Songwriting Without Boundaries (38 page)

Caroline’s work here is interesting: A magnifying glass
magnifies.
Though
magnifying glass
’s family stays in the back room, hidden from view, they allow Caroline to paint the scene in clear and disturbing detail. Without knowing the terms of the metaphor, you’d think it was just a marvelous description, but her linking quality,
gets you up close and personal with the object of your desire,
which took her to the strip club, asks, indeed requires, that she magnify everything. She certainly does.

Now use your second linking quality to find a second target idea. Then take ten minutes exploring your target idea through the lens of
magnifying glass.

YOU:
Magnifying glass → Linking quality 2:______ →
Target idea 2: ________

PAT PATTISON

Magnifying glass → Linking quality 2:
Focuses light to a heated point
→
Target idea 2:
Having an argument.

Curled in bed, back to back, the air seething, hissing. Sharp tick of the second hand slowing, penetrating the hanging silence, a stabbing. Months of letting it slide, focused to a flashpoint in a few minutes, magnifying, burning like sunlight brought to a point on the back of an ant, cringing, then smoking to an ashed corpse in seconds. All the times you looked away, didn’t touch me. All the days I drove home on side roads, delaying, the knot in my belly tightening, hardening the closer I got to home. My footsteps hesitating up the sidewalk—the wineglasses enlarging your eyes.

Okay, use your third linking quality to find another target idea and take ten minutes to explore your target idea through the lens of
magnifying glass.

YOU:
Magnifying glass → Linking quality 3:______ →
Target idea 3: ________

DAY #9

FINDING LINKING QUALITIES: WORKING ONE DIRECTION

Prompt: Swimming Hole

Once again you must find your own linking qualities. Then you’ll find your third qualities and, in one direction, explore your target idea through the lens of your first idea
(swimming hole).

Try this. First, find three interesting qualities (linking qualities) for
swimming hole.

Swimming hole → Linking quality 1:___________

Swimming hole → Linking quality 2:___________

Swimming hole → Linking quality 3:___________

CHANELLE DAVIS

1. Swimming hole → Linking quality 1:
Entertaining

2. Swimming hole → Linking quality 2:
Isolated

3. Swimming hole → Linking quality 3:
You can drown in it

Using these linking qualities, supply the target idea for each of them. Then take ten minutes to explore your target idea through the lens of
swimming hole.

1. Swimming hole → Linking quality:
Entertaining
→ Target idea:
Busker

A busker is a swimming hole.

The busker entertained people on the street, underneath a canopy of tall city buildings stretching up towards the summer sun, his music attracting the people until there was a crowd, songs flowing down the street, a river of melody, people diving in and tossing coins, some just lazing around on the park benches, basking, enjoying the day …

Chanelle turns a city street into such a lovely place to hang out, inviting
swimming hole’s
family to sit around and hear “songs flowing down the street, a river of melody.” Nice job, linking quality! She wouldn’t have gotten to busker without you.

2. Swimming hole → Linking quality:
Isolated
→ Target idea:
Poet’s mind

A poet’s mind is a swimming hole.

The poet’s mind is a calm swimming hole, peaceful and deep, he pulls words out and splashes them onto the page in a quiet secluded setting, lines comes to him, rippling along the water like a summer breeze …

Wow, how do you turn a poet’s mind into a swimming hole? You link them using
isolated
.

3. Swimming hole → Linking quality:
You can drown in it
→ Target idea:
Spring

Spring is a swimming hole.

Strip off my layers of heavy winter clothing, dive into the pools of daffodils in the park, splashes of pink cherry blossoms and new life flowing through the tree trunks, pouring out the tips of every branch, the weeping willows are ancient green waterfalls, take a big breath of crisp cool air and sparkling smiles …

Sounds a lot like spring at the Victory Gardens in Boston. Look at all the members of
swimming hole’s
family spreading their blankets for a lazy afternoon picnic. Chanelle takes an extra metaphorical step to get from drowning to the expressed identity, “dive into the pools of daffodils.” Nice.

JESS MEIDER

1, Swimming hole → Linking quality 1:
Refreshing

2. Swimming hole → Linking quality 2:
Fun

3. Swimming hole → Linking quality 3:
Cooling

Using these qualities as linking qualities, supply the target idea for each of them. Then take ten minutes to explore your target idea through the lens of
swimming hole.

1. Swimming hole → Linking quality:
Refreshing
→
Target idea:
Telling the truth/interacting in love

Telling the truth/interacting in love is a swimming hole.

Your cool wet words swirl around me like schools of fish, fluttering fast like some low voltage of electricity. I am thrilled by your honesty, it’s drinkable, this secret place. At first I sit like a tree, stretching my roots slowly through the soft earth compact and giving way to my gentle push, like fingertips, toe tips, they touch the water that lays languid and deep like your body on my bed, laying there coagulating energies, naked, label-less, pure water, clear, we are transparent, all perception visually shining like puddles in moonlight on the asphalt and sidewalks, glistening emotions that ratify and fortify what we say. Love is the subtle undercurrent that moves around us in a slow whirl, the caress so tepid and freshly aromatic we are swept into its direction, it dances us around, our bodies speckled with diamond splotches of star lights that dangle and float on the surface of this intensely gentle water.

Another victory for our superhero, linking quality
,
wearing a big scarlet
LQ
on his chest and cape. LO dives in and
refreshes
the relationship, a tough thing to do for a relationship without a waterproof costume.

2. Swimming hole → Linking quality:
Fun
→ Target idea:
Square dancing

Square dancing is a swimming hole.

His lip corners pull back wide across the face as the primal YEEEEEEE slithers thru his teeth at high velocity and dives deep into the HAW and the skip and bounce begin the undulating current of the upright bass woodily humming short quick bomp bomps, limbs stretch wide like swans and then swoop across dancing, kicking legs like a choreographed doggy paddle. Eyes gush with laughter the shine divinely, careening around the room like schools of tiny fish that happily frolic in this space. The caller coaches us into hypnotic patterns that weave and morph in a kaleidoscope, rockets in a swimming pool, the balls of laughter cuckle-ing up and out as heartbeats race in joyous countenance the upheaval of the soul bedazzling the room, an energetic disco ball.

Fun
is a pretty abstract linking quality and could take a writer almost anywhere. Jess apparently thinks square dancing is fun and dives in with gusto. The floor is flooded with relatives. Whether you think she’s invited too many or not is a matter of personal taste. The point is, third cousins are always in play, whether you want to send them wedding invitations or not. That’s the power of the linking qualities.

3. Swimming hole → Linking quality:
Cooling
→ Target idea:
Mos Def’s song “Creole”

Mos Def’s song “Creole” is a swimming hole.

His voice is softly cupping the bounty of a gentle water inside, the words are painting a fortune of poems that flutter around me like a warm current, like fingertips underwater smoothly running under and above my skin, energetic waves soften and pond in my heart space. Slow mellow burn of the groove like the hot light of late June, laying its lavish luscious lips all over my face and tangled wet hair curls washed wet then tears pouring out of the strands they retake their original spirals. Words dangle like long limbs from the tall kind thick tree then drop into gentle tensions melodically fall weightless into the pool of his message that continues to sway us back and forth, front against front, swimming in a long kiss in the dark heavy heat of a Beijing August.