It’s an expression known by novelists. But it might be applicable to this musicologist too, over the next fortnight!
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-does-it-mean-to-kill-your-darlings
I do have a first draft of my second book, it’s true. But it’s a bit too long, and I am sure it can be tightened up. So, I’ve devised a formula. I need to lose 11%, and I’ll try to apply that across the whole manuscript. I’ve tried it on the introduction, and it worked a treat. Start with a word count, reduce every thousand words by 11%. But that’s just a small part of a much longer thing!
I’ve taken the next fortnight off as annual leave. It won’t be a holiday! Ideally, I’d like to do this in under a fortnight, to allow time for any extra fact-checking or writing. I really need to work out how much I need to get through per day, too, if I want that writing time. This morning, I reduced approximately 6.5k words to 5.8k, which is not enough to allow for the bibliography required at the end of each chapter.
It probably sounds very formulaic. But I timetabled the writing of my PhD, and the revision of my first monograph. It works for me! So … watch this space.
The official deadline is the end of July 2023. Luckily, my editor is quite forgiving!
MONDAY. Introduction done. Chapter 1 done. Chapter 2? Getting there. And there I had to stop. Tomorrow is another day!
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 