Songwriting Without Boundaries (4 page)

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 …