by Pat Pattison
TAMI NEILSEN
Deep-sea diver → Linking quality: Supported by a lifeline →
Target idea: Dying patient
The silence is loud and heavy, broken only by the distant blip of the heart-rate monitor. I am sinking under this sea of sheets and blankets, nurses and doctors circle me like sharks, watching me with cold, flat eyes, capable of giving or taking life in an instant. Surrounded by life, yet I am isolated in leagues of darkness, immersed in an ocean of hopelessness so deep, I will not return. Life is trying to escape me, trying to be done with it, but I am being force-fed life through a tube. It’s not natural. Let me rip away this lifeline, this weakness. Let me instead be an anchor and sink with proud dignity.
Tami’s use of first person is effective, creating a world from inside her diving suit rather than observing from the outside. Notice all the members of the diver’s family she invites into the key of dying patient. I especially like leagues …
CHARLIE WORSHAM
Deep-sea diver → Linking quality: Supported by a lifeline →
Target idea: Frontline soldier
A frontline soldier is a deep-sea diver.
All is quiet on the frontline. The oncoming darkness is liquid in texture, not unlike the cool, murky bottom of his hometown pond, which he daydreams about when the action dies down. He listens to his watch tick away the seconds that turn to minutes that turn to hours, days, marking time till he can return to the fresh air of home. Food, water, medicine, information, all piped down to him from headquarters via a narrow, high-pressure red line on a map. One rip, one tear, and he’d be alone, surrounded by a world of enemies that know and breathe the land and air that is so strange to him. He cannot see far ahead. His helmet is hot and sticky and heavy on his head, but he mustn’t remove it. His life hangs suspended in this tiny foxhole at the end of a long, narrow finger of soldiers. They are pushing into the depths. The darkness ahead holds a world of secret predators waiting to bolt from beneath a rock or dive from the blue above. He feels sluggish from exhaustion as he tries to wade through the thick air and mud that pull at his boots, his rifle, his uniform. He is drenched in sweat and filth, but immune to the smells and the sounds. Everything is soft. Softened by the long hours in battle. The supply truck comes rumbling towards him, stops. The whiting cloth of a soldier bringing his meal and ammo for the night. The silent exchange of worried glances and fingers pointing to maps that tell him what to do next. No words. Only moving parts and silent thinking. Only a thin red line keeping him connected to the outside world and survival.
See what interesting connections can be made using linking qualities? I never would have seen a soldier as a diver except for the linking phrase supported by a lifeline. Once you explore the question “What else has that quality?” the ideas trouble out by the wheelbarrow.
Your turn. What else is supported by a lifeline? Find your target idea and take ten minutes exploring it through the lens of deep-sea diver. Again, remember to stay as locked into sense-bound language as you can.
Deep-sea diver → Linking quality: Totally immersed → Target idea:_________
Finally, try the linking phrase, surrounded by an unfamiliar landscape:
Deep-sea diver → Linking quality: Surrounded by an unfamiliar landscape →
Target idea: _____________:
SUSAN CATTANEO
Deep-sea diver → Linking quality: Surrounded by an unfamiliar landscape → Target idea: Astronaut on the moon
An astronaut on the moon is a deep-sea diver.
Stars floating in a black sea, kicking up slow-motion dust, the noisy intake of air, slow motion arms paddling through the dense air, your skin saran wrapped in white puffy material, feet grasping for purchase on the rocky bottom, the cocoon of silence outside your glass mask …
Many family members and many notes in each key are shared by the diver and the astronaut. But to see the universe of stars as “floating in a black sea” is pretty special, once again brought to you by your friendly sponsor, the diver’s linking term, surrounded by an unfamiliar landscape.
CHANELLE DAVIS
Deep-sea diver → Linking quality: Surrounded by an unfamiliar landscape → Target idea: Tourist
Tourist is a deep-sea diver.
Submerged in crowds of people with unfamiliar accents, beautiful slim woman gliding along the city streets covered in treasures, diving in and out of cafés, high buildings with shimmering windows, speeding on the subway through dark echoing tunnels, shimmering flashes of colour from massive billboards like coral reefs, rushing around with my camera trying to capture beautiful statues under jellyfish clouds suspended in the sky.
I’ve never looked at a city like this before. Fresh and interesting. I love “jellyfish clouds suspended in the sky.” Thanks, Chanelle.
Your turn. What else is surrounded by an unfamiliar landscape? Find your target idea and take ten minutes to explore it through the lens of deep-sea diver. Again, remember to stay as locked into sense-bound language as you can.
Deep-sea diver → Linking quality: Surrounded by an unfamiliar landscape →
Target idea:_____________
DAY #3
LINKING QUALITIES
TO TARGET IDEAS
Prompt: Guitar Solo
Once again, you’ll go through the process. It’s a pretty healthy exercise, and it really tones your writing muscles. Tomorrow you’ll take this exercise another step further, but for now, use three qualities of a guitar solo as your linking qualities. Try these:
Building intensity
Going somewhere new
In the spotlight
Now link each quality to a target idea—the ideas that guitar solo can be a metaphor for, by asking:
What else has that quality? What else is building intensity?
Take ten minutes to explore your target idea through the lens of guitar solo.
CHANELLE DAVIS
Guitar solo → Linking quality: Building intensity → Target idea: River
A river is a guitar solo.
Water swelling up, building momentum as it flows, bending through the landscape, accelerating, rising in rapids, creating tension against the rocks, reaching its highest pitch as an audience of trees sway in adoration, the river descends down the rock face …
If you didn’t know the prompt, Chanelle’s writing would be a pretty exciting look at a river, with subtle members of the river and guitar families sharing “bending.” I’ve never seen trees (swaying) at a rock concert before, but I guess there are plenty of rocks to go around. Nice.
CHARLIE WORSHAM
Guitar solo → Linking quality: Building intensity →
Target idea: Lawyer’s closing argument
A lawyer’s closing argument is a guitar solo.
He rises with silent determination and strides forward into the spotlight of the packed courtroom. The crowd holds its breath, knowing that this will be the moment they take home that night and replay in stories and in dreams over and over and over. He turns to face the jury with a nervous swagger, lifts his arms, and begins to speak. The first few words are calm and spaced with even phrasing, even tone, and simple inflection. You can see the faces on the front row nod to the rhythm, pick up the theme. Louder now, his words echo across the room, masterfully driven toward each pair of captive ears. He explores the stage in front of the judge’s bench, the fervor and intensity building as his plea grows more desperate. He drips sweat from his brow, his collar tearing loose as his body moves to the wordplay, arms pointing and diving to exaggerate the message and drive it home. He draws in every last ounce of energy in that room, held silence in his palm for a moment, and with the outpouring of a sudden thunderstorm, lets the last sentence land onto the polished wood floor like a guitar crushed and burning, screaming and wailing through a humming tube amp. The crowd erupts into a frenzy, the drumming gavel of the judge comes down again and again. He moves over to the waiting wings of associate lawyers, sits down, and bows his head, completely spent.
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nbsp; Yikes! Jimmy Page, move over! I love how the linking qualities lead to such interesting places. You can do it easily, too, step by step. Go ahead.
What else builds intensity? Find your target idea and take ten minutes to explore it through the lens of guitar solo. Again, remember to stay as locked into sense-bound language as you can.
Guitar solo → Linking quality: Building intensity → Target idea:___________
Next, Going somewhere new. Write for ten minutes.
GREG BECKER
Guitar solo → Linking quality: Going somewhere new → Target idea: First date
A first date is a guitar solo.
His heart races as he stands on the stage of her porch and his blood starts pumping louder. His fingers curl into a fist and he raps his knuckles on her door to the beat of his thumping heart which he can feel all the way to his feet. The surrounding world vanishes as the door opens he feels naked in the spotlight of the overhanging porch light and the sounds of the evening are silenced as she reaches out for his hand from the darkness. The evening is a three hour crescendo a with all words, jokes, quick glances and touches leading to the final ten seconds where their lips finally consummate the relationship and a new light is sparked and lifted from the crowd of lovers across the dark night landscape.
Not only does this create an interesting picture of a first date, it also creates an interesting picture of a guitar solo. As you’ll see tomorrow, sometimes it’s good to go both ways. I love the porch light as a spotlight.
CHARLIE WORSHAM
Guitar solo → Linking quality: Going somewhere new →
Target idea: Piloting an airplane
Piloting an airplane is a guitar solo.
Strapped in, waiting for our chance to take off, we roll across the stage of airplanes and personnel standing on the tarmac. Once I get the nod to take the main runway, we can feel the momentum build as the main engine kicks into high gear. Picking up speed, I feel the wheels leave the ground—the rush of being suspended in midair. Thrust upward, watching the night sky engulf me as the twinkling lights of the city below flicker like lighters and cell phones in a crowded arena. The great, powerful rumble of the jet surrounds me, yet in my hand I hold the keys to a new frontier. A throttle and steering mechanism—my instruments of choice—to lead me to places I’ve never been. I know where I will land; I do not know exactly how I will get there, soaring above the clouds and across a vast ocean below. I will roll onward post-landing, waiting for my next chance to take off, reflect the glow of a moon spotlight, dance among the stars, swoop and dive through the air. Each minute adjustment of my fingers and hands result in giant sweeps of movement that reverberate for miles and can be seen and felt by all in its wake. The cockpit, like my brain right now, locked safely from the surrounding chaos and noise, it is here I will steer the arc of my flight, my half composed, half fate-driven solo beneath the stars.
Looking at an object through a lens of another thing can transform and enlarge that object, as shown here. Charlie’s description of the flight wouldn’t be as focused without the lens of guitar solo. It allows the flight to become something fresh and new, something recognized and not recognized at the same time. Lenses.
Your turn. What else goes somewhere new? Find your target idea and take ten minutes to explore it through the lens of guitar solo. Again, remember to stay as locked into sense-bound language as you can.
Guitar solo → Linking quality: Going somewhere new →
Target idea:_________
Finally, in the spotlight.
Guitar solo → Linking quality: In the spotlight → Target idea: _____________
For ten minutes explore your target idea through the lens of guitar solo.
MEGAN BURTT
Guitar solo → Linking quality: In the spotlight → Target idea: Moth
A moth’s guitar solo
Fluttering aimlessly about, starving for attention, the moth soldiers on, desperate to find home in a bright ray. Little does the bugger know that once you find the light, there is no turning back. Caught in the shine, he is weighing distraction, which may lend itself to death by design and excitement. Finding the radiant torch bigger than its delicate body can handle, the moth takes its last little moth breath morsel and plummets down, its quest stopped it dead in its tracks. But the light remains, waiting for its next victim.
Wow! Tough spotlight. The linking quality sees all the fallen guitar heroes who shone for a moment, then were torched by their quest for the light. I’ll never see spotlights in the same way again. That’s the power of metaphor.
GREG BECKER
Guitar solo → Linking quality: In the spotlight → Target idea: Escaping convict
An escaping convict guitar solo
He strums the bars of his cage with his metal cup giving the signal to the others that the moment has arrived and he is ready. Slowly the row of cells quiets and the prison goes silent except for rhythmic thumping of his heart and the small scratching and clicking of his makeshift key unlocking his door. Once he steps out of his cell and the door swings open, the cell block erupts in cheers and yells as he makes his mad dash for the exit door. A wandering spotlight catches his foot and quickly locks onto him as he darts back and forth across the prison yard.
Apparently, neither Megan nor Greg see spotlights as a positive thing. I love “strums the bars of his cage” and “rhythmic thumping of his heart.”
Your turn. What else is in the spotlight? Find your target idea and take ten minutes to explore it through the lens of guitar solo. Again, remember to stay as locked into sense-bound language as you can.
Guitar solo → Linking quality: In the spotlight → Target idea:_____________
DAY #4
WORKING BOTH DIRECTIONS
Prompt: Sleeping Late
You’ve had plenty of practice exploring one idea through the lens of another idea. Using linking qualities, it’s an effective and efficient way to see one thing as though it were something else—the definition of metaphor. Ready to try something new today?
As usual, you’ll link each to a target idea—the ideas that sleeping late can be a metaphor for, by asking:
What else has that quality?
So far, you’ve been looking at the target idea (arrived at via the linking quality) through the lens of the first idea (in this case, sleeping late). Today, you’ll do something else, too.
As an example, say that your linking quality from sleeping late is feeling lazy. The target idea could be avoiding your homework:
Sleeping late → Feeling lazy → Avoiding your homework
So, as usual, you look at avoiding your homework through the lens of sleeping late. Like this:
Equations, scraggly bits of ink blotting the page, beeping at me, an alarm clock nudging me to clear the haze from my brain and crawl over to the chair, bend my back, and start scratching solutions in the waiting white blanks. My brain hits its snooze button, rolling over into visions of clear mountain streams bubbling past smooth white stones, speckled trout darting in the shallows unaware of the slow motion line about to drop a blue winged fly, plop, on the wrinkling surface … buzz, buzz from the equal sign, opening like a mouth while I squeeze my eyes shut.
But now you’ll spend another ten minutes reversing directions: After you finish your first ten minutes writing about avoiding your homework through the lens of sleeping late, you’ll change directions and look at sleeping late through the lens of avoiding your homework. Like this:
Rolling over, sinking into the soft white pillow, echoes of Miss Luger’s shrill chirp, long miles of polished hallways ago, burrowing through the haze, the nudging elbow of a conscience needling me with visions of algebra problems waiting with raised eyebrows, or the Battle of Gettysburg whining for a date to begin the fray. I snuggle into my blank white sheet and relax my shoulders, drifting away from old piled workbooks at the corner of my desk to sunny afternoons with no alarm clock voices calling from the old Sunday nights before homework was due
at St. Peter’s grammar school.
Now, try this. Supply the target idea for each of the linking qualities below:
Conserving energy
Wasting time
First use conserving energy as your linking quality. As usual, when you find your target idea, take ten minutes to explore your target idea through the lens of sleeping late.
GREG BECKER
Sleeping late → Linking quality: Conserving energy →
Target idea: Sitting on a summer porch
Sitting on a summer porch is like sleeping late.
The heat of the day slows down the world, a slow molasses wind stubbornly blows across the porch having no effect at all. The heavy blanket of August weighs you down until you are motionless listening to the buzzing of the cicadas, thinking about moving, thinking about something cold to drink, thinking about the day ahead but acting on nothing. Eyes are droopy and won’t open any time soon. The world walks by on slow motion somehow all moving on with their days, walking, talking, going somewhere. This is as far as you go, even to stand would require the entire reserve of energy left in your bones.
Now reverse it and explore sleeping late through the lens of your target idea for ten minutes.
Sleeping late is sitting on a summer porch.
The dream scape lays out before you just over the railing of wakefulness. You still have a clear image of the world of fantasy that you were just in moments ago as it slowly pulls away you cling to every last detail in your memory. The dream soon becomes just another neighbor walking their surreality by your brain coming into view and then gone. Your legs squirm and wander beneath the sheets in search of the shady cool spots, re-energizing the weight of sleep once found. These final five minutes of snooze are but an illusion of security, of comfort and safety. The day is just moments away from overtaking you, and the frail wood railing of reality weakens the more it is leaned upon.
Wonderful how this changes directions so easily. I love “The heavy blanket of August weighs you down,” and, going the other direction, “the railing of wakefulness.” See how the metaphor can make a U-turn and head back the other way, too.