For a couple of years, I’ve had a few posts saved as drafts – but I’d never posted them. They contained writing that I had had second thoughts about, thinking they might ultimately get incorporated into the book I’ve been writing. Often containing a fair amount of detail, I didn’t want them out in the big wide world all alone, outside the context of the bigger picture.
Occasionally, I’ve deleted such a draft, deciding I had no further use for it. This morning, two more were intentionally trashed, but then … oops! my finger slipped, and I deleted a substantial draft about James S. Kerr! This wasn’t intentional. However, the book has now been submitted to the publisher; in fairness, I think Kerr has been given generous coverage there. I don’t feel bad about accidentally deleting this extra bit of writing. It appeared as though I wrote it quite a while before I wrote the chapters focusing on different aspects of Kerr and Mozart Allan’s output, and what will appear in the book represents deeper thought about Kerr’s place in Scottish music publishing history.
I also intentionally deleted a short piece about three musical boys from Greenock. If I return to that idea, it’ll be there in my head in any case, because one of them was the grandfather-in-law I never met!
Sometimes it’s not a bad thing to let things go. Blogs are great places for less formal, experimental or just preparatory writing. But by the same token, not every post needs to be there forever!
(Image: one of the Berkeley Street premises later connected with Kerr’s.)
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 