#and a lot of advice i've read seems tailored to introverts

[pastafossa]

how much ahead do you write for TRT? would you recommend writing as you go or finishing a few chapters (or even the whole thing!) before posting

also my middle name is hind so it's almost flattering to see the shipnames and such :)

love your work!!!!!!!!!!

So me personally, I don't write ahead, but I do outline ahead! I've got everything charted out, what needs to happen, how the arcs need to unroll, clues to leave, etc. This is what allows me to write the chapter every week - in my natural environment, I'm a pantser and I tend to wing it (which works fine for a one-shot but less so for an epically long fic like TRT). I'm also an extrovert - I need external feedback or, at the very least, some form of interaction to feed my creative drive. If I don't have that, if I wait to post a chapter until I'm done with everything, I'll essentially run out of energy and coast to a stop. By posting a chapter each week that I've written, I get that feedback and can keep going! There are flaws to my method - sometimes it's impossible to tell how a chapter's going to go until you write it, or you suddenly get a good idea about some event that should, in reality, have caused clues and foreshadowing to appear three chapters ago. But that's where the outline comes in! It gives you a north star to drive towards even if you choose to take a side road on the way there.

But note that this is me. Most of the other writers I know are introverts and can write just fine by being left alone with their own internal feedback for encouragement, and I also have a few friends who absolutely hate the idea of writing like I do. They absolutely need to have it all done before posting, and the sheer chaos of writing a new chapter into existence every week isn't something they'd enjoy, just like I'd hate being confined to their method. So everyone's different. I'd say the low-risk, high-patience, safest option is having it all written ahead of time, if you're introverted enough or can charge your own battery. The high-risk, high-reward option is writing as you go, favored by those who need to interact in order to create. And the neutral ground is getting ahead by three or four chapters before beginning to post, finding a safe middle balance between the two. So the real question is, which would work best for you? Do you have the patience and inner drive to get it all done first? Do you need interaction to keep yourself going (hi it's me)? Do you land somewhere in the middle? I will say, my writing absolutely suffered when I tried, desperately, to be what I wasn't. People will tell you to write for yourself, to get it all done before posting because it should be for you anyway, and while that works for a lot of fic writers, for some of us, writing in isolation for only ourselves is where our creativity goes to die. I think figuring out where your creativity graveyard is, and going in the opposite direction, is a huge benefit to you once you figure it out, even if you need to experiment a little to figure it out.

Also YESSS I'm so happy to hear from a Hind! I always love hearing about people with the same name. It also strikes me as funny because I never actually meant to name her Jane Hind. It was originally just a placeholder I used while writing and in notes, a joke about a Jane Doe reader insert, the one we can't trace back, and only after I'd used it long enough in notes and the first chapter that I went... 'actually this kinda works, because she is a Jane Doe, with a real name I can't ever use'. And admittedly it would make me pretty happy too to see my own name for a ship like this LOL.

Thank you so, so much anon for coming to say hi!

#ask response #the red thread #my writing process works for me and i'm not sure how common it is tbh #i know when i've seen polls most writers seem to check off as introverts #and a lot of advice i've read seems tailored to introverts #and then there's me like 'i need interaction or i will literally die' #so take my advice with a grain of salt #mostly i'd just try it out #maybe try a shorter chapter fic and see which works for you #if you can get it all pumped out ahead of time or if that just doesn't work for you #if you need to get it out as you go or if you need that but can wait until you have a few chapters #i'll say if you go my way just make sure you outline or you'll run into that wall facefirst #i can *only* do what i do every week because I've given myself a roadmap and i don't have to stop for directions

[qqueenofhades]

Hi there. I've been scrolling through your "school stuff" tag but thought I'd ask directly - how did you find the transition to actually moving outside of the U.S. for your PhD? I'm looking at something similar and I'm wondering about your experience with the logistics (finding somewhere to live, visa, etc!). Thanks in advance, and congrats on being a doctor!

Oh lord. Why would you do that to yourself? I feel like that tag is mostly just intense kvetching, bogglingly obscure nitpicking complaints, and existential despair, and/or yelling at various institutions and/or people who could not do their god damn jobs. If you have read that and still actually want my advice, I salute you. I’m presuming you’re asking in regard to the UK, since it’s the only experience I can speak on, so hopefully that’s applicable?

In my case, I studied in the UK for a year as an undergraduate, at Oxford, so I was already familiar with the process (at least somewhat) when it came time to do it again for the PhD. Upfront, we must acknowledge the ugly deformed rabid elephant in the room that is Brexit, and the idiotic reform of UK immigration policy currently ongoing. Long story short, they seem to think they can function without low-skilled migration, that the domestic UK workforce will just happily lark off to do the jobs that working-class EU migrants have been doing, that this won’t totally bomb-crater the NHS, that they can run a country by basically only allowing in PhDs in STEM making over £30,000 a year, etc… so yes, this is a complete joke of an immigration policy and it’s what happens when you elect floppy haired xenophobic douchewads and their nightmare party as prime minister! ANYWAY, they’re introducing a points-based system from 2021, which may not affect you for an application under Tier 4, but UK immigration policy is going to have a lot of very stupid reforms and you’ll want to keep on top of those. If you have an offer in hand from a UK university, it is made somewhat easier, but you’ll still need to budget for processing costs, an NHS subsidy paid in for every year you will be there (something like $300/year), and a trip to a UK visa office to have your fingerprints and biometric information taken. If you don’t live near one, that will be travel expenses and so forth. You then have a temporary visa issued for first entry into the country, and a Biometric Residence Permit which you pick up at your university.

That, at least, was the process the last time I applied for a student visa, and it may all have changed by the time you do it. As noted, there are a lot of upfront visa costs, so you’ll want to be aware of those. You need a number of supporting documents, including offer of study, proof of income or ability to financially support yourself (since most Tier 4 visas either don’t let you work or only work a limited number of hours), proof of English proficiency (as a native English speaker/person from an English-speaking country, you won’t need this), and so on. You can’t start the process before you have the offer, but you’ll want to start it as soon as possible afterward, because it can take several months, and obviously needs to be done before you can travel. You will also want to open a UK bank account as soon as you arrive, which can be done once you have your residential address and a certificate from the student services office at your university verifying that you are in fact a student there. It’s pretty difficult to pay out of non-UK accounts, at least for monthly/recurring transactions, and there are international fees. You will also want a UK phone. I still have my UK phone/phone number despite my current hiatus in America, since most carriers offer free or low-cost roaming in Europe (though subject to change with EU trade negotiations), which is nice. I pay only a little extra to have Global Roaming in North America, so I can still use my phone as if I’m in the UK. If you’re planning to be traveling, this is a nice perk to have.

As far as finding programs goes, I’m sure I don’t need to give you advice on what you’re interested in and where you’re looking. Obviously, universities in the UK are grouped as “Oxford and Cambridge” and “everyone else,” though there are also rankings within those. I have been at both of these; Oxford as an undergrad, and then I did my PhD at a large public university in the North that ranks within the top 10 in the UK. The North will be much lower, living-cost wise (actually, if you can swing it, just… don’t do it in London, the cost of living in London is out of control. Of course, if the program you really have your heart set on is in London, then go for it, but just be aware of what you’re getting into). It’s also a rule of thumb that you don’t go anywhere for a PhD unless they’re paying you. Don’t self-fund a PhD, it’s just too expensive, and any decent university will give you some kind of financial stipend. I had a scholarship that covered three years of full tuition at international rate, which was good, though I had to take out some living-cost loans. So if you’re trying to decide between two programs that have both accepted you, a situation I was also lucky enough to be in, it sounds crass, but: take the money. One university had already offered me the tuition/scholarship, while the other had accepted me but wasn’t sure about funding. So I took the one that paid the scholarship. You need every penny you can get. You will be comically, absurdly, unbelievably broke as a graduate student. I was looking back on it like “wow I really lived for four years on BUTTFUCK NOTHING.” It is not for the faint of heart; you will have financial stress along with academic pressure, and while I was lucky enough to have generous friends and family contributing to my living costs, I still barely scraped through. It is something you should be aware of.

I don’t know if you’ve studied in the UK system before (I’m assuming not), but the structure for a PhD is much less determined than in the American system. It will also vary from university to university, so it’s worth establishing contact with a potential faculty supervisor to ask questions and refine your project proposal. I made contact with my eventual supervisor at my PhD university before I actually applied there; I gave him my (much too broad and pretty unrefined) project proposal and what I was interested in, and he helped me tailor it into something that could be done in a feasible time frame and which would make use of his expertise and contribute to the field. Whatever you’re thinking about pitching as a thesis topic, you probably need to make it more specific. I don’t know what field you’re in; I’m a humanities/history person, obviously, so the rule always seems to be WRITE MORE, INFIDEL. But the point is, the UK system has much less structured time, and basically relies on you to have the self-motivation to go out and conduct the research and write it up, and if you’re someone more used to rigid requirements and classes and so forth, you might find it a little hands-off. If you’re like me and can just be set loose in your field of interest and do your own thing, you’ll like it. I feel like anyone who is serious enough about their subject to want to do a PhD has to be primarily self-motivating, but some people function better with clear guidelines, and those are not always forthcoming. I can’t count the number of times I wished my supervisors would just TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK TO DO, but they usually highlighted something and had me work to figure out how exactly to fix it. They weren’t negligent or uncaring or unsupportive, and the project became much better as a result, but yes, it’s on you to do, and it can again be frustrating.

As far as living, I didn’t try to rent a flat from afar, sight unseen, in my first year. I just registered for postgraduate campus housing, and lived with four predictably horribly messy roommates (why???!) before I managed to escape and rent a private flat for the next three years. You will need a guarantor with a UK address (i.e. not your parents in America) to sign on the lease agreement, especially if you fall below a certain income threshold, and go through the usual background checking and approval. If you want to have the place to yourself, it will be, as noted, much cheaper to find something you can afford in the North and not-London in general, though southern England and the London commuter belt will all be expensive. If you’re okay living with roommates, or you make friends during your program, it might work to room together and share costs, but I am a pathological introvert and don’t like people, so I lived by myself. 

Anyway. Right now, I am in the second round of applications for a Big Deal UK postdoctoral award, which would be for three years starting this fall if I got it, at another high-ranking large public university in the south of England. (So yes, everything that I just said about how much it costs to live in London/London suburbs is me playing myself). I would be applying for a Tier 2 visa (i.e. the permanent/settlement track/full-time work visa) if I got this, which would be another barrel of laughs and different requirements from a Tier 4. That is definitely unhatched chickens which we can’t count yet, as this is a highly competitive/prestigious award and there is absolutely no guarantee that I would get it, but it would mean that I would go through the international moving/visa application process for a third time, so I would once again become too unfortunately familiar with whatever bullshittery is happening now. Le sigh.

I don’t know if any of that is helpful; hopefully so. Let me know if you have more questions, and good luck.

#school stuff #anonymous #ask