3 years

Today marks the three year anniversary of arriving here in Utah. It doesn't seem that long. This has been a good move for my family, but I still miss Alaska. Still, when people ask me where I'm from I say, "I'm from Alaska, I just live in Orem." Overall, my kids are a lot happier here, even though they hated our guts when we took them away from Alaska. My wife is definitely much happier. She says the only way she'll move again is in a pine box. I guess I'm going to be here for a while.

editing and mansions

I'm slowly making my way through the fourth draft of my novel. Last week I was pretty motivated, this week . . . well, not so much. Next week, I'll be in Montana, so I won't get anything done on it.

On Saturday, I played a wedding reception up in Midway. It was at a "house", but a better term would be mansion. It was flippin' huge! I want one. Anyway, it was designed with a Swiss traditional look, similar to a hotel I stayed in near the Matterhorn. It was cool. I need to start taking my camera with me to gigs so that I can take pictures of some of the more interesting venues I perform at.

Meanwhile, my wife and older daughters are at girls camp this week, leaving me with only the younger two at home during the day. Music lessons are kind of slow this month, too. July is always hard on lessons.

Fablehaven and Glenn Beck

Not too much is happening now. I submitted my short story and am currently reading a few books to improve my writing chops. Once I finish those, I'll tackle my two novels again. I find the writing part is easy, it's the editing that is hard. I'm also slowly reading Fablehaven 2, mainly for study. I carefully read each chapter and take notes on what the author (Brandon Mull) did to make it interesting and keep the story moving.

On Sunday, I was able to play tenor sax in a concert band at the Marriott Center in Provo. It was a patriotic meeting in conjunction with the Freedom Festival. Glenn Beck was the keynote speaker and he gave a marvelous talk. He was introduced by Stephen R. Covey. Michael Ballam also did a couple of musical numbers. As for my part, we played patriotic music, like Battle Hymn of the Republic, Americans We (or is that Wii?), and Stars and Stripes Forever. I've been playing a lot of jazz tenor lately, but this was the first time in about 6 years since I performed classically on it. The last time was playing a Prokofiev piece with the Anchorage Symphony.

Back to writing

I finished the third draft of my latest short story and hope to get it to Writers of the Future next week. I was planning on taking a break from writing, but something possessed me to start another short story. This one is back into my normal tongue-in-cheek style, since my last story was so depressing. This is revisiting a character I created several years ago, but the story got rejected. I really liked the character, though, so, now that my writing skills are hopefully better, I thought I'd try him again. He's a smart-donkey, wise-cracking youth who single-handedly saves his incompetently run kingdom. I'm trying this one in the first person, which is not my normal style, but it helps highlight the character's voice.

Marienthal and Pickett

Last night I took my older kids up to see the Crescent Super Band perform with Eric Mariental (from Big Phat Band, Chick Corea) and Lennie Pickett (from Tower of Power and Saturday Night Live) up in Salt Lake. It was a fantastic concert, with both Eric and Lennie doing phenomenal things. Eric impressed with his technical skill, altissimo, solo content and personality. Lennie wasn't as animated as Eric, but he showed that he is still the master of altissimo on tenor. I can squeeze an extra octave out of my tenor, but I swear that he was getting two. Plus he did some fascinating stuff combining slap tongue and altissimo.

Anyway, those kinds of concerts are what inspire me and keep me going. I always encourage my students to get out and soak in these master performers, since it shows us what quality time in the practice room can do for us. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go practice my altissimo range.

connected to website

I finally got a link to this blog put up on my website (www.saxmyax.com), so I guess I need to start talking about music. Now that we're in the summer months, I've noticed that many of my student's practice hours drop. There is more time available to practice, but more distractions. Plus, there is no longer a schedule to keep us as organized, so we tend to let activities take longer than necessary. What works for me is to schedule my practice time. Pick a time of the day and tell yourself that you will practice at that time every day possible. There will be times when something will come up and you won't be able to do it, but by having it scheduled, it will be much more likely to happen.

Summer is also a good time to get extra music listening in. Music is a language, and in order to be fluent, you must listen to fluent native speakers. So get out there and transcribe some John Coltrane.

On writing

I suppose, since this is a writing blog, that I should write about my writing. It will probably turn out to be more of a music blog, though. As far as writing goes, I am working on a short story that I'm planning on sending to Writers of the Future. It is a depressing story, which is not normally my style, but I liked the idea of an oppressive government profiting off its people by selling drugs that are supposed to heal, but don't. Not unlike in our society. Okay, so it is a social commentary disguised as a fantasy story. Normally, I like to write and read things that are cheerful, funny and uplifting, so this is just a brief excursion into my dark side. I just finished reading The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison, which I like for it's tongue-in-cheek first person perspective.

This weekend, I just submitted my novel, currently titled The Dragon War Relic and Other Ancient Stuff, to Cedar Fort. I've tried several of the larger publishers, at least the ones that don't require an agent, and have several rejection notices to show for it. One thing about smaller publishers I've noticed so far is that they actually look at your stuff. I got reactions back from the larger companies so fast that I am sure that they never read them, they just sent the form rejection letter out. I will say, all the rejection letters I've received have been nice and positively phrased. No one has said, "You're a complete loser, give it up."