Another Project Update: The End is in Sight

I am very behind updating, but here are some highlights of what is going on with my honors thesis and eBook.

• ·          I submitted my thesis to the Honors Department. It is not perfect, but it felt great to turn it in with my bulky portfolio of undergraduate highlights. 

•  I am defending my thesis on February 27 at 12! My overseer is Professor David Laraway. My referee is Professor Gideon Burton, and Professor John Bennion is my honors faculty mentor.
• I submitted “Om Mani Padme Hum” to the Mayhew Essay Contest here on campus. I’m not sure when I will hear back, but I feel good about the submission. I changed my ending and feel a little more comfortable with it, though I still think it is the hardest piece I have ever had to write.
• I'm presenting this research on how digital technology can enhance cross-cultural experiences at the 2012 Inquiry Conference next week.
• Looking at options for publishing. Apple came out with a new self-publishing platform that is supposed to be easy to use. I need to look into this and other options. My friend Brett also started his own publishing company, so I want to compare and contrast the benefits of doing it myself or having him publish. I wasn’t planning on charging, but he would; I guess that changes things. I still have a lot to explore. I want to have this figured out by March so I can complete my project before I graduate in April.
• I also met with Professor Scanlon, the director of the Honors Program for an exit interview. I really enjoyed having an opportunity to talk to him about what I gained from my experience with Field Studies and the Honors Program. I believe the fourth aim of a BYU Education, promoting “life-long learning and service,” best describes what these two programs combined did for my undergraduate experience. If you would have told me five years ago when I was a freshman that I would have been to five continents, completed two Field Studies, presented at four conferences, published my work, helped on three undergraduate, peer-reviewed journals, volunteered to put on a conference, started writing a novel (I'm meeting with an agent in March!), established great connections with professors, interviewed for Teach for America, and had the opportunity to teach a class for a job, I would have laughed in disbelief. I want to laugh in disbelief now! I love that the Honors Program—the classroom education, as well as my thesis—helped me learn to think for myself so that I can go forth with a love for learning and a passion to serve.

I guess the end is in sight. A light at the end of the tunnel (and I hope it is not a train). I have had a fantastic undergraduate career. I feel ready to leave, but it is so bitter sweet.

Stay tuned to hear what I do about my defense and pending eBook!

(Photo credit to Seeking Equilibrium)

Update from Professor Bennion

Hello!

Well, Christmas break is over now.  Time to buckle down and sprint to the end.  My honors thesis is due January 16th, and I will defend it in March. Dr. Burton and I have agreed that I should have my eBook finished by the time of my defense.

For now, here is an email I received from Professor Bennion, my honors faculty mentor:

Sorry to take so long.  I had a lot to read as I left England.  This is about finished.  Most of my comments just deal with sentences and word clarity.  I think you should spend a few hours thinking about the ending.  It's good, but it can be better as you think about the trouble you've had since coming home.  I don't think you need to narrate it day by day, but how seriously you've been unseated is told instead of being evoked or enacted.  That's an exaggeration. but I think you could be even more precise and clear about how difficult it's been.  And if you have come to a tentative peace about it, you might make more clear how difficult that was.  The last essay is slightly too quick.  As I said earlier, I think it's good but that it can be better.  This certainly can be defended in January. 

I do also hope that you're feeling better.

Integrating Blogging into my Personal Essays

After meeting last week with one of my faculty mentors, Dr. Burton, I have a lot on my mind in terms of this honors thesis and ebook I am trying to create.

I sent all 87 pages of my manuscript to Dr. Burton.  He printed them out.  All of them.  They were stacked there in the middle of his desk.  It was nice to see how much work I have done, but unsettling how much of that pile still in desperate need of editing.  While I am not anticipating publishing my ebook until March, my honors thesis needs to be turned in by January 15th.  I would panic, but I don't think I have time to.

So now that I am in crunch time, where am I at?  What do I need to do?  Well, for starters I'm going to create 5 hub posts about each of my 5 essays.  In the printed format of my thesis, there will be typed URL's if a reader wants to find out more about the blog posts that made up this essay, earlier drafts, critiques, etc. to document the journey.  The eBook format will include hyperlinks.

I'm also changing up my introduction and post script to be more argumentative about blogging by acknowledged the Pandora's Box that comes with it.  I need to include more sources on blogging, though with it being such a new medium it is difficult to find them.  That should be noted in my intro.

So in addition to traditional revisions, keep a look out for some funky experiments on this blog.

(Photo credit forbes.com)

General Update

I thought this Thanksgiving break was going to be magical.  In five days, I was sure I could get all of my homework done (including reading four books), catch up on Nanowrimo, draft another essay for my thesis, revise my five essays, write a chapter for my novel by Tuesday, and draft two final papers for class.

What can I say?  I tried.

Here is what I did get done in terms of this project.  I got more active on Twitter, made lists, and downloaded Tweetdeck to my computer to try and sort through all of my tweets. 

I got somewhat caught up on Nanowrimo and searched through different writing groups.  I've learned since starting my own group that joining one that is already functioning is a lot easier that trying to get people to be as excited about it as I am...

I'm now almost finished drafting the introduction to my personal essays for my honors thesis and eBook. 

I also started revising my essays on compassion, marriage, and untold stories.  My goal is to have new drafts of all five of my current essays to my professors by the end of the week. 

As much as I wanted to include seven essays in this project, time is running out.  I'd like to include one more, if possible, but so far I am at 70 pages in my thesis, all of which need serious revision.  My original goal was to have all of my essays in decent drafts by December 1st.  That is this Thursday.  Crazy as it sounds, I still think I'm going to shoot for that by having an intro, acknowledgments page, and six working essays.

Discovering Twitter

Talking with Dr. Burton last week helped me understand how Twitter is a great social media resource to help me get connected with a potential audience for my eBook.  It is also a great way to find out what kinds of discussions are out there so that I can stay in the loop.  Here is a link to my profile.

Until last week I have always been a little resistant to get a Twitter account.  Isn't it just a great big Facebook status update rave?  I’m no Pynchon, but I do appreciate a little anonymity.  No one needs to hear what I ate for breakfast this morning…

But that was the same argument that I originally had against blogging, only to find that academic blogging offers a whole range of possibilities that I had not considered.  So it is with Twitter.

While being real on Twitter and having a personality is important when Tweeting, Dr. Burton helped me realize that there are ways to ensure that I am posting valuable material that others would be interested in.  I just have to think of it from their perspective and try to Tweet valuable information.  There needs to be a healthy blend between personality and focus.  Reposting blog entries, links, videos, and retweets are a great way to start.   It is also nice to attend events and comment on them while you are there.  Photos, which are something which is pretty applicable to my interests, are also easily shared on Twitter.  This means I’m probably going to visit the gravesite of my old Flickr account and update, update, update.

Self Publishing Thoughts

As Professor Burton has pointed out to me, I need to be working on the digital component of my personal essay project while I am drafting.  This way, I can promote my eBook and connect with a perspective audience before they are even finished.

I'm trying to get more connected with the writing networks available online.  I attended an online chat session a few weeks ago and found some of their blogs which have been a fantastic starting point.  I came across the blog Literary Lab, kept by writers Domey Malasarn, Scott G.F. Bailey, and Michelle Davidson Argyle.  In this blog, I found a great post on self publishing that is frank and honest about some of the ins and outs of self-publishing.  Here are some points I learned that I need to focus on as I think about my eBook.

Price- The author of this post argues that you need to put just as much time and funding into the professional look and editing of your book.  She really emphasized making the cover captivating.  I've got some photographs, but I wonder if I should start looking at this more seriously, and sooner than i thought.

And off of that point, I was not planning on charging anything for this eBook.  To me it was more important to just get the information out there and promoting my first publication than to make any money.  This blog post also talked more specifically about how much it cost to make her first book and how much she made in the end.

If self publishing book is what I want to do in the future for a career, then this would be really important to learn sooner than later.

Back to Connecting

I've spent the last few weeks in the drafting process of my personal essays for my honors thesis and eBook.  However, as Dr. Burton as advised me, I need to continue working on connecting.  The cool thing about my eBook is that I can promote it before it is even finished.

So I've done a lot of general connecting, exploring the ins and outs in India, but it is time to start targeting people who might be interested in my essays.

What I have done so far:

• Commented on others blogs
• Made friends
• Joined Twitter (here is my profile link)
• Started sharing my writing with my family
• Created a writing group with 8 awesome writing friends to workshop and hold discussions
• Joined nanowrimo.  This is a site that gets you to challenge your writing goals to celebrate national writing month in November.  There is no way I will hit 50,000 words, but I am hoping to connect with other writers and get to know the students in my novel writing class better.
• Participated in an online chat with some legit writers.  I'm going to join in again this coming Thursday.

What I Want to Do Next:

• Comment more on other peoples blogs and find new blogs
• Start looking into the author section of goodreads.com and try to connect with people who have similar interests.
• Look at other writers blogs and follow forums on self publishing
• Keep it coming! Both drafts and blog updates.
• Review the eBook Writing about Literature in the Digital Age and start to think about how to format my own eBook

ORCA Grant Proposal Submitted!

As part of my eBook project I'm going to publish of personal essays from Dharmasala, I decided to apply for an ORCA grant through my university.  It is a grant for research and/or creative projects for undergraduates who are working with a faculty mentor.  There is 1/3-1/2 chance that I get it, which means $1,500 for me, and $300 for my faculty mentor on this project, Professor Gideon Burton.

I'm created a new page with my ORCA proposal if you are interested in viewing it.

(Photo credit goes to drawinghowtodraw.com)

Feedback from Professor Bennion

Well, I now have four rough drafts of some personal essays to include in my upcoming eBook and honors thesis.  The first essay, a bus ride to McLeod, but also through my thoughts and motivations to travel; another essay on my disillusionment with Buddhism; one on the complex nature of charity; and another on making sense of marriage.  I've been working closely with Professor Burton and Professor Bennion on revisions, and so that is the goal of this week.

But I've learned something in the process.  Personal essays are hard.  Vulnerable, embarrassing at times, soul mining, and more.  All of the ethical questions I explored in Ghana regarding creative nonfiction are staring at me right in the face.  Yet, I have to be honest.  I have to be accurate if they are ever going to get off the ground.  This is a unique opportunity for me to revisit India in a way I never was able to with Ghana, to make sense of it and create something that others can read and understand something of what I have experienced in a way that is meaningful.  

Here are some sections of general advice that Dr. Bennion gave me this week that I found extremely helpful, particularly on how to be more objective in my writing of a personal essay:

Why I Switched to an eReader (And why Nook Color instead of a Kindle)

In light of some of my realizations about “going digital,” I thought I would dedicate a post to talking about how I converted to a Nook Color eReader.    

Like most of us (I think), I was a little apprehensive about the switch.  It was not an easy decision.  I love the feel of books.  I love the way they smell and being able to scribble in the margins and turn the pages to my heart’s content.  I disliked reading anything on a computer monitor, and was irritated that some books are actually more expensive in an eBook format than the regular used print editions on Amazon.  

So what changed?

Honestly, I think I was forced to reconsider since I was going to India and had fourteen books I was supposed to take with me.  When you plan on backpacking all over India and Europe, carrying that much weight is suicide.  I thought a lot about the Amazon Kindle but ended up getting a Nook Color based on this review that my dad sent me from the Chicago Times.

The review is great, but I thought I would give my own thoughts on owning a Nook Color and how it has changed my reading experience.

Back in the Game

Me?  Why no, I'm not overwhelmed at all.

I've been really good at letting India take a backseat to all of the rest of the madness going on in my life right now.  Taking classes while trying to tackle course work while simultaneously making meaning of an experience like India is not the easiest load to juggle, but what do you do?  Deadlines are approaching, and I know I will feel a world better once I start.

Starting is the important thing.  After meeting with my faculty mentor, Dr. Burton, I've realized that I need to get my travel essays done a lot earlier than I anticipated.  If I am to publish an eBook, I need to leave myself a lot of room to find an audience, learn formatting, find outlets for my work, and just figure out the logistics of it all.

The cool thing is that this is much more than a honors thesis.  The hard thing is that this is much more than an honors thesis.  But it is going to be so much more rewarding knowing that I am establishing my writing presence on the internet.  This, right along with my novel writing class, has gotten me very excited about learning the ropes of self publishing.

So here is a brief to-do list:

• Email Professor Bennion two solid drafts and my coursework
• Start drafting more travel essays so that I am ahead of schedule
• Figure out if I am going to try for an ORCA grant
• Decide what final outcome, other than my eBook, I would like to have to show what I have learned through my experiences with emerging media.
• Get my personal writing group together to start talking about these topics
• Balance coursework with my current classes
• Keep this blog updated!

Photo credit to comerecommended.com

Publishing?

I remember my painting teacher in Hawaii sitting on his bench, eating Cheetos with chopsticks, instructing us students to always remember that you cannot paint abstractly until you have mastered the tools of the realistic realm.  In other words, you cannot break rules until you know what they are.  For a moment I'd like to apply that to publishing.

Let's be honest.  I am an undergraduate student with just one pending publication, and I don't know the first thing about the publishing world.  I've been working on gathering material to write my travel essays that I can self publish in an eBook, but it was not until I talked to my new friend, Emily, that I realized that this might make regular publishing impossible.  The conventional publishing world may be dying, but do grad schools care about that?  Or am I expected to have some traditional something to slap onto my resume if I want to be taken seriously?  (I hate that). 

In Dr. Burton's last email (my field study faculty mentor), he gave me some links to some popular places online where you can self publish eBooks.  I've decided to do a quick review of these sites and where I might go from here:

Smashwords.com publishes and distributes eBooks where authors and publishers retain full control over how their words and published, sampled, priced, and solid.  If an author wants to charge (the site is free), they have that option to do that, or even change the price at will.  They claim to be the leading eBook publishing platform, and have over 45,000 eBooks published.  If you do decide to charge, Smashwords.com keeps a portion of the profit, but it is still much more than the author would get in a traditional publishing relationship.  They also say that some publishers can sweep up these eBooks and show that they are worth selling, but others have decided that they do not want to work with a mainstream publisher or wait around as their book languishes in obscurity.  They say it is a personal choice, and that Smashwords.com does not publish incomplete or unpolished books.  

Email from Professor Burton: Some Direction on July 22, 2011

Here is another email from my field study faculty mentor giving me more direction for my project.

Rachel:

I'm somewhere in the middle of Illinois driving home right now. This morning, stopping at a tiny town in Indiana for gas, the store smelled of curry and I guessed the family of Indians behind the counter were from Gujarat. "Are you speaking Gujarati?" I asked. Stunned, they said yes.

India stays with you.

I've read all your recent blog posts, and I am very happy with how you have been writing and processing things. The visit from Ashley sounded very timely, and I second her advice about drafting. You seem nervous about this, and I don't want you to fall prey to this idea that you need months to process things first. Think of it this way: There are some things you can write or draft only while in the field, only while your legs are bunched up in that sari or you are wondering whether that bottle of water you bought had its seal broken. There is an authenticity to "in situ" composing. The press of time you feel in the field can be a great benefit to someone like you who has too many threads to weave.

Email from Professor Burton: Checking in June 29, 2011

Here is the last update I have received from my field study faculty mentor, Dr. Burton.  Apart from working on my honors thesis prospectus, this is what we have been talking about:

Rachel:

I've read all of your posts, even if I haven't commented much. I'm on
the road extensively during the next four weeks. Today and tomorrow,
Chicago.

First, kudos on making so many efforts to connect. I wrote a post about connecting yesterday, based in part on my reflections of what
you have been doing (and other recent students). You know I'm figuring
out the connect thing right beside you.