It's been a good week, all in all. Sure, I've been fighting off a cold the past few days, and I haven't done quite as much as I would have liked, but it was the last full week of school, which means that summer is right around the corner, which means that a drastic increase in creative time is finally here.
I also started working through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. For those of you not acquainted with the work, it's a twelve-week program that is primarily geared toward "blocked" creatives, or people who want to create more but have some mental, emotional, or spiritual block standing in their way. I don't exactly fall into that category, but I figure that going through a rigorous twelve-week course devoted to creativity wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for me, especially since it shouldn't keep me from doing any of my other creative projects. Of course, I'm going about it somewhat loosely -- the "Morning Pages" I'm supposed to do first thing every morning upon rising aren't happening then. One day I did them at lunch, one day I did them over breakfast, and then today as I sat down to start this blog post, I realized I hadn't done them yet. As with all things, I suppose, it's the thought that counts ... or something.
Anyway, on to the update...
Music -- I did finish up my 5-piece handbell set of communion titles and sent it off to Doug Wagner. It's called The Bread and the Cup, and is a really exciting set of pieces, at least in my opinion. I also finished off a piano arrangement of the hymn tune FOREST GREEN that has been sitting here half-finished for a couple of weeks. At long, long last, the music-writing engine is revving back up. Here's where I stand on the year:
- Handbell pieces --
2011 - Piano pieces --
2016 - Choral pieces -10
- String pieces -- 4
- Band pieces -- 2
- Other instrumental pieces -- 4
- GRAND TOTAL FOR 2011 --
6047
Writing -- Now that The Coming of the Heroes is actually published, I'm going to move all commentary on it to the "Publishing" section of the Saturday Summary, letting me focus in this section on the work I'm getting done on the revision of the second book in the series ... which was none. I do hope to start in on it this coming week and get up to a full head of steam by next weekend.
Publishing -- After looking at the pieces for a couple of days, Doug Wagner did officially accept The Bread and the Cup at Lorenz, which was my first acceptance in a while. One of my plans for this coming start-of-summer week is to go through my spreadsheet of submitted pieces and see which piece is where and who I need to poke about pieces that have been under consideration for far too long.
It was a good week for The Coming of the Heroes, too. I've now sold four copies online, and completely sold out of the initial batch of 10 copies I ordered to distribute on my own. I had another 20 copies show up yesterday, and I know I've already got buyers for several of them. Now, if this were a traditionally-published book, I'd be dismayed at this few copies sold at this point, but given the fact that I'm the only one out there promoting the book, I consider this pretty good for now. I'm not going to get rich doing it this way, but I'm about ten books away from breaking even on the money I've put into the book already. If this insanity of mine can pay for itself, so much the better. You can help by buying a copy of the book!
My plan this long weekend is to clean my office. I rearranged the layout of everything two weekends ago, but just couldn't bring myself to clean things when I did, so all the piles of junk just moved to new homes. Today, I'm going to actually go through the piles of junk, hopefully toss a bunch of it, organize what's left, and start off the summer with a neat, clean workspace just ready for me to create myself silly. Here's hoping you all have great creative plans this weekend. Until Wednesday!
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