Songwriting Without Boundaries Read online

  You try.

  Afternoon nap → Linking quality 1:___________

  Afternoon nap → Linking quality 2:___________

  Afternoon nap → Linking quality 3:___________

  Using these qualities as linking qualities, supply the target idea for each of them.

  Afternoon nap → Linking quality 1:______ → Target idea 1: ______

  Afternoon nap → Linking quality 2:______ → Target idea 2: ______

  Afternoon nap → Linking quality 3:______ → Target idea 3: ______

  DAY #11

  FINDING LINKING QUALITIES: WORKING ONE DIRECTION

  Prompt: Traffic Cop

  Today’s exercise is a little different. You will explore your target idea through the lens of traffic cop. After finding your linking qualities and doing your usual ten minutes for each one, you’ll spend another ten minutes reversing directions, looking at traffic cop through the lens of your target idea.

  Try this. First find two interesting qualities (linking qualities) for traffic cop.

  Traffic cop → Linking quality 1: ________________

  Traffic cop → Linking quality 2: ________________

  Now supply the target idea for each of them.

  Traffic cop → Linking quality 1: _______ → Target idea 1: _______

  Traffic cop → Linking quality 2: _______ → Target idea 2: _______

  CAROLINE HARVEY

  Traffic cop → Linking quality: Stands and points for long periods of time

  Traffic cop → Linking quality: Stands and points for long periods of time → Target idea: A redwood tree

  A redwood tree is a traffic cop.

  You are planted there like a monument, unburdened by your forever stillness. Thick roots holding tightly to the ground in strong fists of muscled grip. Underneath you the forest floor shakes awake with crawling insects flicking their stiff legs, furry creatures on the hungry hunt, animals eating and going about the chaotic business of living and dying. You stand stoic and protective, overseeing the orchestration of a city made of dirt and leaf. Your bark is a rippling uniform form-fitted over purposeful flesh, your stance is regal and proud. Your delicate leaves dangle like fingers pointing toward the sun, signaling the direction of freedom; the birds weave themselves around your shape in a choreography of ordered flight. You are the shield that can be counted on to shoulder the brunt of the rain and wind, the armor that does not crumble under pressure, the landmark that indicates how much time has passed between seasons.

  Hmmm. What an unusual linking quality. But it really opens up a fresh look at a redwood tree. Caroline even invites traffic cop’s cousin, shield, into the orchestra. Note also her use of simile, giving the redwood fingers without the necessity of hands. Her use of second person creates a close, personal look at this giant.

  Now spend another ten minutes reversing directions, looking at traffic cop through the lens of your target idea.

  A traffic cop is a redwood tree.

  In the middle of the street I stand stoic and sturdy, my feet growing rootlike into the hard crust of road. My legs, strong as trunks and wrapped neatly inside the navy blue bark of my uniform, do not tremble even though the rush of cars feels like a hurricane whipping past me. My arms move in slow purposeful spirals, I exhale into my whistle, the cars crawl by like ants in a line. The sun beats down on the top of my head and under me is a shadow cast in the shape of a brimmed, stiff hat. In my shade a pigeon stops to nibble on a piece of leftover donut. A line of sweat blooms on my brow and the salty moisture drips from my face onto the street. I do not move my still green eyes away from the intersection. I feel as immobile as a dry log.

  A lovely turnaround, complete with roots, bark, hurricanes, and ants. Again, an intimate look, and this time she used first-person narrative.

  SCARLET KEYS

  Traffic cop → Linking quality: Controlling

  Traffic cop → Linking quality: Controlling → Target idea: A mother

  A mother is a traffic cop.

  She stands in the hallway, waving little Johnny out the door, her scream is like a traffic cop’s whistle and she blows it for things like forgetting your lunch and leaving with your shoe untied. She hugs her daughter good-bye, she ushers her youngest girl down the stairs and kisses her husband at the door as she waves him good-bye, standing there in the crossfire of other people’s lives, shoulders back, strong and steady, arms flailing like a windmill. The family is ordered and their lives keep moving in a steady flow of homework papers, doctor’s appointments, napkins forced across stubborn chocolate faces, brooms being pushed, phones answered—the axis that everything and everyone swirls past. She stands there, her beating heart pushing through her housedress against her shiny badge of martyr and master, the badge that is worn down smooth, lackluster and hanging off as she sometimes dreams: the soft lips of a lover on her neck, big soft hands on her hips the feeling of being desired, of being sexy and noticed, a stop sign instead of a speed bump. Or maybe caution, slippery when wet instead of slow, children playing or careful, men working, yield, deer crossing, she wants to strip naked and wave her arms not in warning but in striptease and taunting, remember me, remember who I am, underneath this uniform of formula oatmeal and spit up, there is sweat and passion: This hair should be untied and let lose to fall on my shoul…

  Wow! Check out Scarlet’s expressed identity “standing there in the crossfire of other people’s lives.”

  Now spend another ten minutes reversing directions, looking at traffic cop through the lens of your target idea.

  Traffic cop is a mother.

  She stands there in the intersection, wearing bright notice-me colors, waving, stopping or waving cars by. Her stomach bulges and pushes over the top of her uniform like play dough squeezed through your hands. She is thick and middle aged, she is tired and stuck, she is the maternal guard of the traffic, whistling orders, checking for seat belts, her voice often unheard, resented, and tolerated. Age spots, sun spots, skin like a leather wallet, feet wide and fat in her black shiny shoes, now her only option is to find purpose in her day of swirling cars and the blare of stereos, the smell of coffee and cigarettes and barking dogs. She’s mother to them all, she blows her whistle like she’s calling everyone in for dinner, the red and yellow and green light her face and she sweats in the morning sun. Crosswalk, where four lanes meet, what is she left now, they would all come apart …

  In both her pieces, Scarlet uses simile to connect the two literally: “her scream is like a traffic cop’s whistle” and “she blows her whistle like she’s calling everyone in for dinner.” Also note the expressed identity in, “she is the maternal guard of the traffic, whistling orders.”

  Scarlet’s linking quality allows fluid movement between the two keys, mother and traffic cop. They have a lot in common.

  Your turn. Find your two linking qualities and do your usual ten minutes for each one, exploring your target idea through the lens of traffic cop. Then spend another ten minutes reversing directions, looking at traffic cop through the lens of your target idea.

  Traffic cop → Linking quality 1: ________________

  Traffic cop → Linking quality 2: ________________

  Now supply the target idea for each of them.

  Traffic cop → Linking quality 1: ________ → Target idea 1: ______

  Traffic cop → Linking quality 2: ________ → Target idea 2: ______

  DAY #12

  FINDING LINKING QUALITIES: MOVING BOTH DIRECTIONS

  Prompt: Wheelchair

  Again today, after finding your linking qualities and doing your usual ten minutes exploring your target idea through the lens of wheelchair, spend another ten minutes reversing directions, looking at wheelchair through the lens of your target idea.

  Try this. First find two interesting qualities for wheelchair.

  Wheelchair → Linking quality 1: ________________

  Wheelchair → Linking quality 2: ________________

  Now supply the target idea
for each of them.

  Wheelchair → Linking quality 1: ________ → Target idea 1: _____

  Wheelchair → Linking quality 1: ________ → Target idea 2: _____

  SUSAN CATTANEO

  Linking quality: It makes you independent

  Wheelchair → Linking quality: It makes you independent → Target idea: Learning how to drive

  Learning how to drive as a wheelchair

  Hands frozen like spokes at 10 and 2, your metallic arms stiff with nervousness, the engine whispers, as the tires roll gently forward, seated firmly, your right foot paralyzed on the gas, the dashboard is a blanket over your trembling knees, the traffic flies by with a freedom. You are immobile, your eyes roll right, then left as you venture into the intersection, windshield bracing against the wind to come, your brain brakes at the thought of tailing an 18 wheeler …

  I love “Hands frozen like spokes” and the “dashboard blanket.” It takes a while to become independent, but Susan has found an interesting linking quality to join the two families.

  Wheelchair as learning how to drive

  Feeble, withered string-bean legs, lifted under the thighs and placed in the leather seat, arms hover over the soft black tires, poised to join the highway of wheelchairs zooming up and down the hospital hallway, feet like pedals below, the soft whisper of the tires, the wheeze of brakes, patients roll slowly past rooms, their IVs hanging from metal stands like moving telephone poles, the skip of your heart as you feel the freedom of movement, the open road of life, off ramps waiting to be discovered, confidence revs in your chest, muscles idle in your biceps, then tense as you push forward, you are one with metal and movement …

  What a wonderful moment, “their IVs hanging from metal stands like moving telephone poles.” It puts you immediately on the highway. A powerful link.

  SCARLET KEYS

  Wheelchair → Linking quality: It makes you independent

  Wheelchair → Linking quality: It makes you independent → Target idea: An adventure novel

  An adventure novel is a wheelchair.

  She’s never left the United States except for San Diego and South Dakota. Arthritis settled in and she spends more of her life sitting in that soft green chair by the window, book in hand. She doesn’t feel bad about never seeing the world, she sees it every day and she pushes up her glasses and sets down her tea. She crosses one short pudgy leg over the other and lets her half socks fall off her feet and picks up her adventure novel. She turns the page and it’s like her chair grows wheels and transports her to the world. In one sentence she is eating pasta and melon in a café in Milan. She is looking at Da Vinci’s Last Supper, she can feel the warm fingers of an Italian man holding her with moonlight on her face and she holds her breath. You see she says, I’ve been around the whole world and I’ve never left this chair, I love the feel of the pages, the smell of the ink, and I never know where I’ll end up when I turn another page. I dog-ear the memories I want to read again, I underline the parts that take my breath away and when I’m lonely I read it all again from the beginning, I can do that, I can go back to Milan and feel the 900–year-old stones beneath my tiny sandaled feet and brush the scarf from my neck in the humid July air. I can feel his fingers again and again and stop and read each letter like it’s honey dripping from the page. I can kiss him slowly or quickly depending on how fast I read and it’s really quite wonderful. Don’t feel sorry for me here, sometimes, I wonder if I’m not the lucky one, savoring each moment like I do, stopping at each flower, head down, I know the cracks in the sidewalk, where lovers etch their names and people lose their keys and children drop their ice creams, this is where the life happens, slow down, look down every once in a while, you with the fast-paced life, you with your head in the clouds.

  At first I wondered about adventure novel as a target idea, but Scarlet goes around the world in it, wheeling like crazy. Note that she accomplishes it through simile, not metaphor, since the relationship between the two ideas is pretty remote. A few second cousins in Milan is about it, but she pulls it off. Thanks, simile!

  A wheelchair is an adventure novel.

  This chair is all she’s ever known, she’s never walked, this is her life on wheels, her mobile home and she hands out smiles like pennies in your beggar’s cup and she shames you with her gratitude and glides down the sunny side of the street. Every day is adventure, every street is like the turning of a page, her wheelchair is her adventure novel and she can’t wait to find out how it’s all going to turn out. She watches life unfold before her, flowers bloom and burst like she’s inside a painting watching the master’s next stroke of the brush. She glides along in constant wonder at why the birds sing, what are they saying, the smell of the hotdogs and the french fries in the park. She reaches out for every dog she passes and laughs at the soft Bichon Frise and the wiry terrier’s fur. It’s always been magic for her, what’s going to happen next? Leaves pattern the ground, clouds take shape and she stops to see the castle and then she closes her eyes and the sunshine is a mystic dragon and she’s up in her ivory tower, then she hears a guitar playing and she’s in Portugal the sun is setting and she wiggles her toes in the warm south sun. She can bookmark her days and has so many wonderful memories, she picked them all, she has a passport to the stars and that steel cloth covered back is like the spin of a book.

  This turnaround works beautifully. It paints such a positive and inspiring picture. Like all great metaphor, it changes the way you see things. I’ll see this every time I see a wheelchair. Thanks, Scarlet. Thanks, linking quality.

  Your turn. Find your two linking qualities and do your usual ten minutes for each one, exploring your target idea through the lens of wheelchair. Then spend another ten minutes reversing directions, looking at wheelchair through the lens of your target idea.

  Wheelchair → Linking quality 1: ________________

  Wheelchair → Linking quality 2: ________________

  Now supply the target idea for each of them.

  Wheelchair → Linking quality 1: _______ → Target idea 1: ______

  Wheelchair → Linking quality 1: _______ → Target idea 2: ______

  DAY #13

  FINDING LINKING QUALITIES: MOVING BOTH DIRECTIONS

  Prompt: Sailboat

  Once again, after finding your linking qualities and taking the usual ten minutes to explore your target idea through the lens of sailboat, you’ll spend another ten minutes reversing directions, looking at sailboat through the lens of your target idea.

  Try this. First find two interesting qualities for sailboat.

  Sailboat → Linking quality 1: ________________

  Sailboat → Linking quality 2: ________________

  Using these qualities as linking qualities, supply the target idea for each of them.

  Sailboat → Linking quality 1: _______ → Target idea 1: ________

  Sailboat → Linking quality 2: _______ → Target idea 2: ________

  CHANELLE DAVIS

  Linking quality 1: Moves with wind

  Sailboat → Linking quality: Moves with wind → Target idea: Leaves

  Leaves are sailboats.

  Yellow leaves, all lined up along the branch, like boats docked at a jetty, rocking side to side, one by one they cast off into the cool air, sails stretched out, catching gusts of wind and gliding over the ocean of grass, like explorers searching for somewhere to land on their maiden voyage …

  Again, simile charges in and lines the leaves up along the branch. Though Chanelle shows the reader boats, the focus stays on the leaves. That’s because like is such a great energy blocker—it blocks the energy from transferring to the second term, boats. There’s a huge difference between the simile, “Yellow leaves, all lined up along the branch, like boats docked at a jetty,” and “Yellow leaves, all lined up along the branch, are boats docked at a jetty,” which transfers leaves’ energy to boats. The rest of the piece invites some of sailboat’s more gorgeous family members to the party.

  Sa
ilboats are leaves.

  A sailboat crumples on the rocks, drifting down into the coral playground, shiny new yellow paint slowly rotting below the waves …

  Crumples. Yup!

  JESS MEIDER

  Linking quality: Graceful

  Sailboat → Linking quality: Graceful → Target idea: Beautiful woman in heels

  A beautiful woman in heels is a sailboat.

  She’s a beauty, natural, handcrafted, the pink-beige satin silk like sails that stretch long and up from her delicate ankles to her wide open collarbone, the skin dipping in like a sensual cavern just above it. A simple gem catches the afternoon sun, bringing the eye to feast up on the smooth skin taut to catch the energy blowing in, the deep orange glow of the sun’s repeal only enhances her bowing shape, how the silk wraps around hips that offer the soft rounded flesh of her belly, each rib curved and formed to meet her chest, creases of the silk flowing like grains of a smooth wood that has been steamed and heated and shaped to fit her like a perfect glove. She glides, not one bump to reveal her steps; no, her figure sways slowly, to the left, mmm, to the right, her head gliding along a horizon, floating thru the crowds like a soft smiling wind, eyes dazzled; she gathers it up and fuels her glide, as graceful as a southern gentle wind that seagulls surf and soar upon.