Willa Cather: A Literary Life

So we meet again, Ms. Cather.

This semester, I only have classes on Mondays and Tuesdays. Campus has been closed both days on account of the snow, and Billy thinks that the impending storm will keep us closed for the rest of the week, as well. My professors have graciously pushed back all of our reading assignments a week, and since I had already completed my homework for this week, I am left with "nothing" to do.

One of the graduation requirements for the MA at Maryland is to complete the Master's Writing Project. Basically, you have to work with two of your professors to revise a paper you've already written. Then they get to sit you down in a room for a couple of hours to ask you a lot of questions about it. I've decided to revise the Cather paper I submitted as my PhD writing sample, and I have already met with both professors to discuss what needs to be done. Both agree that I am onto a great idea but that I need to re-work the entire paper. Rumor has it that when Ernest Hemingway showed Gertrude Stein the manuscript of one of his novels (The Sun Also Rises or A Farewell to Arms, depending on which rumor you hear), she told him to "begin it again, and this time concentrate." This is essentially what my professors have told me.

The problem is, I have been stalling.

I really am excited about the project. I knew that I had to stop sort of mid-way through my thinking to write it and submit it. I know that what I eventually turn out will be the best paper I've ever written. However, the process is fraught because of the way it is tied to my PhD application. It's hard to think about how I can improve this paper without simultaneously thinking about how its weaknesses might have influenced the decisions of the admissions committee. I've been very successful in refusing to allow myself to stress out about this decision. As a sort of coping mechanism, though, I buried Ms. Willa way in the back of my brain. I have been letting these ideas "marinate," as some of us in graduate school like to say. (Sounds better than "procrastinate.")

Now that I am on this weeklong hiatus, however, I have no excuse: I have to get serious about this revision. Unfortunately, this snow is sapping all of my creative/motivational energy. I believe if I could go for a run, maybe I could get myself in gear. Perhaps I will have to dig the treadmill out from the clothes currently draped across it. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

P.S. Hope you are all enjoying the new blog design!

(Willa Cather: A Literary Life is James Woodress's biography of Cather. He devotes a chapter to each of her major works and what was going on in her life when she wrote and published them. It's as big as a brick and I have been carrying it around in my bag and my brain for almost a year now.)