Songwriting Without Boundaries (52 page)

Either way, this third line fails to create strong expectations. The reader certainly doesn’t expect a match of line 1. It might be tempting to try it, but it doesn’t really balance things, since it reverses the sequence:

Today you’ll work in this abba structure. It creates an interesting feeling of floating, and by itself, will probably pull you into more unstable, dreamy places.

Keep your writing sense-bound, and keep your eyes open for metaphor. As usual, set a timer and respond to the following prompts for exactly the time allotted. Use the whole time, whether or not you complete your final section.

Rhyme your ten-minute piece abba, and your five-minute piece axxa. Use tetrameter lines for the outside lines, 1 and 4, trimeter lines for the inside lines, 2 and 3.

Sight Sound Taste Touch Smell Body Motion

10 minutes: Cloudy Day (abba)

CHANELLE DAVIS

Cloudy days remind me of you

We didn’t feel the cold

And thirty seemed so old

Empty pockets and nothing to lose

Drinking wine and playing cards

Pretending to fall asleep

I would watch you breathe

You were tangled up in my heart

Slowly all the love unwinds

Threads and nothing more

Piled up on the floor

Left from once upon a time

SUSAN CATTANEO

Wispy, moping, low and gray

They huddle close to the ground

Scowling ether frowns

They wander listless, clump then fray

Cranky clouds throw a fit

Thundering and whining

Eyes full of lightning

Spitting rain from snarling lips

The sun comes with mother arms

Cuddles gray to white

Closing stormy eyes

Calming tempers with her warming heart

Pretty floaty stuff. Check out Chanelle’s extended thread metaphor, beginning with
tangled
. And Susan’s extended metaphor personifying the clouds, beginning with
moping
.

Now watch what happens if you turn this abba sequence into equal length tetrameter lines:

The sun comes with mother arms

Cuddles gray to pearly white

Finally closing stormy eyes

Calming tempers with her warming heart

This is called an “In Memoriam” quatrain, after a poem of that title by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It was a poem mourning the death of a friend, and because the rhyme scheme’s unstable nature was so perfectly appropriate for the subject matter, the name stuck to both the rhyme scheme and the quatrain.

I encourage you to experiment with this equal-line-length version of abba, but for now, use tetrameter lines for your outside lines, trimeter lines for your inside lines.

Try it now.

5 minutes: Sleeping Late (axxa)

SARAH BRINDELL

Float on a steady stream

Forfeit all your chores

Broken alarm clock

Slip inside your heavy dream

Lids barred at your eyelash seam

Overlook the day

Shades fake the time

The bed holds a broken machine

SUSAN CATTANEO

Yawning wide as an open field

Stretching in the lazy sun

Skies melt like ice

The August sun is ripe and peeled

These really float. The interruption of motion that happens in the abba version of the rhyme scheme does not happen here.

Both Sarah and Susan set us a’dreaming. A lovely finish for Challenge #4.

And now it’s your turn. Good luck!

AFTERWORD

Of course, you know you haven’t finished. You’ve really only started. You now have the focus and the discipline that makes writing such a joyful experience. You can begin doing your work with new skills, new eyes and ears.

Do your morning object writing; you have so many variations on it, you can stay excited to see what your writer will come up with next. I’d tell you to do metaphor exercises on a regular basis, but it’s probably too late for that. Metaphor should be such a part of your bloodstream by now that the exercises have become your normal way of seeing.

You should now be faster with your rhythms and more attentive to rhyme and rhyme structures. That’ll make brainstorming ideas more fun, since now you can do it while you’re trying out rhythms and rhymes—working simultaneously on all three levels. You’ll get farther faster.

If you did the challenges with friends, keep it up. Meet once a week to do object writing and metaphor exercises. Gillian Welch did, for 2½ years, and meeting with a group of Berklee alumni, culminating in her publishing deal and close behind, her record deal. She still does her object writing. She found her voice, big time.

Mostly, congratulations for finishing. I hope this was useful and served your writing needs. I had a great time putting it together. I had such wonderful help.

My deepest gratitude to all my contributors.

Pat Pattison

July 25, 2011

TO THE CONTRIBUTORS:

I am honored that you, and so many others, stepped up to the plate and submitted your work. I had a marvelous time going through all the entries, as many as forty for some prompts—I’m grateful to Clare McLeod for helping me work through them.

I learned a lot, reading your work. When you write from your senses, when you search for metaphor, clichés and generic writing melt away into something beautiful and compelling. It comes from a real place in you. And so, opens a real place in me. That’s why it’s so much fun.

It’s wonderful to get to know you.

SHANE ADAMS,
Nashville TN

SAM ALESSI,
Idaho Falls ID

SUSAN ANDERS,
Nashville TN

GREG BECKER,
Nashville TN

DAVEY BEIGE,
Auckland NZ

BLEU,
Los Angeles CA

NELSON BOGART,
New York NY

CATHY BRETTELL,
Denver CO

HOLLY BRETTELL,
Denver CO

SARAH BRINDELL,
San Francisco CA

MEGAN BURTT
, Denver CO

SUSAN CATTANEO,
Boston MA

ANTHONY CESERI,
Red Bank NJ

KRISTIN CIFELLI,
Boston MA

KEPPIE COUTTS,
Sydney Australia

CHRIS COWAN,
Austin TX

CHANELLE DAVIS,
Melbourne Australia

ADRIANA DUARTE,
Lisbon Portugal

ADAM FARR,
Granada Spain

ROB GILES,
Los Angeles CA

JOY GORA,
Longmeadow MA

EMILY GREENE,
New York NY

ANN HALVORSEN,
San Francisco CA

CAROLINE HARVEY,
Boston MA

BONNIE HAYES,
San Francisco CA

IAN HENCHY,
Cape Cod MA

MATT K
(prefers to remain anonymous)

SCARLET KEYS,
Portsmouth NH

JOANNA LEIGH,
Newcastle NSW, Australia

SYLVIE LEWIS,
London UK

KAMI LYLE,
Harwich MA

LINDA M,
Toronto Canada

CLARE MCLEOD,
North Hampton NH

MO MCMORROW,
Austin TX

JESS MEIDER,
Beijing China

JAMES MERENDA,
Brooklyn NY

NICK MILLER,
Sydney Australia

KAZ MITCHELL,
Melbourne Australia

SARAH MOUNT,
Boston MA

TAMI NEILSON,
Auckland NZ

LEORA NOSKO,
Louisville KY

REBECCA OLMSTED,
Berlin Germany

JOHN O’SHAUGHNESSY,
Lake Cathie Australia

CHARLOTTE PENCE,
Knoxville TN