Songwriting Without Boundaries (41 page)

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.

Sailboats 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.

Hot spots: “creases of the silk flowing like grains of a smooth wood,” “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,” and “as graceful as a southern gentle wind.”

A sailboat is a beautiful woman in heels.

Antoine plays about the medium-sized boat like an intuitive lover, touching her, pulling softly, her sails gently lift to catch a fine sea breeze, he smoothes his hand along her graceful curves, and only takes his hands on to her wheel when absolutely necessary. She is carrying us in her graceful glide along the aqua blues and greens, lifting us away from the white Greek homes that look more and more like dots on a cliff’s painting. I am most impressed and mesmerized by Antoine’s careful encouraging touch. He is in control, but in the right way: a dancing motif, his body leading her body, they are languid, loving, sexy, impetuous, teasing, a sailing foreplay of wind water wood that glides like a feminine goddess figure across the crowds, on towards the sun setting light show ahead of us in the west.

Both the sailboat and the woman glide beautifully, in “a sailing foreplay of wind water wood that glides like a feminine goddess figure across the crowds.” A convergence of tanned, beautiful families, brought to you through the sponsorship of
graceful,
and tacking elegantly in both directions.

Your turn. Again, find your two linking qualities and spend the usual ten minutes on each one, exploring your target idea through the lens of
sailboat.
Then, spend another ten minutes reversing directions, looking at
sailboat
through the lens of your target idea.

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: _________

DAY #14

FINDING LINKING QUALITIES: MOVING BOTH DIRECTIONS

Prompt: Vacation

Congratulations! You’ve made it to day 14. For the last day of the challenge, after finding your linking qualities and exploring your target idea through the lens of
vacation
for the usual ten minutes
,
you’ll spend another ten minutes reversing the direction, looking at
vacation
through the lens of your target idea.

Try this. First find two interesting qualities for
vacation.

Vacation → Linking quality 1: ________________

Vacation → Linking quality 2: ________________

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

Vacation → Linking quality 1: ______ → Target idea 1: ________

Vacation → Linking quality 2: ______ → Target idea 2: ________

CLARE MCLEOD

Linking quality:
Long overdue

Vacation → Linking quality:
Long overdue
→ Target idea:
Library book

A library book is a vacation.

Each word is a grain of sand and I’m sinking into them like a tide is pulling me into the water. Absorbed into a new world, there’s no way I’ll skip ahead to the ending, I want it to last. I follow the horizon of lines that lay before me on the page, unconsciously holding my breath as particular passages chop and twist. Sometimes gliding along the stories’ highway, speeding through frictionless territory until some detour appears, then lost in the unfamiliar. I only have a short time though til I return …

These two ideas work so well together, but the key to getting there is the linking quality,
long overdue.
Then there’s the realization, “Yes, a book can take you somewhere you’ve never been before.”

A vacation is a library book.

I borrow the town of Lucca for a while, someplace thousands have seen before, all kinds, leaving the oils of their skin behind. It is bound by walls, fortified. The smell of leather hangs overripe and the buildings are yellowed and peeling. After a day wandering its streets, my tired eyes droop and I can go no further. The …