How Music Can Help Us Write About the Unnamable
The July bulletin from Glimmer Train is now available, which includes an incredible and beautiful piece by writer Justin Kramon, “Musical Inspiration.” Here’s a passage: That summer I parted ways…
The July bulletin from Glimmer Train is now available, which includes an incredible and beautiful piece by writer Justin Kramon, "Musical Inspiration." Here's a passage:
That summer I parted ways with a woman I loved very much. At the time I thought I'd lost her forever, and it opened up a kind of gaping sadness in me which I later realized was loss. I tried to write. Got more depressed. But somehow, after wandering the halls of one particular story, I stumbled on some real feelings. I knew it by the energy of the language, the fact that I wasn't trying to impress anyone but rather get a hold on something in myself. …
Let me take a feeble and presumptuous stab at the question of what art is: I think it's an expression of some unnamable, unplayable, unswimmable, unsmokeable feeling within us.
Jane Friedman is a full-time entrepreneur (since 2014) and has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry. She is the co-founder of The Hot Sheet, the essential publishing industry newsletter for authors, and is the former publisher of Writer’s Digest. In addition to being a columnist with Publishers Weekly and a professor with The Great Courses, Jane maintains an award-winning blog for writers at JaneFriedman.com. Jane’s newest book is The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press, 2018).
