Rigorous Editing by Trevor Thorn
Some readers of the ACW blog may have picked up that my principal area of writing is producing poems, songs and hymns about the complementarity of faith and science in revealing the glory of God in the Universe.
One of the projects under this umbrella is the production of a children’s songbook of 30+ songs on this theme for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 pupils - aimed especially at the 5000+ Christian Primary Schools and leaders of church-based work with similarly aged children. For this purpose, I was delighted to receive a substantial grant just over two years ago from ‘Scientists in Congregations’ (SiC) to gather and write material . Then, in the latter part of last year, I was further thrilled to hear that Kevin Mayhew are prepared to publish this book in June 2020.
When we (a small project team working with me) were advised of the grant from SiC, I was surprised that we had been granted more than we had asked for. As a professional fundraiser for a quarter of a century I had only had that happen once before! But the grantor trustees showed great wisdom. The additional money was to fund a rigorous appraisal of each line of each song in four principal areas. They were to be screened theologically, scientifically, pedagogically and musically.
So it was that during the past week, I sat down with eight other people to examine the suitability of each song for the new volume. As I had written most of the songs submitted in this round, the process was one that tested my willingness to see my work seriously scrutinised in front of others. I thought I had written simple, clear texts, mainly set to well-known, unfussy music which would be wholly understandable to children of the age I was writing for, judging by the reactions of my grandchildren to similar, but more light-hearted material I had shared with them. However, it soon became clear that there was no real comparison between the doggerel I wrote to have fun with the next-but-one generation of our family and the more serious themes of the faith and science songs*.
Those of you who have worked with demanding editors will, I am sure say something like ‘How naive can you be?’ And you would be right. Nearly all the songs demanded some changes. So I had to persistently rein in any trace of irritation that my work should be found wanting.
But, of course, the suggested changes consistently improved what I had produced. At this point some still need a fair amount of re-working which will improve them too, so there is quite a lot of work ahead before we can submit the portfolio to the publishers.
Then, of course, their own editors will swing into action!
*Do please enjoy with me the nonsense that an autocorrect can produce - in that the last four words of the paragraph annotated above became ... the fish and science songs! Perhaps we could build on that bit of nonsense by people sharing in comments on this post what their most bizarre auto-corrects have been.
One of the projects under this umbrella is the production of a children’s songbook of 30+ songs on this theme for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 pupils - aimed especially at the 5000+ Christian Primary Schools and leaders of church-based work with similarly aged children. For this purpose, I was delighted to receive a substantial grant just over two years ago from ‘Scientists in Congregations’ (SiC) to gather and write material . Then, in the latter part of last year, I was further thrilled to hear that Kevin Mayhew are prepared to publish this book in June 2020.
When we (a small project team working with me) were advised of the grant from SiC, I was surprised that we had been granted more than we had asked for. As a professional fundraiser for a quarter of a century I had only had that happen once before! But the grantor trustees showed great wisdom. The additional money was to fund a rigorous appraisal of each line of each song in four principal areas. They were to be screened theologically, scientifically, pedagogically and musically.
So it was that during the past week, I sat down with eight other people to examine the suitability of each song for the new volume. As I had written most of the songs submitted in this round, the process was one that tested my willingness to see my work seriously scrutinised in front of others. I thought I had written simple, clear texts, mainly set to well-known, unfussy music which would be wholly understandable to children of the age I was writing for, judging by the reactions of my grandchildren to similar, but more light-hearted material I had shared with them. However, it soon became clear that there was no real comparison between the doggerel I wrote to have fun with the next-but-one generation of our family and the more serious themes of the faith and science songs*.
Those of you who have worked with demanding editors will, I am sure say something like ‘How naive can you be?’ And you would be right. Nearly all the songs demanded some changes. So I had to persistently rein in any trace of irritation that my work should be found wanting.
But, of course, the suggested changes consistently improved what I had produced. At this point some still need a fair amount of re-working which will improve them too, so there is quite a lot of work ahead before we can submit the portfolio to the publishers.
Then, of course, their own editors will swing into action!
*Do please enjoy with me the nonsense that an autocorrect can produce - in that the last four words of the paragraph annotated above became ... the fish and science songs! Perhaps we could build on that bit of nonsense by people sharing in comments on this post what their most bizarre auto-corrects have been.
Congratulations, Trevor!
ReplyDeleteOn my phone Macbeth was almost corrected to Machete. Not sure which would have been more sinister.
Autocorrect frequently changes my name to Lizard! One of my friends now calls me that instead. (Not sure I should have shared that now 😁)
ReplyDelete