Every Saturday, The Creative will feature a brief post about my current creative efforts and how they are progressing. If this doesn't interest you, read no further -- not only will I not be offended, I'll never know. The usual creativity-centric posts will return on Sunday.
Much like my post from this past Wednesday says, it's all about the small steps, and this week has been no exception in my creative life. On the whole, it's actually been a very good week. Read on!
Music -- I finished up a handbell arrangement of Come, Christians, Join to Sing on Sunday (to see how it's fared so far, take a look down at the "Publishing" category below), then did a quick job of editing an original I'd done a few years back, entitled Elation. I got that one finished up Wednesday or so, then turned my attention to some piano arrangements. I just finished up an arrangement of This Is My Father's World today. I also threw together a hasty SAB arrangement of The Star-Spangled Banner for my wife's choir at school to sing on Veteran's Day, but that one still needs work.
Writing -- Aside from the usual posts here, I started the Daily Haiku feature on Wednesday. I figure this will force me to at least write seventeen syllables every day, no matter what. Again, small steps will win out.
I also did a fairly detailed plot-point-by-plot-point account of one of the novels I hope to write during National Novel Writing Month. Right now, it's tentatively titled The Long Road of Hope, but I'm not a big fan of that title, so it'll likely change. I also threw down some ideas for another novel, again tentatively entitled The Piano Teacher. I figure I already know a lot about piano teachers, being one myself, and we make pretty interesting subjects, or at least we think so. I hope to get the major plot points firmed on that one this weekend, then make semi-formal outlines for both of them in the coming week so that when November 1 rolls around, I've got two novels just waiting to be filled in.
Publishing -- Now, here's the big one. I've been sitting on this since Monday, just waiting to post it here today (my wife said I should have posted it Monday, but I figure I've got this Saturday Summary spot for a reason). I found out Monday evening that the Lorenz magazine The Church Pianist has accepted four of my piano arrangements. Those are my first published piano works, and I'm thrilled to death about them. Larry Pugh, the editor, seemed to really like the pieces, and I think he'd be interested in having more from me, hence my starting to get back into writing the piano arrangements. I'd kind of slacked off for a while, since I knew I could make some money from handbell and string arrangements, but any piano arrangements I wrote would be purely speculative. Now that I know people will actually take my piano arrangements, there's a bit more incentive to write them.
As I mentioned above, I did finish a handbell arrangement of Come, Christians, Join to Sing, which I sent off to Doug Wagner, and got a very nice rejection back the next morning -- a case of bad timing, as he's just published an arrangement recently. I've since sent it off to Hope.
I also sent Elation, the original piece I finished, off to Tammy Waldrop at Alfred. She's usually pretty good about getting back to me in a month or two, so I ought to know something about that one by Christmas, I should think.
That's all the news I have for this week. For any of you out there who'd like to share your own creative news, either drop me a line, or leave a note in the comments section -- your comments are always welcome. Enjoy your weekend -- here's hoping you create something wonderful with it!
No comments:
Post a Comment