Am I the only person who looks on the beginning of a new week with dread? Yet, again after a seemingly stable week and quiet weekend attending to domestic duties and my own headspace (reading papers, watching my beloved Magpies play AFL football, one chick flick movie in the evening when alone in the house), I do not want to rise from bed and greet the new day.
Today I have begun with a leisurely lie-in which I justified by reading a hard back on Wikinomics. Yep, it is interesting in a dry academic way but it was not really a priority task. Next procrastination was my own and my son's washing (yep, he could do it himself after TAFE) but why waste all these sunny daylight hours? Then on to that wonderfully riveting household duty bathroom cleaning. Yep, even that appears better than sitting at the keyboard embarking on my final write up of my PhD.
Oh, look lunchtime. Now I MUST prepare yoghurt, hummus and vegetarian lasagne for dinner.
Next the email sort through and on to this blog.
Funny how the hours are rapidly dwindling and I have achieved NOTHING of substance.
If I stop and reflect, and am honest with myself I really do know why I feel this way each Monday.
By the end of June the Exegesis must be completed so that means only three more weeks to go. I have the material I need. I have all the reading completed, to read more is just going to make it all less 'controllale". I have written the Preface structural summary and main points. I have drafted the Chapter structural layout with thesis argument and hypothesis development through to outcomes.
So why won't I write it?
I have been trying very hard to distance myself from my candidature and look towards life after the PhD, knwoing it is common for people to face a void. For me I fear that void. My self-perception for so many years now has been that I am a PhD candidate and trainee academic.
When the Exegesis is done and dusted the Artefact remains, and I have never been comfortable identifying as a writer. I am not. I am simply a writing craftsperson on a journey of discovery, playing with the 'real writing', a novel.
And I am scared.
I am scared I cannot do it, no matterhow much research and analysis I have done into the process and practice of professional authors.
The big question remains do I have that ability to commune with the Muse? To reach out and grasp that very essence of creation?
Also to do this, mobilise my creative desires and abilities, how safe am I going to be?
Now I have worked my way down to the crux of the matter.
Do I really want to embark on that marvellous, addictive manic phase I need to be generative and productive?
Having spent so many weeks trying to consolidate my wellness routines, and stabilise my moods, am I ready to (or willing to) put it all 'on the line' just to achieve at my highest level of creativity?
It's what I have grieved for that beautific state for over twenty-one years.
I have been atempting to control it via medication ever since I accepted the need to be medicated for life. It had to be fought for my role as mother, but what about now?
Surely, as an author, I must go there.
I cannot see how to do it without mania. Is it any wonder, I put it off.
I just wish my supervisor could realise how much I am thinking of sacrificing for this last foray into my artistic self.
I am scared.
Come, hold my hand Calliope.
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