Wednesday, March 10, 2010

My Senior Thesis

So I realized that I haven't explained my thesis yet on this blog. I will be working with my favorite English faculty member, Jody Bates, next semester in an independent study for Departmental Honors. My thesis will consist of a research and creative aspect.

My topic will be autism. Remember that awful story I posted forever ago? Well, ever since then I have wanted to actually write that story. Though, now I have a lot more knowledge with two years of an English degree under my belt and a lot more writing experience. I have also learned the importance of reading in terms of shaping my writing. Therein lies the research aspect.

I am going to research autism, autism and other mental disorders in fiction, the first person narrative, and an unreliable narrator. I'm going to do the last three by reading fiction, and the first by strict research. The outcome of this research will be an analytical paper rationalizing my creative work, which will be a novella of an autism girl.

This topic is important to me for many reason. I'm not autistic, but I know that I learn and think differently than other people. I also realize how few books are out there about autism. I've obviously been reading a few since I decided on my project, such as Curious Incident and Wild Ride, and Nicholas Spark's Dear John had two characters of various autistic levels. These and others will be included in the research aspect of my thesis. I am really deeply touched by this topic and am really looking forward to working with it.

Now, I don't want to leave my minor out of the summary of my college career. I've decided that my character, whoever she may be, will have musical talents. This is going to be the drive of the story, in some way. I don't want to be too conclusive on the plot, yet, since I haven't started writing it.

Anyways, there you go. I hope now that you are enlightened, you will look forward to it being completed and want to buy a copy of the novella as it comes to bookstores near you! (Because it's going to be a huge hit, duh!)

3 comments:

Moria said...

that actually sounds like it'll turn out well=]

Tim Parenti said...

Best of luck to you!

Janelaine said...

sounds great! hope all goes well