My sole-authored article is being published in an academic journal!!

My words, my study. My sole-authored publication. I’m a tad chuffed. I’ve written a PhD, I’ve co-edited a book on singing, I’ve even published articles with others. But NOTHING beats seeing my name as sole author in a prestigious music education and research journal. It’s my very first article. It had an awfully long gestation period. I wrote it back in 2010 for my mid-candidature review, then sent it to the journal in 2011. Heard nothing for a year, then a response – the editorial team had changed and my article was being sent out for review. Came back with major revisions required. I put the article away for about a year because criticism and then got a query about a year later wondering if I still wished to revise for publication. Oh, all right, quoth I. I got stuck into the revisions, discovered major flaws in my writing, fixed most of those, sent back the revised copy and ages later it was accepted for publication. Then the real revisions began. The editor of the journal is fabulous. I love this editor. Awesome at finding flaws in logic and writing style. The whole revision process made the article SO much better. There are still issues with it but not enough to be a major problem for the reader.

And it’s a damn fine article, if I do say so myself. I read through it for the final edits today and I thought, wow, I really knew my stuff back then. I still know it, but now I have Stan brain. (Stan brain is binge TV watching).

The editor of the journal is a real stickler for detail. I had to edit and re-edit after the review process, and even yesterday was fielding questions about my methodology. To be fair I had written a really crap methodology that was in no way good enough to publish but no-one had picked it up until the most recent pass. I revisited my thesis abstract for ideas re methodology. Revising this little article, a mere 9% the length of my actual thesis was actually more annoying than doing my PhD and I spent several weeks on it for absolutely no reward other than seeing my name on the byline.

No wonder that my PhD revisions felt like dancing when this article revision felt like shovelling shite. But like all hard work, totally worth it. I’m a better writer because of it.

I might have to write to my ex-supervisor and let her know the article is being published in the June edition.

Booyah!

 

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