TO: Betsy FROM: KH DATE: 11/13/12 RE: Progress Report of Honeymoon Hitchhikers

Introduction
This report will address the status of my capstone project, Honeymoon Hitchhikers: Archival Letters to Creative Nonfiction. It will include a project description, summary of work completed to date, work yet to be completed, and a summary of the state of my project relative to the expected timeline.

Project Description
My upcoming capstone project will be a piece of creative nonfiction based on the letters written by Mildred La Due Mead to her family, usually her mother, during the time that she and her newlywed husband were in California after eloping and leaving their family behind in Minnesota. The letters, currently held by the Minnesota Historical Society, give fairly detailed accounts of arriving in California almost to the day that the stock market crashed in 1929 and the following year and a half as the newlyweds struggle to establish themselves in their new environment. I plan to transform these letters into a narrative structure, taking historical context into account and attempting to stay as true to the letters as possible, only extrapolating to fill the gaps when necessary. Mildreds family, the La Dues, were one of the founding families of Fertile, MN, so there is a fair amount of documented community history that includes them that can help fill in information that the letters do not include.

Work Completed to Date

As of November 11, I have read through and sorted all of my primary and secondary sources. As a result, I have also finished writing my annotated bibliography. Working backward, I have written the authors note that will go at the end of my project. It discusses creative nonfiction as a genre, how it fits into academia, and how it relates to my project. This will be the basis of my Power Point presentation. (Incidentally, I have also begun my slide show.) Despite knowing that I will likely need to revise the authors note after I have finished the main portion of my project, I wanted to do this part while my research was fresh in my mind to insure accuracy of source representation. In regard to the main part of my project, I have outlined the narrative into four sections: (1) a prologue in which Milly and Sid decide to elope to California via hitchhiking, (2) Milly and Sid arriving in CA right when the stock market crashes and they struggle with their dream turning into a nightmare, (3) Milly and Sid get a job as a caretaker and cook and Milly gets attacked by an albino squirrel, and (4) Milly and Sid get let go from their jobs and they decide to resume hitchhiking to a new adventure. Each section will be approximately three pages, bring the total page count to twelve (not including the authors note). I have written a rough draft of the first section.

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Work Yet to Be Completed

As indicated by the previous section, the narrative portion of my project will have four sections and I have yet to complete the subsequent three. Additionally, now that I have discussed my authors note with my mentor, Dr. M. Mara, I would like to attempt a slightly different organization in the next draft. But, I will wait until I finish a complete draft of the narrative because I assume will need to alter the content slightly as well. Of course, I will also need to complete my slide show and practice my presentation, and, above all, edit my rough drafts.

Summary
By this date, I had planned to be further along with the narrative. However, I have finished a draft of the authors note, so I am not behind per se; I have just done the work out of expected order. The upcoming timeline indicated in my proposal is as follows: Nov 16: Send abstract to Mara for review Nov 20: Final abstract is due Nov 21: Rough draft of project sent to Mara for review Nov 27/29 or Dec 4/6: Project Presentation Dec 4: Final draft of paper is due I am still on track for these dates. The biggest obstacle I have handled is the time that my other classes require. Nonetheless, at this time I see no need to deviate from the agreed timeline. From this point on, it will mostly be creative work and revision. Though, at the advice of Dr. Silkenat, I may briefly look at California newspapers online and/or the writings of John Steinbeck and Upton Sinclair for ideas to supplement the archival letters for information on setting.