Yesterday afternoon, Son No 1 came into my office to chat, despite the picture on my door , about his impending visit to Estonia. He’s a skateboarder, and he’s just recently been offered sponsorship by a major US company (don’t ask me, I’m not skate-hip). His team has been invited to some big skate competition in Tallinn in February, and he had to go and pay a deposit for the fare. It became pretty clear pretty quickly that he was trying to convince himself, not me, that it was not just a good idea, but imperative, that he should go. All I could do was say, “It’s only money, and with the sponsorship, what are you looking at? What you’re spending to go is what you would have spent in three months on boards.” He reminded himself that he now has a responsibility to go and do these events, otherwise the sponsors will drop him.

But he’s also seventeen, right in the middle of his A-levels, trying to learn to drive, with a girlfriend, a social life, and a part-time job depping at the local afterschool club. And, bless him, he’s just going to have to learn a) to prioritise and b) to stop procrastinating and start working in an organised fashion.

And this is where the point of this instalment comes in. Most of my waking hours between 11pm and 2.30am are spent trying to sort out my work priorities. Do I work on this programme, or do I forge on with the chapter? Don’t I have to get some proofs off somewhere? Oh, yeah, I need to order that film. But I have got to get my accounts to the accountant or the Inland Revenue will fine my ass. Oh, and there’s that thing to do with the CD, gotta fax that permissions form, and, oh no, I’m not sure I made a note of how many CDs I sent out. But then the family things come in – I’ve got to get cash tomorrow to pay the cleaner, and write a cheque for Son No 2’s football coaching, and get tickets for the FA Cup match. Should I take the cat to the vet because he keeps throwing up even if it’s just hairballs? Oh, is that him throwing up again…better get the carpet cleaner. Dammit, forgot to buy carpet cleaner. And so on and so forth.

Given that there is no way my situation is unique, I’m faintly surprised that anyone ever manages to write a book, especially a good one. But maybe there is a clue in the approach taken by Suzanne Cusick, who has written just about the best musicological book I’ve ever read, Francesca Caccini at the Medici Court: Music and the Circulation of Power. Utterly wonderful, deeply engaging and compelling (really), beautifully written, it is a model of what musicology should be. The point here is that it took her twenty years to write it, from the first grant in 1990 for the archival work to publication in 2009. Clearly, she did not allow herself to be rushed or stressed into bringing it out before she felt the research was good and/or mature enough. One of the biggest problems academics face at the moment, wherever they are, is the pressure to publish continuously. Their careers depend on it. MY career depends on it. So what if I find, as I’m writing, that I’m not happy with the quality of what I’m doing, and I need more time for more archival research, or analytical thought, or background reading? Something tells me I’m just going to have to stick to my guns if this happens, and find other ways of dealing with the pressure that don’t involve agonised and sleepless nights. A good friend did say to me, at the beginning of the book proposal process, “Don’t let yourself be bullied into publishing before your ready.” Very good advice – perhaps the cynic in me would think, “Fine for you, you’re a full professor,” but when it comes down to it, the book will hopefully last a whole lot longer than me, whether I’m working or not. My priority has to be the quality of the book, not some arbitrary deadline set by the beancounters.

As a final aside, I’ve just had to eject, GENTLY but FIRMLY, the other two male members of my family, both with valid, but conflicting, demands for my attention. Maybe I will have to learn to shut my door completely, rather than leaving it ajar. Failing that, I will just have to get a bigger sign.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 11:16 am and is filed under Musicology, The Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.