I�ve been thinking a lot about writing fiction lately: whether I should or shouldn�t; whether I do or don�t want to; what I would write about if I did.

This is, I think, the possibly inevitable result of working on this final stage of my dissertation. I�m currently so wrapped up in footnotes � the dotting of i�s and crossing of t�s, the accounting of all information � that part of me longs for the freedom of making it all up. It is the strange contradiction of a dissertation that both requires you to come up with an original idea and also to justify everything by �facts� found elsewhere. I place �facts� in scare quotes, because it is often better to find one�s justification not in actual facts, which are always suspect due to the fundamental subjectivity of the process of recording history, but on the work of other established scholars. A dissertation must walk a fine line between original work and the reinforcement of the tradition into which one would like to be received.

As I work to finish this draft, I am becoming more and more aware that my methods, which work for me, are somewhat unorthodox in the academic community at large, or, at least, into that academic community in which I am most involved. I have always taken a �whatever works� approach to my academic projects, drawing inspiration and ideas from a wide variety of sources, not just academic articles. In the long run, this approach has served me well, particularly since I tend to be attracted to projects that lie on the margins of the discipline where there are not necessarily established procedures. But it makes a dissertation a little difficult, because I am finding myself having to spend a lot of time defining and defending my methodology. Mostly this has meant creating a sort of fiction, finding the proper credible sources to justify my means, rather than starting with them in the first place. It�s not inaccurate � these are sources I�ve certainly read and consulted � but it is not a true picture of the process of the work.

The true picture is a lot more lively. I can point out the sections that were inspired by a heated discussion with my uncle, an economics professor, over a Thanksgiving dinner a number of years ago. I can point to another section that got its start from a sports biography my husband was working on that at first glance would seem to be completely irrelevant, but that gave me an idea of a new place to look. Here is my accidental e-bay acquisition, a document appended to something I purchased that happened to be useful. Here is the magazine I found at a garage sale when I was looking for a bookshelf. I bought two CDs (REM and the Pogues) and she threw in the magazine for free. Here is where I nearly fell in love with a librarian. Here is where I spent weeks in the basement storage area of the old library where they locked me in every day. Here is September 11, 2001 � the date September 11 comes up with an unusual frequency in my dissertation. It would have gone unnoticed, had not September 11, 2001 coincided with my decision to return to graduate school.

Among the many pleasures of writing non-fiction is the constant discovery of items that are so odd or interesting or alarming that you could not imagine coming up with the story any other way. Last night, for example, I came across a paragraph-long news story in an 1893 Chicago newspaper about a mayor of a town in Kansas who, in a town meeting, got into a rather heated discussion with an alderman. The mayor got so upset that he took off his wooden leg and began beating the alderman with it until other attendees managed to drag them apart.

This is a great story because of the detail � the wooden leg, the town meeting. We can picture it. But it is also a great story because of the details that are missing. Why did the mayor have a wooden leg? How did he get it off so quickly? Wouldn�t it be easy to run away from a man with only one leg? Was the alderman hurt? Moreover, there is no indication as to why the mayor was so upset with the alderman. Was it mere political rivalry? Had the alderman insulted his legless state? Had the alderman made untoward advances on the mayor�s wife?

Perhaps there is a novel waiting to be written on such a story, but I�m inclined to think it�s better left as it is. Part of telling a good story is knowing when to stop. And that is one thing that fiction writing and dissertation writing have in common. It is important to know when to stop. This is one of the things that concerns me about turning my writing skills to fiction. I haven�t been so good at stopping the diss.

The other thing that worries me is that the kind of fiction I�ll be good at is not the kind of fiction I like to read. I have a brain that thrives on structure and order. I like to set up systems and watch them play out. I prefer to be an architect at the background level and let the details play themselves out. But as a reader, I am often contemptuous of overly structural, artful, clever novels. They always seem to be too much about the novelist and not enough about whatever it is they are supposed to be about. It�s also one of the reasons I don�t write much music anymore. I was always good at setting up systems that generated good music. And don�t get me wrong, there is certainly creativity in that. But it always felt to me more like a puzzle than like art. And although I did will in my composition studies, I always felt like a fraud. I didn�t feel my own work the way I felt the work of others. What is the point of doing something like write a novel if the result is not going to bring you pleasure?
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And now, in the interest of knowing when to stop, I will. For now, the question is postponed. I have just had another conference acceptance, one more paper to write. This one is particularly sweet because I�ve been twice rejected by this organization. It�s the third conference in the triple crown of my field and it will be on my home turf. Just the boost I needed to get me out of the morass I�ve been in today thanks to crabby preschoolers, too much football and household repairs gone awry. In my next life, perhaps I should be a plumber. It would be a lot more lucrative and would save me all of this soul searching. Plus I would be able to figure out why there�s a water stain on my bathroom ceiling.

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