Member-only story
Hell Is Other People’s Endnotes
a progress report on the book-writing process
During senior year of college there was one task that dogged me persistently: writing my honors thesis. Every time I hung out with friends or went for a long winding drive on the backroads around campus, a momentary thought of the thing I was supposed to be doing would inevitably flit across my mind and pangs of anxiety and panic would resume gnawing at my nerves.
In what I thought was a brilliant and cheeky move, I took a piece of blank printer paper and wrote on it in block letters, “What is your thesis?” I taped my DIY-sign to the wall directly above my desk where I would be forced to look at it morning, noon, and night. Within a week I stared past it completely, as if I’d forgotten how to read, because that’s how procrastination works. (You know when something’s not a priority because every week it moves up the to-do list yet somehow it never gets done.)
I was hopelessly lost. I had no idea what a good thesis should be or how to write one. The administrator in my department liked to recite a piece of advice whenever one of the beleaguered seniors happened into the office: “Don’t get it right, get it written.” Every fiber in my being balked at that statement. I kept turning her words over in my head. What’s the point of writing something if you don’t get it…
