I am pleased to announce that my Symphony No. 1: Dream Dialogs is now complete!

What I just returned from was an honest-to-goodness vacation. And now, back to work.

I took up knitting last week. Yes, you read that right.

The end is near. I can finally hear the entirety of the work in my head from beginning to end.

I can happily state that I have completed a fully orchestrated draft of the first movement. Two down, one to go!

I need to make a confession…

After almost a whole month of steady progress, I finally stumbled upon my first major case of writer’s block.

I have finished a fully orchestrated draft of the fourth movement. Huzzah!

Movement four, tentatively subtitled “At a Loss for Words,” continues to take shape.

I got busy – the good kind of busy – and sketched out the entire fourth movement.

Faced with limitless possibilities – the proverbial blank page – it is the composer’s job to somehow figure out a way to limit those possibilities – limits that are going to inevitably shape the whole of the work.

So, it has come to this. At the age of 35, I am writing my first symphony. Which means, assuming I complete it before I turn 36, I will have beaten Brahms by eight years.