It is nearly a month since I received feedback on the first draft of my thesis.  I have spent time mulling over how to respond to my supervisors’ comments but have tried to avoid taking immediate steps before thinking through the implications of making changes to structure and content.   I have also felt frozen with fear, because having come up with the structure and the words (for better or for worse) I now need to dismantle my draft and try to put the jigsaw back together without losing the good stuff.  I guess the only positives are that I have time, and in general terms the story is already in the draft, it is just a case of finding the narrative and emphasising the key moments and changes in direction along the way.  And, also making it simpler and easier to understand.  This is the process of the PhD journey, it is a marathon not a sprint and at some point, you come up against a wall of self-doubt and lack of confidence that your story is worth telling!

However, this week I have made progress and come up with a plan – something I am good at doing!  I started with a blank sheet of paper and began to rewrite Chapter 2 about my practice.  It is the most important chapter, probably the least well structured, and the one that everything else hangs upon.  My thinking is that if I can get the narrative clear then I can begin to rewrite the other chapters accordingly.   After feedback on the revised Chapter 2, I will then redraft the other substantive Chapter 3, which is about the theoretical underpinning of my practice, and then I can work on the Introduction and Reflections and Conclusions.  My timescales are that I will submit a revised version of Chapter 2 to my tutors for consideration at our meeting on 15 November and then a redraft of Chapter 3 for consideration at our meeting on 16 December.   This will then allow me to work on a full Second Draft of my Thesis for submission at the end of January 2023.

I have felt miserable for a few weeks, where my head felt it might explode with all the things I needed to think about, and my mind was spinning with various structures I might deploy to tell my story better, but I now feel that I am ready to move on.   I am positive about my writing again and can see a way forward.