Songwriting Without Boundaries Read online

  There’s no reason to stay loyal to the subject that sets you on your path. Your senses are driving the bus—you can go wherever they take you. The object you begin with might only be your starting point. Full right turns or leaps to other places are not only allowed but encouraged.

  If you try to stay focused on the object you start with for the whole time, you may get bored with object writing after a few weeks. Let your hot morning shower with its rolling steam take you to thick clouds hanging overhead to the taste of rain to stomping through a puddle, splashing water up so it sprays like fireworks, to the boom in your chest and the smell of gunpowder and the taste of cotton candy.

  Always stay with your senses, all seven of them. All within ten minutes. Don’t worry about story lines or “how it really happened.” No rhyme or rhythm. Not even full sentences. No one needs to understand where you are or how you got there. Save more focused writing for when you need to be focused.

  Of course, instead of association, you certainly can stay within the framework of a story or event if you like, but let your senses drive the bus. As you remember the events, remember with your senses. How did the park smell? Were children giggling over by the duck pond? Italian sausages with steaming onions? Let us experience it too by engaging our senses: Stimulate us to see, smell, taste, hear, to really experience the story for ourselves.

  Object writing is great fun. It prepares you for any creative writing you want to do: lyrics, poetry, short stories, novels. Great writing is full of sense-bound writing. There’s a reason why the movie rarely seems as good as the book. The book created your movie, not someone else’s.

  GROUP WRITING

  The fourteen-day challenges in this book work great in a group setting. You can expand your experience by asking friends to join you, either at your favorite coffee shop, someone’s home, or even online. It’s fascinating to hear other writers dive and roll off the same prompt. Get some people together, set a timer, and start with the object, person, time, or place—depending on the challenge of the day. When time is up, each person reads. Each of you will have something unique to offer. In a good group, the level of writing gets very high (or deep) very quickly.

  (For additional reading on object writing, see chapter one of Writing Better Lyrics.)

  Each day of the fourteen-day Object Writing challenge asks the reader to participate in three timed Object Writing exercises of five minutes, ten minutes and 90 seconds for fourteen days. To help inspire you, each day’s object writing prompts will include two responses from other writers, including songwriters, poets, and prose writers. When you’ve finished, look at the example responses and dive in yourself, preferably in a special notebook or a separate file in your laptop.

  Most of the responses in this first challenge are drawn from an object writing “contest” at objectwriting.com, a site built by Paul Penton in Melbourne, Australia. The contest ran for forty days, each day presenting a new prompt. We chose two, from the 20 to 40 responses we received each day, for inclusion here. This way, you’ll have a group writing experience whether you form your own group or not.

  But do form a group, or at least find a partner. It’ll keep you on track.

  The first five days are devoted to pure object writing. Let’s call it “what” writing. Then three days each of “who,” “when,” and “where” writing. Have fun.

  DAY #1

  “WHAT” WRITING

  Set a timer and respond to the following prompts for exactly the time allotted. Stop IMMEDIATELY when the timer goes off. Do not even finish the word you are on. Use only your seven senses. No judgments, comments, or quotes allowed. For the first few, feel free to read the samples before you begin. After a few days, read the samples after you’ve finished.

  Use the list below as a place to let your eye wander when you’re not sure where to go next.

  Sight Sound Taste Touch Smell Body Motion

  5 minutes: Sky

  CATHY BRETTELL: Sapphires glisten underneath the glassine globe—marquise-shaped clouds floating, cross her eyes, back buried in the uncut summer grass—two yellow wings flash as she blinks, antennae curve and flutter like lashes upon her cheek. Roses billowing softly—pink lips pursing against cool violet petals—slender green stems bowing in her white hands like a hymnal, pages gilded—reflecting light like the crystal eyes of the lake—cattails sing, dragonflies passing between narrow rods of brown and white-fire—lazy slags of mud cup puddles of warm brine—salt drying white crusts at the slick edges—nighttime—worms guzzling their shade in the twiny albino roots—parasol dandelions ascend, scaling the blue heavens carrying child wishes …

  PAT PATTISON: On my back, wind shadow in the grasses that bow in rhythm, tickling my face as I watch two redtails wheeling their figure 8’s, riding, slicing the air—forewing feathers flattened against muscles and bone—peeling left toward a stand of sentinel pines brooding in shadow. Sun blanches my face, warm in speckles, rinsing clouds and lacing arrows of light against queen’s lace and ragweed, ants scale weeds flattening in the wind …

  Cathy takes you on quite a journey, moving beyond the girl, “back buried in the uncut summer grass, looking up at the sky,” to the metaphor of the hymnal, which gives her something gilded to bring in the sun’s shining on the lake, ending with “parasol dandelions … carrying child wishes.” It’s letting one thing roll into another, frequently leaving the original prompt fading somewhere in the dust.

  Now, you try writing Sky.

  10 minutes: Crash

  SUSAN CATTANEO: Ear-splitting screech and then silence, the whine of steel against wood, the chrome fender like a blade against the rough neck of the old oak, the wound in the bark weeping sap and smelling of gasoline, a windshield reduced to glass pellets that crunch underfoot, a sneaker lies on its side near the licorice skid marks, its laces splayed like arms, the turn signal still blinking like beacon in the dark trees, the pines whisper carrying the faint smell of oil and gas and fear and perfume and beer, a sweaty hand fumbles for the doorknob, on hands and knees in the pine needles, the smell of overturned earth, neck muscles taunt and aching, he looks down at the red mark blossoming through his blue jeans and begins the feel the slow throb of pain, a heartbeat that pulses separate from his own heart, wiping the sweat from his upper lip, getting to his feet, the sky and stars and tree tops whirling in dizziness around him, he takes in great waves of air, trying to clear his head. he remembers the warm sticky counter at the bar, the smell of old peanuts and spilt beer, her voice like warm molasses, Jon Bon Jovi on the jukebox, and his wavy, ghostlike reflection in the mirror behind the cash register.

  SCARLET KEYS: Pots slam on the floor again, they are her voice, doing the screaming that a nice southern woman can’t do for herself. She smiles and pushes through that swinging wooden kitchen door every night as he mumbles like he’s spitting out tobacco. She wipes her hands down the front of her flour-covered apron, slams the cupboards and seems to drop things pretty hard on that linoleum floor. She looks out the window, drinking iced sun tea, resting her arm on the faucet as she listens to it drip, shaken from her daydream like a lazy kid on Sunday morning clinging to the mattress as she hears him holler from the living room. His tone is so sharp it grabs her when he yells, as words fall hard on her heart like the pots on the floor. She strains to remember how he was when she first married him. He’d rush in the door and scoop her up like a handful of flowers and look at her. He’d breathe her in like he was going to drink …

  How many senses has Susan made you use? Remember, the more senses you involve, the more real your reader’s experience becomes. Both Susan and Scarlet use interesting simile and metaphor. (Much more on that as we move through these challenges.)

  Object writing is pretty flexible. Susan stayed at an actual car crash. Scarlet crashes pots on the linoleum floor. Both stay focused on one scene, as I did in “Sky,” while Cathy takes you floating away on a carpet of free association. The only rule: Stay attached to your senses.

&n
bsp; Your turn. Give Crash a try.

  90 seconds: Lily Pad

  CATHY BRETTELL: Backs of hands grown over with emerald moss—rocking chair webbed with rickety spider legs—ponytail—wire gray hair like a witch’s broom—Cutlery limps across her throat—bones like bridges suspending wrinkled skin—red pools under the Wood-Spoke Linoleum …

  PAT PATTISON: Glittering in sunlight, swamp grass and green algae dance. A V-ing above the largemouth’s wake, widening to the shore, a mouth gulping stars, galaxies seen in the eyes of a child.

  Pretty intense, these ninety-second dashes. They’ll really build your speed and get you deep into your senses quickly. And, they’re fun. Your turn.

  DAY #2

  “WHAT” WRITING

  Okay, one day down. You’ve had the experience of timed, sense-bound writing. The more you do it, and the more consistently you do it, the better you’ll get. It just takes practice, like anything else. As you’re writing, keep asking, “What’s that like?” “Can I get more specific?” “Is there another sense I could be using?”

  Once again, set a timer and respond to the prompts for exactly the time allotted. Stop IMMEDIATELY when the timer goes off.

  Use the list below as a place to let your eye wander when you’re not sure where to go next.

  Sight Sound Taste Touch Smell Body Motion

  5 minutes: Bathroom Mirror

  ADAM FARR: Like a silver fridge door, seen through stray wafts of shower steam. I am a huddling shadow, arms franticly trying to de-damp a ghostlike body emerging from a rain forest into an igloo. I am tense like a frosty washing line waiting for the expanding sun to bring relaxation. A rounded fruit shampoo smell is the only colour in the dark morning. Tentative toe tips approach the sink across the bed of icy tile nails. My jaw is stone.

  Small tears show that the mirror is not dead. I watch their jerky progress. Stop—silence—drop. My features start to become visible. Relieved, the world and I re-enter each other’s existence.

  SAM ALESSI: The shower steam rolls in swirls against the bathroom mirror as I step out of the shower. The floor feels cold to my warm toes. I see beads of water forming and jumping their ways down the mirror like the cylinders in my car trying to get up to speed to meet the day. I feel rushed inside, ahead of my body that is only shown in patches in the mirror, link to some cyborg refugee planted here in this lost place. The smell of peppermint hangs in the air, swirling with the cloud of shower steam. I flip on the fan to clear the fog, the rattle is disturbing but fits my inner rush much better than the calm of my morning heat bath. I stop for a moment, turn off the fan, and feel the room around me, cool breezes move over my skin, the mirror has cleared enough to see the dripping hair, the whiskers trying to grow, the body that well … I got to pee then run …

  Both Sam and Adam engage multiple senses besides sight: touch, body, sound, smell, and even motion in Sam’s “I stop for a moment, turn off the fan, and feel the room around me, cool breezes move over my skin.” Nice of them to invite readers into their morning bathrooms.

  Now, you try.

  10 minutes: Dentist

  SUSAN CATTANEO: clenching and unclenching my hands, nails making half-moon shapes in my palms, a dizzy heat in my face and my heart galloping in my chest, she pulls back my lips—they stretch like old rubber bands that might snap, Olivia Newton John’s greatest hits on the tinny speaker in the ceiling, rubber gloves smelling like beach balls and the blood slowly rising to my head as the chair is dipped backwards, the sound of the drill running around in my head like a rabid hamster on an exercise wheel, willing the cemented muscles in my neck to relax, thoughts careening away from the idyllic white beach in my “relaxing space” and making a head-on collision with images of long metal hooks scraping down to nerves as pale and delicate as baby’s hair, taste of pennies in my mouth, the cotton roll is a gag, my tongue like a forlorn lover longs to caress the tooth but is held back by the tube sucking on my saliva, the machine gurgles like a patient on life-support …

  SHANE ADAMS: He’s scraping my teeth … a coat hanger dragging its fingernail on the forehead of my molar. Tooth decay hides in the moist nooks of my dental canyon, like dark green echoes of plaque and popcorn shells. The dentist is lower, close to my face, his own mouth hidden behind the clipper ship sail of a breathing mask. I’d like to lean up and bite his nose. Shoot upwards like a corpse on springs, but the suction tube holds me back, drinking my spittle and drying my mouth like a terry cloth question mark. The drill bit burns my teeth. I can smell it. Burning pine cones that blossom and spill their pine nuts like a bag of sesame seeds. Is that smoke coming from my mouth? Or dust? The light hovering over me like an upside down toilet is blinding me. Even when I close my eyes I can see its fluorescent donut hovering on the black membrane of my closed eyelid. I turn to spit. My tongue tastes like a garden slug. The white foam of my spit laps over my bottom lip and hangs like a clock’s pendulum or a glistening teardrop-shaped spider swaying under a garden trellis.

  A lot of this book is about using metaphor and simile effectively. You can see why from Susan and Shane here. Both take you into the dentist’s chair and hold you there for the duration. You see, hear, taste, smell, feel tension, feel confined, not only because of they’re so locked into sense-bound language, but because of their use of metaphor. Patience.

  Your turn.

  90 seconds: Screwdriver

  PAUL PENTON: Yellow handle with black strokes, silver-pointed jabbing tool, chrome shaft, my face reflected in the steel, fitting into the slot, the groove, pressure on my palm pushing through like deliverance, twisting upper arm muscles straining to go that one last turn. The freshly cut pine smelling sweet and new like being in nature, axes wielded, chainsaws buzzing on the breeze …

  JOY GORA: A pile of rocky cubes climb into the bottom of my glass. They sharply crack as a smooth splash of vodka plunges to the bottom. Sweetly soothed by the cascading orange juice, the ice swims freely. The chilled metal tumbler caps the rim and with one deliberate shake my weekend begins. I spin and swirl the cherry red swizzle stick and draw …

  I like Paul’s use of the organic (body) sense, and Joy’s interesting angle, inviting readers for a dip in her glass.

  Your turn.

  DAY #3

  “WHAT” WRITING

  By now you should be more aware of the power of multiple senses to make an experience more real and engaging. Polling your various senses as you write is a pretty effective way to keep an idea rolling. And remember, writing from your senses not only invites your readers into their own sense world (making your writing about them), but more important, it makes the act of writing more stimulating and real to you. And the more senses you use, the more dizzying your carousel ride becomes.

  Set a timer and respond to the following prompts for exactly the time allotted. Stop IMMEDIATELY when the timer goes off.

  Sight Sound Taste Touch Smell Body Motion

  5 minutes: Umbrella

  KAZ MITCHELL: Fumbling with the release catch, in a hurry to get under the wide rim of the umbrella as quickly as possible. Hail hammering against the pavements, icy pellets stinging my face. Whoosh, and suddenly the webbed beast sprung from his cocoon and caught me by surprise. I jump and exclaim a loud swear word as the wind …

  MO MCMORROW: With a whoosh and a snap and a rush of cold rain the umbrella’s skirt is blown up and I’m pulled rudely along the sidewalk grasping onto the thin metal leg as if holding the foot of someone being swept away in a storm. Water lashes my face and runs down under my nose into my mouth. Salt. My legs run to catch up with the rest of me like a comedian and I sneak a glance around to see if there’s a laughing audience. Suddenly the umbrella closes shut in the reversing wind and my legs pedal backward to catch up the other way. My stomach lurches and I feel a tingling in my head like my skin is preparing for a sudden impact.

  I like Kaz’s “icy pellets stinging my face” and her umbrella as a “webbed beast.” And Mo’s “umbrella’s skirt is blown up”
is a treat. Note their use of multiple senses.

  Now, you give it a try.

  10 minutes: Hair

  GILLIAN WELCH: Silky strands in clumps and clips in bolts and plaits in pigtails and ponytails tied up in bright elastic rubber bands like bunches of parsley, sprouting out of her head like Athena, like antennae, like antlers for the female of the species. Really dirty hair smells like gear oil, like the darkened sweat bands of old hats, shady and musky oily dusky leather and sweat smell and with straw hats mildewed hay, like a denim jacket after being in the park all day. Clean hair is soapy silky, too soft too stay in place it slips and slides away a sly smiling child, taunting teasing testing. Shining like taffeta in those colors that have no name. A hundred shades of platinum is my true lover’s hair. A hundred shades of silver and gold are hidden there. But you would call it brown.

  SUSAN CATTANEO: Delicate strands plastered to skin, golden tentacles wrapping like snakes around sweaty shoulders, bodies pulsing to the incessant beat of the music, hands raised up as if in prayer to the revolving disco ball, smell of Marlboro cigarettes, taffy-colored pink nails drum on the bar counter, spandex and eye shadow the color of antifreeze, slathering Bonne Bell lip gloss on each lip, smelling of strawberries and red licorice, the hair teased and coaxed by the spitting hairspray, a comb shucking the strands of hair the way you shuck corn, the hairspray smells sweet and toxic, the tattoo of my aunt’s pink coral lipstick on the end of a slim Parliament cigarette, long black gloves stuffed into a genuine alligator purse, I hide amongst the fur coats in the coat closet, the smell of camphor laced with perfume, hearing my brother breathing fast as he tiptoes past the closed door, hunting me down, suppressing a giggle as the fur tickles my nose, a sneeze creeps its way up my throat, I try and swallow, today’s tuna fish sandwich lingers …