Round 2 Revisions of #DevilDiss begin

My original plan was to have the first round of #DevilDiss revisions completed by the end of October. I finished a week early, last Saturday, and as a result, last week found myself faffing off a bit. I got a lot done, read the texts I had put aside since the initial draft as things to add, but it didn't FEEL like work. Which is a lot of dissertating, or writing for that matter- just readings things, then thinking about things.
But sometimes it's hard for it to feel like progress, and hard not to feel guilty that there aren't more TANGIBLE goals being met.

Chapter one actually had fewer notes than chapters two and three, but there was one big one- this chapter was defined by periodization (Anglo-Saxons), something I push back against in all my other chapters. So I needed to rethink that structure which has serious implications.

And the answer came in such a way as to also address one of the other defining, big questions of the #DevilDiss which is: 
what's the difference between the monstrous and demonic?  

By reorienting this first foundational, chapter around defining this differences, why the demonic emerges as separate from the monstrous in Anglo-Saxon England, departing in key ways, I explain the foundation of the English folkloric devil.

So I spent most of this morning throwing out my introduction to this chapter and moving one chunk to what will become the introduction to the dissertation. Slow work, although I think it will help clarify (for me and readers) the key concepts and save me time moving forward on the chapter two and three revisions.

I finished all my handwritten notes, and just need to type them up.
I will then move onto the chapter two and three round two revisions which I know will require more work.
I will focus on three key topics:

• how women represent domestic spaces which stand in for the nation
• more clearly expanding on the idea of liminal space and borderlands. Primarily inserting how mystics and saints can be read in these spaces, how heroes are immune to these spaces or prove themselves in these spaces, and how these are revelatory spaces
• making clearer connections between the devil and Others, specifically Jews

I feel good about the work I did today and moving forward.

November is incidentally #AcriMo, a month academics stole from #NaNoMo, a hashtag/movement meant to encourage people to get their novels out in November.
Some academics hate it, some like it for the writing time it encourages us all to carve out, especially here at the end of the semester when guarded writing time is hard to find.
I don't tend to use the hashtag because I use #DevilDiss, but I am dedicated to getting a lot done this month.

The holidays begin 6 December with Hanukkah, and I'd like to have all of my round 2 revisions finished by then and to my director. I understand that the holidays will result in a slow turn around on notes, and figure with MLA at the beginning of January, and me busy prepping my online Early Shakespeare course for the spring, I can make this work for me.
Now, I only have CH 1-3 notes, so this is dependent on me getting CH 4-6 notes in the next couple of weeks, so we'll see, but that's where I'd like to be.
That means that on the other side of the New Year, and MLA, I'd get notes to begin round 3 revisions which I'd like to be able to start on by February. Plus, by then I will have a clearer idea all the way around of how things are shaping up, mainly because if I don't have an interviews by them I will at least know job wise to pivot to back-up plans.

I would like to aim for round 3 revisions complete by the end of February. I don't know how many drafts we're looking at, and know there's not an easy answer, but hope by that point that the notes are fewer, and less intensive.
It'd be nice if that round 3 did the trick and meant I could have approved drafts to send to the committee. Mainly because I'd still like to work hard enough to have a spring, not summer, defense (for a variety of reasons).

I continue to recognize that a lot of this depends on things out of my control. But I can only focus on what I can get done.
On the plus side, sitting in on my Old English class as my last requirement to prove fluency is going well. 
I also received an email that my article "Don't Just Print the Legend, Write It: The Odd Construction of Elfego Baca as Folk Hero"is in final copy edits and will be out soon in Western Folklore. This article was a lot of fun to write, mainly because it made me hooked on archive work as I used the Center for Southwest Research here at UNM to write it.
Last week and Halloween also saw the release of Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film, which includes my chapter, "I Framed Freddy: Functional Aesthetics in the A Nightmare on Elm Street Series" which I'm really proud of. Plus, it allowed me to continue my obsession with Freddy Krueger.

So let the round 2 revision work continue...