Just another day doing research

For months now, the research I've done for my novel has involved diaries, books about 19th century American culture, religion and women's issues. Today, I've moved on to time travel...

One of the plot elements I've had in mind since the beginning of the planning for this project was an actual conversation between my two main characters: Lizzie, the 21st century widowed writer who has been unable to write since the death or her husband, and Emily, the 19th century woman whose diary Liz discovers in the attic of her late uncle's Iowa farmhouse.
Thus far, Lizzie has found the diary, read the diary, responded to the diary through her own writing, written short stories based on the diary, dreamt about an argument with Emily over her interpretation of one of the diary stories, and held a written "conversation" of sorts with Emily, while reading the diary account of Emily's courtship with her husband.

Just five minutes ago, Emily walked into the kitchen and asked Lizzie for a cup of tea. Really! (!!)

I've been trying for weeks now to figure out how to make their face-to-face conversation possible (and somehow believable), and every idea I came up with was completely undoable--at least by me. I may have a vivid imagination, but I am too deeply wedded to facts. (I'd never even written fiction until nine months ago, convinced I just couldn't do it). So I decided that I'd abdicate, and just let Lizzie write the conversation for herself. After all, she's a fiction writer.  She should be able to pull it off, right?

How did I know she was going to drag me through time travel movies, books and television as a way to explain what was happening?

Now, let me assure you, there is no time traveling actually happening in my book. Lizzie just wanted to set the scene for her story. I'm trying to reserve judgment until she's finished.

Meanwhile, Lizzie's making tea, and I don't want to miss the conversation that's coming up, so you'll have to excuse me. I need to get back.

(If anyone is going to travel through time, I don't want to miss it!)

One month to go... (and more than half-way there)

When the last of my classes ended sometime in the middle of June, I set myself a goal for the summer--to have a draft of my novel finished by the time the new academic year begins on September 24th. I've done a lot of reading about writing and publishing novels (I like to know what I'm in for), and most agreed that  80,000 words was about right for a first novel. Not so long that it's costly to print, and not so short that a publisher can't make any money on it; 80,000 is apparently the sweet spot in the middle. So, that has been the bullseye at the center of my target.

Just yesterday, I hit 49, 928 words. A bit shy of my weekly goal of reaching 50,000--but all I could manage with a totally fried brain. (I couldn't think of even one more word). I had figured out a few weeks ago that I needed to write about 6000 words a week to meet my goal, and in the last eight days I'd done nearly 10,000 (no wonder I couldn't think straight)! I took the night off and watched sci-fi.

But all in all, the writing is going well, and I'm starting to feel a bit more relaxed about it. I have 4 1/2 weeks and  about 30,000 words to go--which is only 967.741 words a day!

(How come I'm starting to be glad I had to take all that math a few years ago?)

Anyway, I decided that I would spend today firmly planted inside my own head for a change, instead of trying to think like someone else, so I've been working on my project "defense." For those of you who have never written an MA project (most of you, I'd guess), a defense is a lovely little document in which the project producer gets to defend his or her decision to do something other than a thesis for their degree. Since I am writing a novel for my MA project, I get to not only explain why I chose to do so, but how I did what I did, and what the theory and thought is behind the project. In other words, I get to write not only a 250 + page novel, I get to write another (so far) 32 page academic document, too (I think a thesis might have been easier).

However, I am not actually complaining--really, I'm not! I've had the chance to spend the day writing as "just me," and its been wonderful. No considering whether I am being true to a 19th century "voice." No worry about whether I am "telling" too much, and not "showing" enough. No wondering what should come next. I just wrote! Academese, a language that I have not always been entirely happy with, comes much easier than I remembered--and for a few short hours, it's one that's been fun to speak (especially since I have always felt the freedom to speak it with my own accent).

I'm just hoping it's an accent that my committee will appreciate!