It’s done: the heart of my arts-based research process is finished – and with that, my Master’s thesis is finally nearing completion.

I worked on the story for more than two years; not continuously – but somehow, in a way, I did. From freewriting to fragments, then to rough, first, second and final drafts, I wrote more than 500 pages in total. All of that to arrive at a 29-page story.

Along the way, I documented and reflected on my process and translated it into the academic part of the thesis. It was a small tour de force – and at times I seriously doubted whether all of it would ever become one coherent story.

But it did. And I’m genuinely happy with it.

I learned a great deal in the process. It was my first arts-based research project, and these are some of the things I’ll take away from it:

\* how important it is to develop a process and follow it consistently – even when, at times, you are no longer sure whether it is working.

\* how helpful process support and documentation can be. Simply talking through my own working process helped me again and again to identify problems and find solutions.

\* what it means to write in a structure-generating way: to develop a text that does not primarily work through plot, but through motifs, repetitions and connections that first have to be discovered and brought into focus.

\* what it means to navigate the process using only my own resonances as a compass and to base all my decisions on them.

I even worked by hand unusually often for this project – including, for the first time, writing an entire rough draft by hand. Around 60 handwritten pages in one week. That, too, was quite an experience.

The submission deadline is in eleven days. All that remains now is to describe the final phase of my four-stage process. It was indeed a long and winding road to be at the place I am today, a finished story in my hand and happy. Even though there’s some work left, I now feel quite confident that what I kept telling myself throughout those two years was true after all: all will be fine.

But today, more than anything, I’m simply happy that all those fragments, notes, memories, detours and doubts actually became a story.

Happy Moment: My autofictional story is finished! 🥳