Unveiling Milestones: Moments of Progress and Excitement

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Do you keep lists, partly at least for the joy of ticking things off them? I certainly do.

In terms of milestones, today I can track significant progress: not only have I decided on the titles of my two forthcoming seminars at the University of St Andrews, but something even more momentous has occurred. My Fellowship ID card is ready before I’ve even got there. It’s all very exciting!

Moreover, the chapter I promised for someone else’s essay collection is pretty much drafted. That unidentifiable editor? Well, I sought help from a genealogical expert, and was pointed towards an individual I hadn’t really considered, in a street I already knew about. It’s a distinct likelihood rather than a certainty, but I’m happy to leave it there. So that went into the contributed chapter, and it feels a bit more ‘anchored’ as a result.

So, I now have a little time to mull it over and make sure I’m happy with it. I do enjoy writing!

(I thought I could just ask the AI bot to suggest a title, but it kindly offered to rewrite my post too. Just for the purposes of comparison, read on to see how it suggested changing the text I actually authored! Clearly, I need to be more flamboyant in my style. The bot did offer me the opportunity to change the tone. I’ll try that another time … )

NB I wrote the above. The bot suggested the title … and what follows!

Milestones: Seminars, Serendipity, and Writing Delight

Join me in celebrating the remarkable milestones I have achieved on my journey. Today, I reflect on the significant progress made as I announce the titles for my upcoming seminars at the esteemed University of St Andrews. But the excitement doesn’t end there – an even more momentous occasion awaits. My Fellowship ID card has arrived ahead of schedule, adding to the thrill of anticipation!

In addition to these accomplishments, I share the progress made on a chapter I pledged to contribute to an essay collection. Through the guidance of a genealogical expert, I uncovered an unexpected lead – an individual I hadn’t previously considered, residing on a street I was already familiar with. Though not yet confirmed, this newfound possibility has contributed depth and a sense of grounding to the chapter.

Now, with time to reflect and refine, I take pleasure in the art of writing, ensuring utmost satisfaction with my work. Join me on this exhilarating journey of milestones, serendipitous discoveries, and the joy that writing brings.

When Things Come in Threes

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Notebook cover reads, 'I am really busy'. Pen lying on the notebook.

I submitted the book on time at the end of July. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only thing I was supposed to complete by the end of the month. There was also my social media input before the Congress, which had a very fixed deadline indeed.

And that meant I absolutely could not complete the third thing on time. However, today I submitted the peer-review that I should also have submitted at the end of July. HOORAY!!

Necessary morning caffeine!

Anyway, when I’m not tied up being a librarian, I can now concentrate on a chapter I’ve promised to write, and two new lectures in my capacity as Ketelbey Fellow. After the hard slog with the book and the anxiety that the peer-review caused me (It was not only challenging, but I hate missing deadlines) – having these three things to do feels positively invigorating.

At last, I’ve seen it! In Waltz Time …

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

One of my favourite Mozart Allan songbooks has an intriguing history. I have contributed a chapter discussing it, in a print and tourism collection, and I’ve dealt with it in slightly less depth in my own monograph. (Neither is published yet, but hopefully the essay collection will appear later this year.)

The songbook has a photo of a Glasgow entertainer, and the words (so I thought) of his recent song – but not the music. That, it says, is available from Mozart Allan. I have been itching to see this entertainer’s song, but it entailed a trip to the National Library of Scotland.

Today – at last! – I saw it. Two sides of music, that’s all. The words in the song-sheet are more extensive than what appeared in the songbook. It’s just a typical music-hall waltz, but I’ll tell you something …

They encapsulate much of what I’ve been writing about, so I’m ecstatic to have seen it. I’m not able to share the images (though I think this snippet is probably ok!) – but I’ll certainly be talking about it when I give one of my guest lectures at St Andrews!

Again and again, I sit down to write about music, and end up going into hyperfocus about words. It must just be the way my mind works!

The Fellow’s To-Do List

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

It’s only four weeks until Induction Week at the University of St Andrews!  From knowing I’m going to be the inaugural Ketelbey Fellow ‘in the autumn’ – a vague point in the future – it is suddenly an actual thing happening in a month’s time.  

So, on my first research day back after the vacation then the IAML Congress (leaving aside the fact that I wrote my way through almost my entire vacation), I took a deep breath and started a new To Do list.

And suddenly it wasn’t so much a question of, What am I going to do now I’ve submitted the book?, as, Where do I start on all I’ve got to do now I’ve submitted the book? It feels like there’s quite a bit to do – but I do now know the bus times, and I’ve reached out to a couple of libraries about things I need to know, so I’ve made a start.

I’ve got two guest lectures lined up, and interestingly – but perhaps not surprisingly – the monograph throws up several possible topics. It’s easier to see them, now the whole thing is written.

Indeed, although one lecture title is provisionally settled, I can see several other possibilities to choose from for the other one, which is gratifying. (Although I managed to get Dorothy Ketelbey into my book, I don’t know if I could get her into a lecture. It was only a passing mention. And yet ….)

But before that … one or two other things to catch up on. I’d better get started!

Book Revision. Unneccessary Expressions

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Teddy bear sitting on piano keyboard, holding an embroidered postcard which reads 'Thoughts'

Allow me to introduce an expressionless bear! Generally, I consider his expression to be concerned and reassuring, but today he seems to display no expression whatsoever. Which is appropriate for a blog post about unneccessary expressions.

I would like to have begun with an earnest introduction, explaining that this is part of a series of blog posts intended to help newcomers to scholarly writing. Indeed, I do wish to help you, and I’d love to write that series, but at the moment, my focus is on my book deadline in six days’ time. So, this posting is just a collection of thoughts arising from my second edit of the book draft! It might still be helpful – I do hope so.

In the second week of my intensive book revision fortnight, I’m on the warpath for unneccessary expressions. I still needed to lose a few words in order to meet the deadline of 75,000 words, so I’ve been compiling a glossary of terms best either avoided or used sparingly!

  • ‘Always with an eye for an opportunity’. Cancel that cliche!
  • ‘At this time‘. If you’ve already defined the time-frame, there’s no need to over-egg the pudding!
  • ‘Essentially‘.  No, that word has to go.  The genre either was, or wasn’t a hybrid form.  No ‘essentially’ about it. Same applies to ‘Evidently’.
  • ‘In actual fact’. Basically, if it’s a fact, it’s a fact, and doesn’t need to be labelled as one. (If it’s a surprising or unexpected fact, fair enough.)
  • And here I am, overdoing  ‘Indeed‘ again, too.  I can’t have seven ‘indeeds’ in one chapter!
  • ‘Interestingly,’ …? Obviously it’s interesting or it shouldn’t be there.  Another word down!
  • ‘… is on record as having performed’. ‘Performed’ would do!
  • ‘It is clear that‘. This is just padding, the same as ‘evidently‘. A quick way to lose four words (or one!).
  • ‘More significantly in the present context‘ – oh, this is a good one! Six unneccessary words. Just say what you’re going to say.
  • ‘Repertoire‘. Use judiciously. ‘Song and dance repertoire’ can often be encapsulated in ‘Song and dance’!
  • ‘… seems to‘. Stop prevaricating! Does it or doesn’t it? Keep this expression for when you’re really not sure.
  • ‘Specifically‘ is often a redundant word (said she,  just deleting another one).
  • ‘… was groundbreaking in being one of the first‘. Okay, she was one of the first. ‘Groundbreaking’ can be taken as read. Three more words gone.
  • ‘… would also have been‘. Or, more concisely, ‘was’!

Acceptable Informality? Or Not …

I had a feeling that I shouldn’t really be writing that something was ‘in your face’; nor that we ‘should call out’ something that is now politically incorrect or considered offensive. So, I’m afraid I asked Chat GPT what it thought!

I consider myself enlightened now. ‘In your face’ is apparently unacceptably informal in scholarly writing, so I won’t use it.

However, I can call out whatever I like, with impunity. There you go, then!

Book Revision. Counting Words and Weeks

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’ve done the first edit of the book. Cutting roughly 11% off each chapter was a good start, but each chapter gets a bibliography, and I couldn’t know how many words that would add. I do now!

Each chapter has to lose 2.5% more words. Say, between 8-10 words a page. It doesn’t sound so bad that way, and it does make me a bit more ruthless about anything extra that doesn’t carry the thread forward.

I still want to get this done by the end of the month if humanly possible. And I do have a short list of little points I need to check, so I need to find time to sort those out too.

But whilst I count down to completion at the end of July, I’m also counting down to the beginning of next July when I stop being a librarian and can hopefully just concentrate on research. (49 weeks to go. No time to stitch an imaginative weekly square this week, just a plain one.)

But I have the Ketelbey Fellowship in St Andrew’s to look forward to this autumn first!

And I do have another (smaller) book idea …

The War of the Words

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Have you ever stopped to analyse which words you’re guilty of using too often?

Chapter 3 was long, making Tuesday a very long day. I had that chapter almost down to size, then Zotero formatted the chapter bibliography and added a few hundred words back. Arghh!

But that wasn’t the worst of it. I was unimpressed by the finished chapter. So on Wednesday morning, when I had planned to start Chapter 4, I spent it going back over Chapter 3 again. The good news is, I am getting it trimmed down some more, and on re-reading it, there are plenty of bits that I do like – even bits where I can say, ‘that’s GOOD’. So, things aren’t so bad, despite having a headache and being slightly behind schedule!

But having spent Wednesday afternoon on Chapter 4, I didn’t seem to have cut out much at all – it was all pretty ‘lean’! Maybe another 3 hours would see some more progress …

And I decided I’d better check if I was overusing any common words. How does your writing compare? Do you find this an issue? Some of mine:-

  • Indeed
  • Nonetheless
  • Repertoire
  • Significance
  • Significant
  • Then
  • Very
  • Whilst
  • (Strangely enough, ‘moreover’ and ‘furthermore’ hardly make an appearance – phew!)

The Grand Edit. Day 2

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

When I was obliged to stop editing at 10 pm* last night, halfway through the second reading of Chapter 2, I made a fatal error. Granted, I was irritated at having to stop, but …

I stopped, had supper, headed for bed and was drifting off, when, suddenly I woke up again.

I didn’t note what page I’d got to!

Had it been the first reading, I’d have known. But the second? Does Word remember where you were last at? I’ll place my trust in the ‘Pick up where you left off’ balloon!

* why 10 pm? Because that’s officially supper time. I can’t argue with house rules – it’s just not worth the effort 🤷

Killing Your Darlings

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

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!

Working Title: A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951.

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I finished the Conclusion of my second monograph today! I really should have celebrated this, but – well, it was lunchtime and I checked my emails, and … shall we say that I forgot about celebrating by the time I’d finished answering the email?

Never mind. I’ll celebrate tomorrow instead. Before I start the revision process. This evening, I read through all my publisher’s guidelines. I read about endnotes (bye-bye, beloved footnotes. You’re no longer the flavour of the month). I read about chapter abstracts, and formatting, and a whole lot of other stuff. Saved it all in a folder, and reached for my MHRA Guidelines. This is where I remembered that it could take quite a while!

The good thing, I suppose, is that my cataloguing background makes me quite attuned to the fine detail required in formatting references and so on, and pretty well prepared for the routine-ness of it all. I’m more concerned about ensuring everything’s consistent between chapters, and – the worst bit – tightening up the prose. I need to jettison quite a few words, to get within the word-limit.

What a blessing that I’ve got two weeks’ holiday coming up. No proper vacation for me, this time. But I do look forward to getting the manuscript submitted later this year!

Bayley & Ferguson’s Excelsior series, another iteration