Songwriting Without Boundaries (33 page)

Guitar solo → Linking quality:
Going somewhere new
→
Target idea:_________

Finally,
in the spotlight.

Guitar solo → Linking quality:
In the spotlight
→ Target idea: _____________

For ten minutes explore your target idea through the lens of
guitar solo.

MEGAN BURTT

Guitar solo → Linking quality:
In the spotlight
→ Target idea:
Moth

A moth’s guitar solo

Fluttering aimlessly about, starving for attention, the moth soldiers on, desperate to find home in a bright ray. Little does the bugger know that once you find the light, there is no turning back. Caught in the shine, he is weighing distraction, which may lend itself to death by design and excitement. Finding the radiant torch bigger than its delicate body can handle, the moth takes its last little moth breath morsel and plummets down, its quest stopped it dead in its tracks. But the light remains, waiting for its next victim.

Wow! Tough spotlight. The linking quality sees all the fallen guitar heroes who shone for a moment, then were torched by their quest for the light. I’ll never see spotlights in the same way again. That’s the power of metaphor.

GREG BECKER

Guitar solo → Linking quality
: In the spotlight
→ Target idea:
Escaping convict

An escaping convict guitar solo

He strums the bars of his cage with his metal cup giving the signal to the others that the moment has arrived and he is ready. Slowly the row of cells quiets and the prison goes silent except for rhythmic thumping of his heart and the small scratching and clicking of his makeshift key unlocking his door. Once he steps out of his cell and the door swings open, the cell block erupts in cheers and yells as he makes his mad dash for the exit door. A wandering spotlight catches his foot and quickly locks onto him as he darts back and forth across the prison yard.

Apparently, neither Megan nor Greg see spotlights as a positive thing. I love “strums the bars of his cage” and “rhythmic thumping of his heart.”

Your turn. What else is in the spotlight? Find your target idea and take ten minutes to explore it through the lens of
guitar solo
. Again, remember to stay as locked into sense-bound language as you can.

Guitar solo → Linking quality:
In the spotlight
→ Target idea:_____________

DAY #4

WORKING BOTH DIRECTIONS

Prompt: Sleeping Late

You’ve had plenty of practice exploring one idea through the lens of another idea. Using linking qualities, it’s an effective and efficient way to see one thing as though it were something else—the definition of metaphor. Ready to try something new today?

As usual, you’ll link each to a target idea—the ideas that
sleeping late
can be a metaphor for, by asking:

What else has that quality?

So far, you’ve been looking at the target idea (arrived at via the linking quality) through the lens of the first idea (in this case,
sleeping late).
Today, you’ll do something else, too.

As an example, say that your linking quality from
sleeping late
is
feeling lazy.
The target idea could be
avoiding your homework:

Sleeping late → Feeling lazy →
Avoiding your homework

So, as usual, you look at
avoiding your homework
through the lens of
sleeping late.
Like this:

Equations, scraggly bits of ink blotting the page, beeping at me, an alarm clock nudging me to clear the haze from my brain and crawl over to the chair, bend my back, and start scratching solutions in the waiting white blanks. My brain hits its snooze button, rolling over into visions of clear mountain streams bubbling past smooth white stones, speckled trout darting in the shallows unaware of the slow motion line about to drop a blue winged fly, plop, on the wrinkling surface … buzz, buzz from the equal sign, opening like a mouth while I squeeze my eyes shut.

But now you’ll spend another ten minutes reversing directions: After you finish your first ten minutes writing about
avoiding your homework
through the lens of
sleeping late,
you’ll change directions and look at
sleeping late
through the lens of
avoiding your homework.
Like this:

Rolling over, sinking into the soft white pillow, echoes of Miss Luger’s shrill chirp, long miles of polished hallways ago, burrowing through the haze, the nudging elbow of a conscience needling me with visions of algebra problems waiting with raised eyebrows, or the Battle of Gettysburg whining for a date to begin the fray. I snuggle into my blank white sheet and relax my shoulders, drifting away from old piled workbooks at the corner of my desk to sunny afternoons with no alarm clock voices calling from the old Sunday nights before homework was due at St. Peter’s grammar school.

Now, try this. Supply the target idea for each of the linking qualities below:

Conserving energy

Wasting time

First use
conserving energy
as your linking quality. As usual, when you find your target idea, take ten minutes to explore your target idea through the lens of
sleeping late.

GREG BECKER

Sleeping late → Linking quality:
Conserving energy
→
Target idea:
Sitting on a summer porch

Sitting on a summer porch is like sleeping late.

The heat of the day slows down the world, a slow molasses wind stubbornly blows across the porch having no effect at all. The heavy blanket of August weighs you down until you are motionless listening to the buzzing of the cicadas, thinking about moving, thinking about something cold to drink, thinking about the day ahead but acting on nothing. Eyes are droopy and won’t open any time soon. The world walks by on slow motion somehow all moving on with their days, walking, talking, going somewhere. This is as far as you go, even to stand would require the entire reserve of energy left in your bones.

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

Sleeping late is sitting on a summer porch.

The dream scape lays out before you just over the railing of wakefulness. You still have a clear image of the world of fantasy that you were just in moments ago as it slowly pulls away you cling to every last detail in your memory. The dream soon becomes just another neighbor walking their surreality by your brain coming into view and then gone. Your legs squirm and wander beneath the sheets in search of the shady cool spots, re-energizing the weight of sleep once found. These final five minutes of snooze are but an illusion of security, of comfort and safety. The day is just moments away from overtaking you, and the frail wood railing of reality weakens the more it is leaned upon.

Wonderful how this changes directions so easily. I love “The heavy blanket of August weighs you down,” and, going the other direction, “the railing of wakefulness.” See how the metaphor can make a U-turn and head back the other way, too.

CHARLIE WORSHAM

Sleeping late → Linking quality:
Conserving energy
→
Target idea:
Taking the bus instead of walking

Taking the bus instead of walking is like sleeping late.

Exhausted, spent, I yawn my way onto the rumbling bus, warm and blanketed from the cold outside. I curl into the first open seat, tangled in my many layers of clothing. I shield the daylight from my eyes with my arm and squeeze in a few more minutes of drooling, dozing half-consciousness. Anything to avoid the moment that my legs will get a mind of their own, leading the charge into alertness and wide awake at the end of the route. In my mind, I’m punching the snooze button every time the bell rings to signal another stop along the way. My brain rattles on a few times. False starts like an old engine too cranky to keep its gears moving just yet. Five more minutes till I have to pull my face from the cool glass pillow I’m leaning against, crawl out of this cozy hard plastic bed, and step onto the sidewalk. The outside world buzzes and bounces around me, too much light and color and sound to take in at once. I squint and rub my eyes and stretch my back and arms and stumble into the day.

“Warm and blanketed” sets up this bus ride, bringing in important members of
sleeping late
’s family. “Yawn” helps out, too. Then other family members ring the buzzer to get in. Nice.

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

Sleeping late is like taking the bus instead of walking.

The alarm clock screeches— like the squeal of rusty brakes in my ears pulling me against my will out of the dark cave of deep sleep. My thoughts, smiles, to-dos, are all lining up just outside the door of my brain, waiting for the morning commute inbound. They stand sleepily, or sit in a daze on sidewalk benches, mindless daydreamers reading the paper, playing games on their phones. A bus comes hurtling towards the stop, brakes hissing loudly jolting some awake as they march onto the platform. In my half-wake, half-dream, I feel these thoughts begin to stir. My leg slides over to a fresh, cool spot on the mattress, I become aware of the glow behind the curtain. The bus runs without me, but I can rest my eyes in a backseat while someone else drives. I can skate through the journey to awake effortlessly, rocking to the drone of the wheels and the heavy air vent and the windshield wipers and the periodic bells marking our arrival at each stop along the way. I don’t have to grab the wheel. I don’t burn the gas. I save it for when I really need it. The last minute. It’s actually a complex ritual—alarm one, alarm two, I throw the covers off for a minute, I halfway sit up with eyes closed. I stand in the shower under hot running water. I lift the heaviness of sleep off my shoulders and eyes one brick at a time. Why burn that energy if it can just roll off my back of its own accord?