Don't be surprised if your major professor responds to your announcement with a long, cool, silent stare.

GROWING A THESIS Spring of 1998 has lasted a very long time. It will live in my memory as the time I wrote my master's thesis and, as it happens, the first time I ever tried my hand at gardening. I write at home for hours each day, until my back and brain hurt. A garden is an ideal breaktime activity. Standing in the backyard one sunny morning, proudly gazing at my basil seedlings (riddled with slug holes) and violet cosmos flowers (nodding on the end of stems so rangy they've had to be tied to tall stakes), I realized that the two things I spend most of my time doing are actually linked somehow. The garden has certainly helped my writing by giving me a healthy way to relax without consuming too much of my time, but it's more than that. I realized that the lessons from my first try at growing a garden are the same ones I learn struggling with the inevitable obstacles and strain of writing a thesis. For example . . . Garden wisdom #1: The most careful planning and earnest intentions can never encompass every insect invasion, shift in global climatic conditions or accidental overfeeding. Thesis-writing corollary: You must be rigid, yet flexible. Of course you must plan, write schedules and to-do lists, set deadlines, make commitments and work very hard. Just don't be surprised when deadlines need to be extended, sometimes 30 times. Don't be surprised when you realize that there are moments in life when your heroic efforts are irrelevant: something out there just doesn't want you to make progress. The best thing at this point is to leave it alone. Watch videos all weekend. Catch up on letters you've been using grad school as an excuse not to answer. Don't worry, the thesis isn't going to go away. Believe me. Garden wisdom #2: Sometimes, in spite of expensive soil amendments and hours/days/weeks digging and weeding, a plot of ground just will not grow anything. Give up and put in a patio. Thesis-writing corollary: Life is short; make an adventure out of it. Never refuse to consider a sudden bend in the straight path before you. Have a Plan B. You may even be well under way in your writing when you find out the topic bores you stiff, or perhaps you run across some unique and fascinating side-topic that causes you to rethink the theme of your thesis. Be willing to entertain the possibility of reconfiguration or even abandonment of your project. (Note: Don't be surprised if your major professor responds to your announcement with a long, cool, silent stare.) Garden wisdom #3: Never give up and put a patio over a piece of ground that has any chance of being fertile. Keep working at it, and you'll be rewarded by a beautiful garden someday. Thesis-writing corollary: Life is long; don't burn your bridges. Even if your thesis has gone stale for you and headhunters are calling with job offers from exotic locales, finish that thesis. If you don't, it will haunt you forever. Your dreams will be eternally peopled by members of your committee asking for the manuscript. These figures may grow old and gray, but because they're in your own mind, they'll never die and leave you alone. Never. Garden wisdom #4: Everyone has an opinion on how to grow tomatoes, but nobody knows my backyard like I do. Thesis-writing corollary: You must always be ready to seek expert advice yet be extremely independent and self-sufficient. Everyone has an opinion on how to write a thesis (and naturally thinks theirs is best; of course, that's because it worked--for them), but only you really know what works best for you. Sure, if you're stuck, get input from a handful of different people whose advice you trust, then pick and choose what seems right. Experiment. Eventually you'll develop a personal toolbox of rituals necessary to lure yourself into sitting down at the computer (a yoga asana, verbal self-abuse), discover your best time of day for writing (midnight to 6 a.m., once a month) and learn how to deal with obstacles (work at them full force, hide in bed for a week eating pistachio ice cream and watching "Jeopardy"). Garden wisdom #5: April showers bring May flowers, except in an El Niño year, when record-breaking May showers bring July flowers. Maybe. Thesis-writing corollary: You thought you'd have it done by now. Your committee is asking, ever more insistently, "When do I get to see a draft? Huh? Huh?" You can't get the analysis program to work right. You have terminal writer's block. Perhaps the dog ate the diskette with the only backup of your data analysis on it. But guess what? One day you'll wake up, and it'll be done, signed off, handed in. You won't believe it. You'll pinch yourself because it will seem like a wonderful dream. Then you'll have a panic attack that will last for several months, because now you need to find a job. Today the garden is thriving in spite of slug-ravaged foliage and overwatering courtesy of the Southern Oscillation. I have kept working and writing in spite of uncooperative data analysis software, unforeseen statistical problems and other setbacks that seem to have plagued this project throughout its existence. I figure the peppers are flowering and the basil has started to grow well in spite of insect damage. There is cause for hope. -- Maggie Brown, M.S. '98