Tonight my mother and I attended an event entitled, “The Healing Power of Music.”
I know, I know. I was also torn between rolling my eyes and bringing out my own celestial harp (a la Myrtle Snow, for all you AHS: Coven fans out there). But, hokey title aside, it was nothing short of captivating. It’s a forum style discussion that’s part of the Freshly Squeezed series with Colin McEnroe, of WNPR fame, and his panel consisted of a neuroscientist, a music therapist, and some super talented musicians. (Shout out to Kate Callahan and Echo Joy! Your story is incredible and you are a triumphant talent).
Because I’m a foolish optimist, I brought my notebook with the hopes of taking (plot twist!) notes. I didn’t. I ended up just writing down revisions I wanted to make on my (nearly finished) manuscript instead. But I don’t think it was a concentration issue; probably the opposite. All the speakers were fantastic and the music was beautiful, and I think it’s a natural reaction to feel inspired when you’re witnessing someone else’s craft. It’s especially cool when you get to hear the story behind that craft.
And the neuroscience. The lady scientist speaking on behalf of neuroscience was on point. I adore anyone who can combine hard science, eloquence, and humor into a concise response, and this professor did it all without a ton of preparation according to Colin. By the questions asked I suspect some of the audience had this idea that they were going to witness the marvels and miracles of music first hand, deep-south-revivalist style (so lots of writhing and clapping and speaking in tongues), but this did not happen.
I mean, in a way it did because some people meant to clap and writhed instead and I didn’t know the words to this one song so I was probably muttering in tongues, but where’s the drama in that? Where’s the flare? Next time I will demand an on-performance healing.
After, my mother and I scuttled home (it is literally like, 5 degrees here, which I think should be illegal, and if anyone ever tells you that they look good strutting about in such weather they are either lying or they are a robot and should be destroyed), and I re-wrote the end of the chapter I spent most of today on. As of 12:43am, my word count is about 125,000, which is the upper limit for the genre I’m writing, which is ostensibly Urban Fantasy.
Actually it’s Suburban Fantasy but, put that way, it sounds a little bit pornographic and that is simply not the case.
I hope one day I’m sitting on a panel and it’s entitled, “The Healing Power of Overwrought Suburban Fantasy Novels (No Nudity),” and I hope I’m armed with at least two ferocious neuroscientists. Colin McEnroe can come too, if he can stomach me.
But, first, I’ve got to bang out the last for chapters of this book, which I’m code-naming DC. Then I’ve got to whittle my final word count into the 125k zone, which I’m imagining to be really similar to one of those montages that shows the pretty popular girl getting sporty so she can play ball incognito, and boom! Query time!