Thoughts on writing and future studies, work, etc

A few weeks ago there was an article in, I think, The Guardian, in which various writers discussed the actual practice of writing. This was prompted by a novelist commenting in an interview that, for him, the best thing about writing was the money. This was held to be suitably low-brow to prompt the paper to interview a handful of other writers, which revealed a range of interesting views. Many views were negative, which has rather set me thinking. My own experiences of writing stuff for my course has also caused me much thought.

Then there was Alain De Botton on the radio discussing his newest book which, he says, has, like all his previous books, taken him three or four years to write. More on this book below.

So while looking round the smaller Oxfam bookshop in Oxford, I was greatly surprised to stumble on a book that seems to precisely cover these questions, Alison Baverstock's Is there a Book in You? Plans to study this in depth over the next few weeks

This all arises as I contemplate what I might do going forward. I have one year of my MSc to go, during which I intend my focus to switch to more written work. I have to decide whether to apply for a PhD to start in October 2010. There was a substantial article in The Independent about the current structure of PhDs in the UK - with the rather nice title of "What's up, Doc?" This comfirmed a view I had picked up that many more PhD students already have their thesis topic set when they start their course. Not the old way of work for a couple of years then pick a topic. This is the main reason why the four year thesis has become the norm - very few go on longer. And it also noted the greater professionalism of PhD students - treating it much more like a full-time job, 9 to 5, . . .

I am currently thinking that my preferred thesis topic would be on the changing historiography of Kepler over the past 100 years - the move from the mystic/scientist portrait, to the more unified portrait. There is still so much Kepler material to look at. And though Tycho has had a number of new biographies, Kepler hasn't. So my PhD would be the prep to write a full size book on Kepler. I would guess that this would be a 6/7 year task.

But can it be done given current circumstances?

I have been reading Alain De Botton's new book for the past few days - The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. This is a really excellent book, fitting beautifully into my thoughts on work as previously developed from reading Tom Hodgkinson and Jerome Segal. The tone of the work is quite unusual and I am really interested in whether this will be maintained throughout the book.