Checking In- Dissertation Progress as of November 2016

I've had some people ask me how revisions on the dissertation are going. So I thought I'd take a few minutes and update you all.
As of today I have completed second round revisions on chapter 1 ("Devilish Leaders and Resisting Role Models in William of Malmesbury's Gesta regum Anglorum") and chapter 2 ("Parliament is Demonic: The Lesson and Context of Þe Deulis Perlament"). I'm meeting my goal of completing one chapter a month. It's getting a little tricky now because I'm juggling drafting the chapters with also revising notes from previous chapters, but I'm trying to time management it all.

My new director is great. Since I'm writing a chapter a month we're meeting about a week after she gets the chapter to go over it. It means a lot that she sets aside 2-3 hours each time to go over things with me. It also really helps that she gets drafts turned around to me so quickly. So far it's a process that's working well. For the most part the notes are minor and I seem to have internalized and corrected the major issues from the initial debacle. The new dissertation has a clear argument (YEAH!), both within the chapters and the diss as a whole. As a result the dissertation is leaner, and more focused. I was really worried after sending her chapter 1, worried I couldn't do this at all, worried that there were just so many things to fix. But each chapter I finish and get positive feedback on I feel more confident and better about it all.

The last couple of weeks have been a little rough--- I've been sick so I'm a little behind on my schedule/goal of one chapter per month. But this month I'm on chapter 3, my Shakespeare chapter, which is actually the only part of the previous dissertation that I can use any of so it's not the start from scratch that the other two chapters have been. I also have a five day weekend coming up where I can play catch up so I think I'll be fine.

That just leaves the penultimate Milton chapter, chapter four, for December.
The first three chapters each deal with an element (devilish leaders, demonic parliament, internal rebels) that I will then revisit and analyze in Paradise Lost.
My high school is finished 16 December, so my goal is to finish chapter 4, address the chapter 3 notes, and draft the intro and conclusion over the break. So a complete draft by the end of the year.

The next steps will wholly depend on how second and third drafts of the dissertation go, and we'll just have to wait and see on all that.

So that's the update. I hope everyone is well, and I hope too that it won't be too long before I have the time to come back and participate in my online communities!