Lee Bloxom is pursuing a PhD in Media, Art, and Text at VCU and has recently completed a grant-funded oral history project about farm life on Virginia's Eastern Shore. She holds an MA in English (writing & rhetoric) from VCU and a BA in American Studies and English from Wellesley College. She has worked professionally as a video producer, English teacher, writing coach, and journalist. Since 2002, she has taught writing at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond. Her oral history blog can be found here. Her website can be found here.I'm a 3rd-year PhD student in VCU's MATX program and I'm writing my first novel in VCU's full-year novel-writing workshop.
Yes, I am writing a novel and a dissertation at the same time.
Yes, I might be crazy.
Why write a novel? And why write one now?
One thing I know about myself is that I'm a writer. I'm also an oral historian, a media
studies scholar, a photographer, and a teacher ... but mostly I'm a writer. Not writing
makes me crazier than working on three projects at one time. It doesn't really matter
which project I'm working on - the oral history project, the dissertation on technology,
place and local culture, or the novel - they all feed my need to write.
There have been moments this semester when I thought the novel was taking over.
Writing fiction makes me happy in a way that writing scholarly nonfiction does not.
That's one reason I signed on for the novel-writing workshop. Having to write fiction ...
because it's homework ... I liked that idea a lot.
At this stage of the PhD, my work is solitary. Me, alone with my ideas and my research.
Checking in with my dissertation committee as rarely as possible since they're all very,
very busy. My family mostly wants me graduated and out of school. "Isn't this program
over yet?" Socialization is essential for keeping me sane. The folks in my novel-
writing workshop talk writing and fiction and story in all its forms ... TV, film ... it's
conversation that rejuvenates.
But then again, I could call my friends and go out to dinner.
The question remains ... why a novel? Why write a novel now?
I've written a number of short stories that don't work because they're not short stories ...
they're actually super-condensed novels and the only way they'll ever work is if I expand
the ideas, go deeper with the characters, take them farther.
The question I've struggled with is how to find the stamina, the heart to take an idea and
flesh it into a full-length piece. I've never been a distance runner, but this year I'm in
training ... as a distance writer.
I'm almost to the end of a semester working on the one novel. If I were doing this on my
own, without the structure of the workshop, I'd have gotten discouraged and switched to
something new by now. But I've committed to these characters and their obstacles, and
I'm going to go deeper. Take them farther. I'm going to bring them home, or take them
to the moon ... whatever it takes.
Like most things, I figure that the first full-length book is the hardest. Once I get a sense
for my rhythm - for the times and places I'm most likely to lose heart or interest - then,
next time, when I don't have the benefit of a social structure to keep me going, I'll have a
better sense for how to keep myself going. That's my plan anyway.
So far it's working.
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