...for something that ultimately may not be chosen!
The Symphony in C has an annual competition for "young" composers (really meaning anyone under 30...shouldn't they increase this number to at least 35 or 40?). The due date was this past Saturday.
One concession: Naturally, most composers wait until the last minute to submit anything because, let's be honest...it's in our nature. I feel I've improved upon this over the last few years by "tricking" myself into doing something last minute by moving the date a few days earlier. This is more useful for writing music so that I don't lose that edge (I use this word loosely) the music has when forced to write on instincts. But for postmark dates and other mailings, it's just meant to overcome laziness/procrastination.
I meant to send out the package on Thursday (2 days before postmark), but completely forgot until Saturday (day of postmark) around noon.
Printed out 2 scores on legal size paper. No problem. But I didn't have legal size hard covers. Formatted them on 11x17 hardcovers then printed...so far, so good. A sample part needed to be made and I decided to try it out on 10x13 instead of my usual 11x14...still no problem. Just everything needed to be cut. Needed blank CDs...at school. Needed binding supplies...at school. So at about 3:30pm, around 90 minutes before the post office's last pickup, we headed into Austin.
Ran into traffic...duh. Got to school at 4:07. Made the CDs and bound the scores...but the paper cutter won't fit paper larger than 12 inches vertical. Whoops. Off to Kinkos. 4:30pm we get it cut but realized I left my bindings and pliers at school. Purchased some at kinkos for a buck (highway robbery). Cut everything and off to the post office.
5pm...we make it just in time, but I completely forgot to include an SASE. Dumb on my part. We drive out to the last pickup area (turns out to be the central Austin Post Office) before 8pm...finally get everything sorted. It's now 6pm.
It all gets in and postmarked on the correct day, but a lot of it has less to do with procrastination and just being dumb/bad luck on my part. Lesson learned? Not likely.
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