Saturday Summary, July 30, 2011

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.

This was one of those weird weeks where I'm not sure how I really feel about it.  Part of my mind feels like it was a fantastically creative week and I got a ton of things accomplished.  Another part of my mind says, "Yeah, it was a good week, but it wasn't that good." 

It was also a week in which I totally forgot to make a Wednesday post.  Given the fact I didn't realize this fact until sometime on Thursday, it ought to tell you how caught-up in my creating I was. 

Music -- It was another music-heavy week.  I started off last weekend by finishing up both a handbell arrangement of Fum, Fum, Fum and an assignment from Doug Wagner for Lorenz: a handbell arrangement of a choral piece entitled Christmas Toys on Parade, which is a mixture of March of the Toys, Toyland, and Parade of the Wooden Soldiers. 

I then started a 2-3 octave medley of a couple of hymns, but soon turned away from that and wrote a string orchestra piece entitled Morning Flight.  I managed to finish that one, as well as get most of the way finished with one entitled The Knights' Tournament.  The latter is one I originally wrote back in high school, but have completely revamped to incorporate some of the writing skills I've learned in the last ..... years. 

So, with all that, here's where the count stands on the year:

• Handbell pieces -- 20 8
• Piano pieces -- 20  13
• Choral pieces -10
• String pieces --  4  2
• Band pieces -- 2
• Other instrumental pieces -- 4
• GRAND TOTAL FOR 2011 -- 60 39

Again, I'm still behind for the year, but I'm catching up, slowly but surely.

Writing -- I took an hour yesterday and added to my draft 3 of SC2 some hand-written edits I just hadn't got around to incorporating yet.  Then today, I'm going to start on draft 4 -- going over the thing top-to-bottom, correcting errors, fixing bits of it that don't quite work.  No idea how long this draft will take, but it ought to be a quicker job of it than draft 3 was. 

Publishing -- I received comp copies of the September/October edition of The Church Pianist magazine, which contains my arrangement of O God of Every Nation.  I also received and corrected proofs for my upcoming The Bread and the Cup collection from Lorenz -- a set of 5 communion tunes for 2-3 octaves of bells that can be played individually or can segue into one another, with optional repeats to make the piece as short or as long as an ensemble needs for their own particular communion service.  I also got most of the way through correcting the proof for Christmas Toys on Parade. 

In writing news, I discovered that The Coming of the Heroes is now available at Barnes & Noble.com for their nook e-reader.  I suppose that's the next logical step in trying to get folks to read the book -- getting it out there in as many different places as I can.  I don't really hold out much hope that thousands of people will read the book (though I'd be okay with that), but if I can even make it to 50, I'll be happy.


That's it from here for this week.  Have a great one, try to stay cool if you're in one of those many states where sidewalk egg-frying isn't just an expression anymore, and we'll see you back here Wednesday (provided I remember this time around) for our regular posts.  Until then, keep on creating!