The ups and downs of the last couple of weeks have been startling and amazing all at once.
First, I edited the first full draft of the manuscript and handed off to the professor who has taken a personal interest in it. Of course, I need to buckle in and prepare myself for the hours of editing and criticism to come, but merely holding its two-hundred and fifty-nine page weight in my hands for the first time was something from a film. I suppose I’ll hear from him in the coming weeks about it, and be able to focus whatever time I can to be able to bring it to another level.
Next, I was also able to bring the first draft of my photography thesis to a close. The book has been laid out and published through Blurb, and it feels mind-blowingly legitimate. Well…looks it, at least. I know that at this juncture, the majority of my photographic opportunities are going to fall away without school and its publications, so this is a really fantastic way to be able to culminate the years I’ve spent working with the medium. I can’t see myself ever abandoning it, but I understand that circumstances will change.
I also finished the written component. I was so incredibly scared of it - not sure what to write, intimidated to show it to my readers - but when all was written, I was really excited about what I actually produced. I think I was able to prove in thirty pages that I really do know my stuff about independent punk music, both historically and currently. It’s odd working with a topic that’s pretty uncharted; it’s both a burden and a freedom. But since it was so close to home, it only excited me.
As I briefly wrote before, I hope I will have some opportunity for the rest of my life to be able to write about the music that has touched me. It’s unreal to be able to think that people have careers out of it. If anything, it just inspires me to keep going since I’ve proven to myself that I can hold my own.
In other related news, I have so much impending work that I may not see the light of day for the next few weeks. I suppose I’ll live. New York, ho…
M
