
The Beginning of the Year
By: Bruce Levine
The beginning of the year, at least for me, is a time for organizing. Not the reflection type of organizing, nor the New Year’s resolution type of organizing. And certainly not the bookkeeping that we all have to face every year as April fifteenth approaches – that, unfortunately, is not a chore of choice, but Uncle Sam makes it quite mandatory, and the IRS wants its piece of the pie whether it’s organized or not. But rather the getting stuff together that has somehow, in some way, gotten away from me. As a writer this includes sorting those pieces that have yet to be published and sending them out. Similarly, as a composer, listing unpublished pieces to send to publishers and sending completed pieces to performers, conductors, etc. in the hope of getting performances.
Some people have a Bucket List, some have a To-do list, and some have both.
My organizing starts at the beginning and follows me throughout the year as new entries get added to my List of Works Excel file. It’s an arduous task, but, as the saying goes, “someone has to do it”. In my case the someone is me because I’m the only one who has the list to begin with and I’m the only one who can send the pieces out.
And yet, as hard as I try to get everything to everyone throughout the year, there are always those poems or pieces of music that slip through the cracks and remain on the shelf, waiting for their turn to get published and/or performed.
And so, I begin the year today, sorting and creating lists of those lonely pieces and send some of them off to await their fate in the world of publishers, editors, and musicians. Good luck to them.