Solidifying My Thesis

"I read your stories last night, and at first I didn't know what to say about them."
-Juan

His lack of knowing what to say was a compliment, so that made me happy. Don't worry though, he looked at them again this morning and found plenty of things to say. As I write this, I have copies of Albatross and Knowing the Dragon in my bag with Juan's handwriting on them. We're off to a good start, and I'm not even technically working on my thesis yet. Huzzah!

Going into this meeting, I was a little uncertain of how it would work out. After all, this was the first time Juan and I were going to talk about my work, the first time he'd seen any of it. I had a bit of concern that we wouldn't quite mesh in terms of vision. Turns out, we're not only on the same page, but the same paragraph. Magical realism and supernatural themes are his element, and that's what I'm doing. It works.

We talked a bit about publication, and he showed me a new place to look for publication markets: www.newpages.com Now let's see if I can get any of my thesis stories published before my thesis is reviewed by the appropriate people at the end of spring. Talk about nifty. Juan also gave me some exciting news. He talked to Dr. Sheidley (to double check the process since he's brand new to the school) and it turns out that I only need to take one more honest-to-goodness class. Otherwise, I'll be taking six hours of Thesis.

I'm incredibly pleased by this. I find myself growing more and more sick of formal classes where I'm stuck following someone else's agenda. Not that I'm digging on any of my lovely professors, but I've spent most of my life learning things just because other people think I ought. I'm ready for a change of pace.

One last thing that came out of the meeting is that I think I've finally figured out how my stories are/will be unified. Juan mentioned that both of the stories had transformations in them and someting clicked in my head. That's what makes them fit together. Transformation is the key. Now I just have to figure out how I want to emphasize (or not) that common element through the stories. Okay, so I have quite a bit more to figure out too, but I've got one more problem checked off on the list marked "Thesis" in my mind.