That's at least a page longer than the original assignment called for. I'm hoping that it means I'll get a better grade on it, especially if my professor sees it as well-written.
5:41PM:
I begin work on body section 3, the final section of the paper which will lead up to Emma's demise (again, spoiler alert) and the purpose of omniscient narration in the novel after that point.
6PM:
I have breached page 8 and am currently entering the final throes of the paper. Pun intended, as the final section of the paper is all about how the omniscient narration made Emma's death not only predictable, but inevitable -- and the different way that narration functions after her death.
6:11PM:
Halfway down page 8. Oh yeah, folks, it's sounding good. Really good.
6:26PM:
I have been writing this paper for over four hours now, almost nonstop. I am at the bottom of page 8, therefore fulfilling not only the minimum requirement of an analytical paper for the class, but reaching the maximum estimated length with ease. I probably have at least half to 3/4 of a page to go on body section 3 before the conclusion, which means the paper should top out around a flat nine pages.
6:36PM:
Finally beginning to wrap everything up and draw everything back together, halfway down page 9. Feeling victorious, like I just slayed a dragon.
6:57PM:
At the top of page 10, I begin my conclusion.
7:02PM:
Draft of conclusion finished. I basically copy it word-for-word from my original paper plan. I compare it to the introduction to make sure they don't sound too alike, and begin necessary edits.
7:03PM:
I change the title to "Discovered Lies and Intentions: The Revelations Provided By Omniscient Narration in Madame Bovary."
7:06PM:
Massive edits of the introduction begin taking place, to better the flow into the rest of the paper.
7:10PM:
Conclusion fleshed out a little more in order to make it all-encompassing.
7:17PM:
I go to pee, Pete follows me back into my room and jumps on my lap. I am currently typing this with a massive black butthole of a cat attempting to sleep against my stomach and chest as I work.
7:20PM:
Final typing and additions of the paper finished, I begin my readthrough/proofreading/editing session of it before I call myself finished, all with a purring, nuzzling cat on me.
7:42PM:
Paper is completely finished, saved, and closed. Altogether it was nearly 11 pages, and took me around nine-hours-ish total. Not bad.
Now I think I'll have a beer.
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