Beautiful Eccentricity: Writing Vs. Music

I don't know about you, but have you ever just heard music that made you want to cry because it was either so sad or so beautiful you couldn't help it?
I know I have.
Case en point: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King soundtrack -- "The Black Gate Opens".
Or "Madame Pompadour". (Totally NOT from Lord of the Rings.)
Or "Davy Jones".
Or the Italian version of "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again".
Or the Japanese version of "Phantom of the Opera". (Careful -- that one nearly knocked me off an elliptical.)
. . . I'd better stop here before I just hand over my entire library. And those were only the soundtracks. Don't even get me started on Leona Lewis.
How do composers even, like, DO that?
I would kill to be able to write like that.
And I'm going to let you in on a little secret.

Writing is not easy.
Yes, I'm an English major, which means that not only will I read a 400 page book in two and a half weeks, but I'll write you a 9 page research essay on it in one week, too, which probably makes the whole thing look ridiculously easy, but it's not.

That's not by any means to say that composing music is easy, because I'm sure it's much harder.

Allow me to nerd out here for a sec.

Ever seen Inception?
COOL, huh?
Anyway, the score was written by one of my favorite composers ever: the brilliant Hans Zimmer.
The (opening / recurring) theme of Inception is based off of the song they use for the kick.
It's a slowed down version of the same song.
It's a song within a song.
And the genius, effort, and time put into creating that . . . I can't even imagine. I literally cannot.
I've been told - by people who would know - that my writing is pretty darn good. But try as I might, I could never do what composers do.
And to be fair to myself, they probably couldn't do what I do, either.