Today, after submitting an article to a journal, I suddenly realised that I hadn’t added to my ‘activity log’ for a while. It has been a sombre summer; I went down south twice; did nothing scholarly at all for some five weeks of the summer; and promptly went down with some virus or other when I got back to Glasgow for the second time – so it’s hardly surprising if I took my eye off the ball. Nonetheless, I decided there was no harm in looking out the activity log and updating it. I got quite a surprise. The two rejections earlier this year, coming close after one another, had hurt. I feel a bit sore about the piece I had genuinely thought was accepted one or two years ago, but more recently turned out to be very much not so; and even more sore about the piece that was requested and then kindly but firmly declined. I felt misunderstood!
But it appears that this scholarly year hasn’t been as bad as I thought, notwithstanding those two knocks. I’ve had an article published; and I’ve given a conference paper and two talks. To any ambitious American academic, this probably seems like pathetically small beer, but I’m a British musicologist, I’m 67, and I’m not trying to secure tenure in terms of a full-time academic contract, so it’s all okay. (I could get a dozen articles published in a year, and it would make no difference to my age or status.)
I have a book chapter and a couple more articles accepted and pending publication. Another article accepted subject to revisions, which I’ve submitted – fingers crossed this time! And today’s article just submitted. That doesn’t seem too bad to me. I now have a couple of half-promised articles which I really ought to get on with; another idea for a collaborative article; and the conundrum of a possible third book. (I’m nowhere near writing this illusive thing, but I do have angles to explore, before I can formulate a precise way forward.)
But what I do know, is that the more irons I have in the fire (yes, more cliches – sorry!), the less I mind about the rejections. Maybe I just directed them to a subject area more dissimilar to my own than I realised, so didn’t hit the targets that were expected? In any case, having other things submitted and under consideration at least offers the hope that next time I might be successful.
I wonder what my activity log will look like by the end of the year?!
Image by JamesDeMers from Pixabay
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 