After all, it is the weekend.

Life seems so simple when you’re a 6-year-old and a cat.

My six-year-old paid me a visit this morning as I lay in bed considering which part of my creative thesis I should focus my efforts on today.

Do I work on the POV shifts I don’t completely understand and try to muddle my way through filtering my entire story strictly through my protagonist’s POV?

-OR-

Is it more important to focus on the much-needed world-building? My fantasy novel so far takes place in a jumbled mix of worlds that I don’t completely understand myself. It’s no small wonder my first reading left my thesis advisor feeling confused.

I thought I was so far ahead of the game starting out thesis semester with over 150 pages already written. I only need 70 pages, after all. I thought if I could just make those first 70 pages perfect, I’d be home free. But it’s turning out not to be so easy.

My advisor writes, “You’re trying to build such a powerful and important world! You can do it, but you’ve taken on a truly difficult task for a thesis novel, and this is going to take some digging and revising and thinking. But it will be worth it.”

Will it?

I sure hope so. I wish I was writing something simpler for thesis. But this is the story that is demanding to be written. It’s not my choice to make. I have an entire world to build, and only a couple of months in which to build it. I can’t make those first 70 pages pretty without first figuring out this fantasy world in which my story takes place. I’ve gotten over-ambitious, and now I have no choice but to somehow get it done.

So, what do I focus on first? What if I’m just not creative enough to bring this fantasy world to life? What if my life is too scattered to get it done by the time I have to turn in my thesis? What if I end up having to take a second semester of thesis to finish and have to pay cash for it because I’ve run out of financial aid?

This morning, as my son lay in bed cuddling the cat next to a distracted mother, I said, “Oh, Avery, I wish I could just lie in bed all day and read a book.”

He continued to kiss the kitty, giving me only his passing attention as usual. “You can,” he said. “After all, it is the weekend.”

When did my life become so complicated? I don’t remember the last time I laid about on the weekend without worrying about the work I should be doing. Whatever will I do with my time (free time?) after graduation? How in the world am I going to survive this semester?

~Mandy Webster

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