Songwriting Without Boundaries (9 page)

Note that, in second person, commands are possible, so you could eliminate the subject from the second sentence:

Airstream hoists the whole body, as if you take off, take wing. Whoosh over paving and tar, wreaths singing.

Pretty cool. Now, your turn.

10 minutes: Ballerina

CHANELLE DAVIS:
I can hear my breath, quick, shallow, electric current in my blood, heart beating almost through my skin. A soft constant drone of conversation behind the heavy royal-red curtains. Clapping, loud like storm rain, makes my feet move, soft silk shoes gliding along the smooth black stage floor. Spotlights beam from over my head and shine down, reflecting off my satin dress. Up on my toes, curling them and stretching long arms, tipping over left then right, arching my back, feeling skin move over my ribs, rippling, inhaling deep. Spinning to the orchestra, violins soar and I fall to my knees, head down, cheek pressed to the cold floor and wait, still. The lights dim, I close my eyes. Can taste my lip gloss, strawberry. He comes to my side, the smell of cologne in the air as he grabs my hand and pulls me to his chest, smooth and tanned arms, drums start pulsing …

SUSAN ANDERS:
Sweat, kneading the knobs formed on her toes, calluses, leather skin on feet hammered by point shoes. The silky satin of the scuffed shoes, then the rough turtle skin of her feet. she squeezes her feet back into the shoes, they smell of dirt and sweat, laces them up. Stands and begins her routine, the clomp as her feet fall with each leap, the crrrrrr as her clothes sweep with her, her panting, a hundred muscles crying out with each controlled bend and sweep of her leg, then arm, then leg again. She watches each move in the mirror, sees the little tremors of exhausted muscles that she must control, her mouth firm, no, betrays pain, relax it, another turn, she watches her right hand and adjusts her index finger by the tiniest of curls. Onward, she tastes metal and realizes that she’s bitten her tongue while concentrating, blood. She smiles just slightly. She watches herself again, sees a hunched up crone galomping around a room full of mirrors and wood floors and walls, then sees a lioness slowly approaching the kill, then sees shoots from a dandelion wafting …

Try the point-of-view experiment again here. Do Chanelle’s from both third and second person; do Susan’s from first and second person. Again, be alert in second person for commands and questions.

90 seconds: Puppy

PAUL PENTON:
Big eyes looking up like glass marbles. Tail wagging back and forth in a seesaw. Running in jumbled heap, legs uncoordinated. A fawn blob of fur and fluff, eager, happy. Warm puppy breath with lizard tongue that licks my face, high-pitched yaps and barks of excitement. Paws scrabbling across shiny tiles in bathroom tissue commercials—cute!

HOLLY BRETTELL:
On the car ride home the puppy is whining, pawing and fogging up the window with his breath. Your heart is pounding with excitement seeing your little one padding down the unfamiliar hallway, trying to find a place to mark his territory. You rush him outside not thinking of the potty-training process. New toys cover the floor. After a long hard day as he drifts off, his breathing getting slower, you don’t care about the mess around the corner, this moment is too precious—his first nap in his new home.

Both Paul and Chanelle use multiple senses. Nice puppies. Try it yourself.

That’s it, eight days down, six to go. You’ve looked at objects (“what”) and characters (“who”), and have seen how they can interact with each other. Objects reveal character; character assembles objects. It’s a wonderful, fluid dance. All it takes is practice.

DAY #9

“WHEN” WRITING

Welcome to “when” writing. It will give you practice locating your characters and the objects around them at various times.

“When” can be seasonal—“across the morning sky, all the birds are leaving.” It can be a time of day—“midnight at the oasis,” or even special occasion: “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.” Play around with it.

Setting a time of day or year adds a new dimension to your writing. There’s a vast difference between the following three versions:

I looked at her, she looked back at me …

A sunny morning, I looked at her, she looked back at me …

A cold winter, I looked at her, she looked back at me..,

Our skin wrinkled with age, I looked at her, she looked back at me …

There’s lots of stimulation available in “when,” as you’ll see. Watch the ideas tumble out.

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: Summer Rainstorm

LINDA M:
Clapping clouds lick warm wind and drizzle dewy rain on the tart green grass below. Wet dirt cushions my feet, daisy sprays tickle my ankle like a bracelet of watery charms. Sun soaks through the drops, an aqua-coloured rainbow bends across the hopeful horizon like childhood prayers and plastic rosaries …

DEBORAH QUILTER:
Billowing steam rose from the asphalt as the warm rain tapped down on the melted black surface. Veins of lightning splintered across the skyline and a city of umbrellas popped open. Dirty dark clouds clustered overhead threatening to bucket down in pellets. Sticky skin plunged into goose bumps and slippery feet skittles. Traffic slowed to a spluttering slosh, windscreen wipers batted the rain away and beaming car lights flashed along afternoons’ dirty streets. The pavements filled with pot-holed puddles …

The prompt specifies summer, but Deborah takes the writing even further into “when” with “beaming car lights flashed along afternoons’ dirty streets.”

Check out both Linda and Deborah’s verbs. Yum.

One other thing: Note that Deborah’s description is in past tense, removing the reader a bit from the scene. (It happened, after all, in the past.) Look what happens in present tense:

Billowing steam rises from the asphalt as the warm rain taps down on the melted black surface. Veins of lightning splinter across the skyline and a city of umbrellas pops open. Dirty dark clouds cluster overhead threatening to bucket down in pellets. Sticky skin plunges into goose bumps and slippery feet skittles. Traffic slows to a spluttering slosh, windscreen wipers bat the rain away and beaming car lights flash along afternoons’ dirty streets. The pavements fill with pot-holed puddles …

Pretty big difference. Present tense is more immediate than past tense or future tense—not that everything you write needs to be immediate. Just remember that tense is a tool—a choice you make. Don’t let the fact that it happened in the past make you write it in past tense. Don’t let “how it really happened” drive the bus. You’re the writer.

And it’s your turn.

10 minutes: Graduation

CHANELLE DAVIS:
Parading down the main street of town, spilling onto the road, hundreds of graduates in black flowing gowns and hats with tassles swinging, blue and white collars, descending on the theatre. Sun heating up, burning through our gowns, sweat on my face, big smiles and laughter, whooping and shouting, skipping, I feel my high heels on the footpath, clicking, a street full of friends, flicking through the programme looking for my name, hearing it called and walking up on stage, carefully, follow the white line on the floor, around the towering bouquets of white and blue flowers, shake hands firmly with the man and pose for a photograph, routine clapping, hands sore and red. Listening to speakers and Maori blessings, calls, some students dressed in Korowai, native bird feathered cloaks handed down …