Creative Thesis, Entry 1

It has officially begun.
The thing I've been anticipating with both trepidation and excitement for three years, ever since I came to college.
I'm talking about the senior thesis, and I've been lucky enough to have been granted permission to write a creative thesis. That means I'll be writing a collection of short stories over the next few months. I'll be working harder on these stories than I ever have before, and by the end I hope to have a collection of publishable quality (that doesn't mean it will find a publisher, of course, but it should be good. Really good).

I've met with my advisor, and will continue to on a regular basis. He's of the opinion that I should write more stories than I need, so that I can then pick the best ones to go into the collection. I wrote two stories over the summer that need a lot of work; besides that, I have one completed story written last fall that will be in the collection. Other than that, I don't have any ideas or any writing done. It's going to be a very busy fall.

I'll be keeping my readers posted about the exciting, challenging, and also sure to be frustrating path to a complete story collection. I think it could be very instructive for other writers struggling to get a body of polished work done. As always, you can count on Creative Writing Corner for reflections on all aspects of the writerly life.

Comments

[Emmet Ryan]

Wow a thesis that sounds like it won't be something awfully technical. My own thesis was on an interesting topic, the Madrid bombing, and was interesting to write but it's such a technical piece that it would bore the casual reader. It's refreshing to hear that you're being allowed to do a creative one, more should be like this.