sisters (and brothers) doin' it for themselves

Over the summer, as I was preparing to defend my doctoral comps, I heard murmurs from other doctoral students in my division that a faculty member was going to facilitate a dissertation writers group in the Fall. I was excited to have a regular forum to gather feedback on my prospectus and subsequent chapters as well as a motivator to actually sit down and write pages on a schedule, especially when faced with the daunting task of writing an actual dissertation, not just the phantom-dissertation that had been in my brain for four years.

Fast-forward to mid-September: I'd heard nothing from anyone about the group for a month or so, only to discover that it had started but had been restricted to ethnomusicologists. This was odd. My face made a face. Our division is relatively small--only about 40 students in all stages of four different degree paths--and highly collaborative and interdisciplinary by design. Rarely are lines drawn between the disciplines and being excluded this way seemed so contrary to my experience of the program.

Two months and several conversations with colleagues and faculty later, I understand why the faculty member chose to limit the group and do no fault her in anyway. It makes practical and logistical sense. Yet, it continues to bother me, especially as I feel tremendously alone in my writing process. Rather than continue to feel confused/isolated/frownish and not get a damn thing done, I propose that we--oh, orphans of the dissertation world--work together to support, motivate, clarify and critique each others work. I invite you to join me in this interdisciplinary dissertation-completion blog. You may already be participating in other groups at your home institution; that's cool. Here, you'll find an interdisciplinary mix and outside perspectives on your project, a place to post goals and timelines where others will hold you as accountable as you let them, vent about the process, share victories and setbacks. Sound good? Send me your email address and I will add you as an author on this blog and we can get started.

So, how should this actually work? I'm not entirely sure and am open to suggestions/modifications but here's what I propose:

Members commit to 3-months of participation (for now). We can reassess after that.

Weekly:

• On Mondays, members/authors post writing/research goals for the week. These can take nearly any form: hours spent in the library, pages/words written, tasks to be completed, etc.
• On Thursdays, we each check-in on the blog about our progress towards the goals.
• On Sundays, we check-in again to see how successful we were.

Monthly:

• Drafts will be due on the 1st and 15th of the month. Whatever you're working on--a prospectus, a chapter, an outline, most likely a section--have something in sharable shape twice monthly. I'm thinking usually these drafts will be sections of 10-15 pages, not necessarily of entirely new material every time. As chapters get closer to completion, we can renegotiate length/frequency.
  
• Drafts will be shared on a round-robin basis: each draft will be reviewed by 1 or 2 other member(s) on a rotating basis. Reviewers will have one week to read the draft and return with comments.

I'm also thinking it might be nice to have some face-time occasionally. With glorious internet-technologies, we could schedule a monthly or bi-monthly Google+ Hangout and talk about our projects or do presentations. This, as is everything above, is totally open for debate.

What do y'all think?

I'll publish an actual introduction post with my info in it after this but I hope that there are folks that are interested and excited about this process, enough to commit to this group.

Also, feel free to share this blog with others who may be interested in the project.