Songwriting Without Boundaries Read online

  I’ve never been this attracted to a hurricane. What an interesting look Susan provides here. Notice the stacking of metaphors in “branches dance and sway, lightning pulses, a heartbeat in the chest of the open sky.” Wow.

  Falling in love is a hurricane.

  Wrapped in a cloud of sheets, desire pours like rain from my body, a lightning flash pulling me into the eye of the storm, your gentle words tumble and sway in front of me, my heart zaps with electric charge when I feel you near, passion blows through me, tearing at my senses, your clothes, the delicate hush of your kiss is the eye, then being drenched in pounding thunder …

  Again, lots of shared family members here, a tribute to the power of a strong linking quality.

  SCARLET KEYS

  Falling in love → Linking quality: Swept away → Target idea: Flash flood

  Flash flood as falling in love

  It comes out of nowhere, the silent emptiness and then the downpour. Thunder like fireworks, lightning laughter, surrender to the force of it; fear submerges and you float, legs and arms out, on the top of unexpected whirl. You, there on the yellow plastic raft, drink in hand with your little paper umbrella taking in the sun, then water holds you like midnight arms you move with the random flow, until you are spinning, tornado. Tears funnel and swell, you are circling the drain you are holding your breath fetal and stunned. You wished for rain, something to revive and soften your thirsty heart and it stormed and it stole from you, but you can die from too much rain. Your wish didn’t have a boundary or a shape, you smelled the empty dust and then you choked from the raging force that found you a sad autumn leaf and left you washed away stuck on the side of the road too drenched to dance and blow down the sidewalk …

  Of course, the other direction seems easier. Scarlet does an effective job in this direction, wishing for rain and getting swept away. I’d never seen a flash flood from this perspective, and it was only possible through the linking quality.

  Falling in love is a flash flood.

  You flashed your lightning smile and that was it, I was the hostage of your every move, the thrill of suddenness, breathless and drenched in the overwhelming feeling of the swell. Floating and shivering wide awake in the awe of it. Kissing kissing like little knives of rain up and down my body, buckling under the force of you, skin wet and warm, it’s a heart with no life jacket, it’s running in the dark, it’s a rush when it happens out of nowhere like it does rising up around me I am saturated and exhausted, it’s all I think about pulse rushing and scrambling like it’s blindfolded in a labyrinth, in the breathless spin, the feeling as if all the air was being sucked out of the room at once and you are alive with the moment standing on a cliff, your head in grey heavy clouds, the taste of metal, the taste of bliss and fear like holding a gun encased in cashmere, your eyes closed, your heart hoping that when it all settles and quiets and the s …

  This direction is easier, but look at Scarlet’s simile, “kissing kissing like little knives of rain up and down my body, buckling under the force of you.” It still results in a fresh, interesting look at falling in love. Nice.

  Your turn. Using swept away as your linking quality, find your target idea and take ten minutes to explore it through the lens of falling in love.

  Now reverse it and explore falling in love through the lens of your target idea for ten minutes.

  Here we go with glittering and dangerous:

  CAROLINE HARVEY

  Falling in love → Linking quality: Glittering and dangerous →

  Target idea: Las Vegas

  Las Vegas as falling in love

  You plunge into it as fast as your wheels will roll you, hurrying to dive into the sparkling chaos, to sink your teeth into the fertile promise of abundance and all that tempting wealth. Your desire to stake your claim, to plant your flag, to be the underworld king in this wild arena of hustlers and go-go dancers shakes you crazy and loose like a flower clinging to the roadside in a windstorm. Your need to win at this gambler’s game that rides up your back like a bucking horse; you’re at the mercy of this beast of compulsion. Inside, once you’ve penetrated the deep inner world and can see the shimmer of lights, taste the pump of fresh oxygen coming in through the secret holes in velvet walls, you slide like a slick snake up to the blackjack table, you lay your golden goods out for all to see, you bet more than you should because you just feel lucky, a single line of sweat forms across your chest as you hold steady and silently beg god to give you one good, sweet surge of victory before it ends.

  Yikes! What a sexy view of Las Vegas, the great temptress. Hot spot: “go-go dancers shakes you crazy and loose like a flower clinging to the roadside in a windstorm.”

  Falling in love as Las Vegas

  It is dawn, it is desert quiet and windless, you are standing just outside the bedroom door. You are inhaling, seizing as much air into your hungry, electric body as you can. Everything in you is preparing for the shock-white neon beam of lightning on the other side of the door, the promise of frenzied, chaotic, rich victory that’s about to bloom up over a mountain of bedsheets and explode you. You know, once you nod your head subtly up and then down, indicate the universal symbol of yes, yes, please, hit me again, you know there won’t be any turning back. You’ll have the best intentions, you’ll tell yourself you’ll only hand over half of your heart, you’ll only saddle up to the high roller table for a little while, only show a few of cards and keep the rest tight to your trapdoor chest. But you won’t be able to stop yourself.

  Beautiful turnaround. Note the many Las Vegas family members Caroline invites into the bedroom. Again, a tribute to a strong linking quality, providing your quest for great metaphor with a smooth roadway through the dry desert of infertile options.

  SUSAN CATTANEO

  Falling in love → Linking quality: Glittering and dangerous → Target idea: Dagger

  Dagger as falling in love

  Longing smooth metal, shining warm in the light from a candle, velvet drapes hanging from stone walls, long blond hair tied back with a simple ribbon, breath rising softly from the delicately laced chest, bending over her, hand on the jeweled handle, hand caresses the metal, pulling the blade from the sheath with a gentle movement, the sigh of metal leaving leather, the blade shivering close to the skin, the tiny pinprick making a drop of ruby precious blood, sharp double edge whispering, longing to break the skin open, to sink deeply into muscle and bone, hard metal meeting soft flesh, the blade melting and blood pouring from the wound, warm and welcome, absolution, the sweet smell of perfume and revenge,

  Personified in its longing, the dagger drips lust and danger. Scary stuff, brought to you by your friendly sponsor, glittering and dangerous.

  Falling in love is a dagger.

  The sweet warm metal of your words, slicing through any and all my defenses, glinting in your light, I am drawn in by my own reflection, my heart is encrusted with precious stones, ruby for passion, emerald for jealousy, the blade sings to me, beckons to come closer, to reach out a delicate finger and run it against the honed edge, I intake sharply as I am pierced, pinned to this love, a butterfly, delicate wings open and lain down on white linen, exposed, a specimen on your wall, caught between your fingertips in the dusk of one summer evening, my colors vibrant and preserved …

  I love the secondary expressed identity, “I am pierced, pinned to this love, a butterfly, delicate wings open ….”

  Your turn. Using glittering and dangerous as your linking quality, find your target idea and take ten minutes to explore it through the lens of falling in love.

  Now reverse it and explore falling in love through the lens of your target idea for ten minutes.

  DAY #7

  WORKING BOTH DIRECTIONS

  Prompt: Cheating Lover

  This will be the last day of working an idea both ways, and as usual, I will supply the linking qualities. The ability to go deep enough into your idea to find an essential linking quality will accelerate your search for effective metaphor
.

  First, list two interesting qualities of cheating lover:

  Swept away

  Dangerous situation

  Now link each to a target idea—the ideas that cheating lover can be a metaphor for, by asking:

  What else has that quality?

  SCARLET KEYS

  Cheating lover → Swept away → Target idea: Avalanche

  An avalanche is a cheating lover.

  You shake the ground burying everything in your path alive. Icy fingers wipe away all that is sacred, like it was lint on your lover’s coat. You have no allegiance; you live for the rush without stopping to think about the wreckage of the aftermath. The lives left breathless, the naked earth that breathes like the dying deer on the side of the road. I watch you slip and slide through shadows and sunlight, around corners and valleys finally to end up in a pile of cold wreckage. You come without a warning; you end with your frosted breath still frigid and more alive for it. You have had the thrill of the rush, I watch and mourn for all that is in your path. The smell of the burn of whirling out of control, the feeling of the ground like a midnight train rumbling and pushing through a sleeping town, clouds hover and twist …

  Note Scarlet’s use of direct address, talking directly to the avalanche as though it were a person. Very effective. Again, an effective mingling of the families of both ideas.

  A cheating lover is an avalanche.

  The unexpected shake in the ground, the feel of a cold sliding beneath my solid feet. I fall, blinded by the blur of heated deceit, covered in disbelief, isolated and suffocated by the choices you’ve made, unstoppable. I am buried alive by grief. When did you first brush up against one another, when did the first quiver or rush just beneath your restless skin begin? The rumbles of what was to come, the moment you collided and the first crack in my trust waited to burst and rupture? The sight of it all is still stuck in my throat, frozen words, shards of crystalized pain that stab and puncture, splinters of the life before and the life after the collapse of the life I’d known. Breathing is slow and cold, Lamaze, blinking back tears, stunned, swallowed in the aftermath, trying to fini …

  Direct address again, this time to the cheating lover, “when did the first quiver or rush just beneath your restless skin begin?” Scarlet uses the avalanche family to drive home how much damage the lover has done. Great turnaround.

  PAT PATTISON

  Cheating lover → Swept away → Target idea: Waterfall

  A waterfall is a cheating lover

  Murmuring, then plunging over the edge, splashing off rocks slippery, ducking and hiding, in a flash of sunlight, revealing secret places, flotsam from upstream, fool’s gold glittering at the bottom, calling like a lover, dive in, take me up in your hands, cold and dripping. The wind curls and slides, wrapping in mist, cascading to the bottom, foaming like a lace petticoat dropped to the floor, chilling me, warning me away. Whispers of mist dancing, like smoke in a bar, the throbbing of rhythms pounding to the depths, power like a punch …

  A cheating lover is a waterfall.

  I hear the pounding, insistent, cascading down the stairs, splashing my face like cold water, a power punch to my body, I’m caught in a current pulling, dragging me downward. I’m tumbling, upside down, swept over the edge into the chasm, breathless: breathe! My lungs screaming for air, my heart the size of a basketball, skydiver in the middle of an endless fall to the bottom, a pool of silence. Voices whispering, wet tongues slurring sweaty promises to the dark, the twisted bedspread. Fog rising in my brain. I’m weak and drowning. Lying in a pool that …

  Your turn. Using swept away as your linking quality, find your target idea and take ten minutes to explore it through the lens of cheating lover.

  Now reverse it and explore cheating lover through the lens of your target idea for ten minutes.

  Now, here’s a shot at dangerous situation. The danger could be to the cheater, risking retribution. The danger could be to the cheated, losing love. A lot of places to go.

  STAN SWINIARSKI

  Cheating lover → Dangerous situation →

  Target idea: Kids playing with a loaded gun

  Kids playing with a loaded gun are like cheating lovers.

  It’s the thing Dad said you should never touch, which makes it all the more desirable. The hunt for the key. unlocking the case. The ecstasy of feeling the cool black metal in your hand for the first time—the power contained in the single action which can end with a deafening crack, the acrid odor and lingering evidence on your fingers. The secret sharing with a fellow disobeyer, both relishing the excitement of risking getting caught, not considering the damage to be done. Taking turns playacting like some reckless John Wayne from an old movie. Aiming the gun. One false move, and somebody gets it. The thrill of being so close to doing it.

  Lovely, the seductive power of what is forbidden, through the sponsorship of dangerous situation. Words like desirable, ecstasy, secret sharing, relishing the excitement, and thrill bring the family members together and, at least for me, create the excitement I felt as a kid looking at that locked closet.

  Lovers cheating are kids playing with a loaded gun.

  You thought I wouldn’t notice the key on the dresser, the empty box in the nightstand. You and he playing Russian roulette, taking aim at my chest with each whisper, each smile, and touch. My heart beating like a drumroll, building to the point where it might explode with a single shot, spraying any warmth I might have had left all over the both of you. Anger and confusion are fighting for attention as I watch the excitement in your eyes while you play with forbidden toys, feeling satisfied that I could never figure it out, while my eyes fix on you like a laser scope aimed at a deserving target.

  Nice use here of the gun family: “Russian roulette,” “taking aim at my chest,” “explode with a single shot,” “forbidden toys,” “laser scope aimed at a deserving target.”

  The linking quality takes Stan on a productive trip in both directions.

  SCARLET KEYS

  Cheating lover → dangerous situation → Target idea: Smoking crack

  Smoking crack is like having a cheating lover.

  One time, what could it hurt? A smoky room, it would soften the moment, the haze would rush around me like warm bath water. I never thought it would be a good thing, I was just curious. Right now, I’m free, living in the thought of it, the thought of it is just a dream, a dream that I can blink away, shake off like rain on my coat. But seeing it, seeing it is a pair of handcuffs, knowledge with no key, a thought tattoo. I open my eyes and breath, I am lost in the flush, I can’t believe the rush of what I’m seeing. The smoky grip, the electric hand, squeezing my throat, rushing through my veins like a man punching his fist down each artery. I am breathless and numb as I now know what this is like. It’s been here for years waiting, the potential of knowing, then the knowing, like running through fire, the blaze looked so interesting, then the sizzle of skin, the thing I can now not know, the little rocks as they burned and crackled, weaving heat together with no thought of who would see them. They danced, heated and merged and they will leave you like a cl …

  Hot spots: “seeing it is a pair of handcuffs,” “knowledge with no key,” “a thought tattoo,” “the blaze looked so interesting, then the sizzle of skin.”

  Having a cheating lover is like smoking crack.

  It’s something you say you’ll only do once: the rush of driving past his house to see the silhouettes twisting like curling smoke. It’s a lighting and adrenaline surging through you when you see it, a set of footprints that turns into a worn path, OCD of the heart, checking the locks, the stove, hiding in bushes, ducking behind trees, checking e-mail, it’s a thought that thinks you, the dripping faucet that won’t let you sleep, again and again and again, you don’t want to see them, but you can’t stay away, it’s the accident on the freeway, your eyes burn but still, you look, the horror movie, you want to look away but you are rendered motionless, you are no longer yourself, your sanity is a str
inged puppet. They are the smoke in your lungs, they are now needles in your heart, there is a thrill in watching them, there is a death that you die every time and yet you can’t stop because if you do, it will be done, the smoke will rise and vanish, you will take what you can, touching the bottom of cloud fingers, reaching up to the hem of the ghost of what is still recognizable. It leaves you …

  Watch Scarlet stack metaphor on metaphor. Underline them. A compelling picture of the power of suspicion and jealousy.

  Your turn. Using dangerous situation as your linking quality, find your target idea and take ten minutes to explore it through the lens of cheating lover.

  Now reverse it and explore cheating lover through the lens of your target idea for ten minutes.

  DAY #8

  FINDING LINKING QUALITIES: WORKING ONE DIRECTION

  Prompt: Magnifying Glass

  Today you’re on your own to find your own linking qualities before you find your target ideas. Today, you’ll only move in one direction, exploring your target idea through the lens of magnifying glass. After a few days, you’ll reverse directions, too.

  Now, try this. First, find three interesting qualities (linking qualities) for magnifying glass.

  Magnifying glass → Linking quality 1:___________

  Magnifying glass → Linking quality 2:___________

  Magnifying glass → Linking quality 3:___________

  Now supply the target idea for each of them.

  Magnifying glass → Linking quality 1:________ →

  Target idea 1: ­­­­­­­­_________

  Magnifying glass → Linking quality 2:_______ →