Welcome to Wordplay Thursday!
Today, I’m going to give you a topic, and the wordplay is to show that topic with ONLY sensory images (sight, smell, taste, touch, sound). The point is to have fun with the old Nashville advice that says, “Show me, don’t tell me.” You can just pick one sense, or you can challenge yourself by playing one image from each of the 5 senses.
This week, let’s paint a picture about…
“The Thaw”
Here’s an example to get you started:
“The brown grass is muddy beneath my boots. An old man with silver hair shovels ice and snow away from his barber shop door. A snowman is leaning over, unable to reach his fallen limb. Patches of snow find refuge in shadows.”
Now it’s your turn. Show me, don’t tell me!
Oh, and please keep your posts below an R-rating. It’s a family show, after all…
And thanks to Tomas Giraitis,Kerry Meacham, Ken Matthiessen, Max Maxwell, Jerry Childers, Nick S., Kate, Linda Keser, Matt Martoccio and everyone else for your great additions to Wordplay Thursday #126 (read it here)! Great job!
Since strong imagery is such an important part of professional-level songwriting, I’ve put together a course on imagery. It’s called, “Use Imagery To Supercharge Your Songwriting (Like The Pros Do)” and it’s available now. And this week, you can get my new course at a discounted price!
The live ONLINE workshops for “Use Imagery To Supercharge Your Songwriting (Like The Pros Do)” are now available for only $60.
That’s 33% off!
This is for a limited time, so don’t delay. The workshops are on February 16 and 18, and a ticket comes with ALL the materials for the full course:
*2 hours of video teaching
*1 hour of audio (great for listening on-the-go)
*50-page ebook
*course workbook
And, of course, you get an hour of additional coaching on the live, online workshop. As long as you have an internet connection, you can join us! (We’ll be using the Fuze online platform, which is free.)
By the end of the course, you’ll have the basic skills to:
- Effectively use both literal and figurative imagery.
- Make your story come to life using imagery.
- Prove your character’s personality using imagery.
- Make your listener connect to your character’s emotions using imagery.
- Hook your listener in the song’s first few lines using imagery.
- And to begin more songs (more easily) using imagery exercises as the start of your songwriting process.
To find out more, just…
CLICK HERE FOR THE FEB. 16 ONLINE WORKSHOP AND COURSE.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FEB. 18 ONLINE WORKSHOP AND COURSE.
God Bless,
Brent
Brent Baxter is a hit songwriter with cuts by Alan Jackson, Randy Travis, Lady Antebellum, Joe Nichols, Gord Bamford, Ruthie Collins, Ray Stevens, and more. He’s written a top 5 hit in the US and a #1 in Canada… so far.
The grass still shivers as it finds it’s first ray of sun. Pale and tired, looking dead it starts to fight for a rebirth like a phoenix. Surrounded by patches of white, green and brown the snowman that had provided hours of smiles now gives life as it warps into a cold puddle that the grass drinks down like it’s New Years Eve. Grass and snow, like a Harry Potter story, neither can live while the other survives. As the sun massages my skin like a blanket fresh out of the dryer I smile knowing the grass really is greener on the other side.
The shimmering morning sun is turning the white wonderland into a river of slush. The metal blade of the snowplow scraping the road interrupts the silence. The snow day has turned into a normal go day. Yuck!
Drip. Drip. Drip. One at a time each droplet of water finds freedom from the frozen dangling
icicle. For four bitterly cold months the clear shiny stalactite hung as a single stroke in nature’s glistening winter art show. Plop. Plop. Plop. Each drop falls into the crystal clear water of the small stream just below. Along the water’s meandering path colorful crocus and greening tuffs of grass sprout to life.
In these parts the phenomenon is as rare as an Australian white peacock. The shimmering reflection of the few remaining white patches begins to disappear as the sun works its warming magic. The small creek swells with pride like the ocean. The trees now cause a rainstorm, as the sky turns crystal clear blue. Come again anytime, just not anytime soon.
Ice cracks beneath my feet on this once frozen pond.
The sound of branches breaking are heard all around
As I fall waist deep in water, for help I loudly
call
Iknow that I’m in trouble, a victim of the thaw
??
THE THAW…..
“I said, the SAW, man! Why you keep talking like that, man? How many years you been flashing them bedazzling teeth inside that chewing tobacco mouth? I took you to the dentist and to the orthodontist a few times, brother; and that piehole still leaves a trail of spicy snuff as if it were a factory. Come on, man. Even Snaggletooth Tiger wouldn’t have a lisp like that. Dont be mad, brother, and bring me that saw over there.”
Crunslush. Deep inhale. Hold breath.
Crunslush. Puh puh puh. I can do this.
Crunshushhhhslllliiiiipppppp. Kaa-thump. Aaaaouch!
Cowboy boots, a steep driveway and melting snow. A painful short story.
Good one.
?
There were these somewhat large mounds of sun drenched clumps of melting snow…one by one…that began to fall from the roof of what was left of this very old 19th century Midwestern barn. Falling with the force & cadence that of a wrecking ball…slow & deliberate…at the very same time hit & shake the ground with such authority, emanating a sound very much like the landing of a catapult’s trajectory…low, ominous, deep…out of nowhere I heard a woosh & then felt a sudden burst of cold wind go right through to the bone, catching my attention…as if to say to me…” The beauty of this once remote spot that has been preserved, frozen in time, will soon be melting into the present with people encroaching roads & development.” As I slowly filled up my lungs with the chilly air….that had the pleasant aromatic sent of cedar & tasted the rough & cold texture of melting snow on my tongue. Sadly…I knew by the end of spring…this place would no longer be.
The Thaw.
As the snow begins to melt I can hear the sound of spring chirping on the distance, colors begin to form as the air becomes warm under grandmas chair on the porch lies an old news paper dated a month ago talking of winters furry, and springs furry of tornado valley in Kansas City…Yes I consider this a fast winter thaw this winter season but smell fresh grass as it hits our front porch walk.
Chirping in the distance..
Lol.?
The smell. That’s the first thing I notice once the snow has all melted off and the non-cold begins to take hold before the real warmth sets in. It’s a loamy, mulchy, rotten stink that is in no way sweet. But daffodils and crocuses will be poking through soon enough. Tulips and then lilacs after that. Naked tree branches that have been forbidding and ominous are covered in tiny buds now, all ready to burst. And I wonder, above the low hum of the city and the delicate trickle of the melted ice in the gutter headed downhill, if this was my last real winter.
Frost is melting and running down the windshiels of my truck as I slide in and fire it up.I’m reminded, as I look back at the tracks I just made as I carefully picked my way from her door through the slushy snow to the driveway,of the many stepping stones we laid as we built this stepping stones we laid as we fragile relationship. It’s sad to think it’s over and that I’ll never spend another warm night with her. That’s just the way things seem to go with me. I’m a drifter. What else can you say about a man that drifts in like an overnight snow storm and then leaves quietly like a heavy frost in the midmorning sunlight?
The Thaw
*Boots, acting like suction cups, trudge through the ankle-deep snow-cone mush. Hey, what happened to the fresh, knee-deep powder?
*Riverlets of melting sludge hug the curb as the last remnants of the winter storm race toward the storm sewer.
*A row of crystalline carrots are shedding tears, pooling beneath my window
* My every step stamps muddy boot prints into what had once been a sea of white
Just one more:
Jagged cracks, like scars form beneath my blades, and with every stroke the ice groans it’s warning that it’s no longer safe to skate.
The Thaw.
The icicles hanging from the gutters are receding.
one droplet at a time plunges into the tiny creek near the stony foundation
sounding like a thousand leaky faucets.
Each squish of thick boots releases the moist smell of fresh mud as worms frantically wriggle back to their subterranean hideaway
trying to escape the pecking and clawing of recently returned migratory blackbirds.
Soon new seeds will be propagated
and with care many will become the cucumbers, tomatoes, and spinach that will delight the tongue during family dinners.
Even though the thermometer shows only half my body temperature, the bright sun makes my coat too warm to continue wearing.