It's Monday and I find myself reaching for something this morning. A glimmer, a glimpse, a wish.
I found an interesting article during my search for some wisdom this morning and while I don't believe it was the answer to all life's problems, it did make me feel like I was accomplishing something more than something less.
I spend time on my Feedly feeds when I need a push in the right direction, usually when I feel like I am sinking into the quicksand of self doubt and my muse seems to have taken a permanent vacation to the Caribbean (without me).
So I happened upon a post by Roni Loren that you can read for yourself here and thought it would be worth an hour or so of my time today. It is a Monday after all and I am not feeling particularly creative this morning so I thought I would give it a go.
The idea is to listen to a random playlist or radio station and write down the first thirty songs you hear. These song titles then become thirty chapter headings giving your writer's block a kindly shove out the door or at least a swift kick in the pants, at least for the time being.
This is what the Universe handed me to play with today:
1. Latch
2. Wild Wild Love
3. I Can't Make You Love Me
4. The Walker
5. Turn Down for What
6. Me and My Broken Heart
7. Stay With Me
8. Am I Wrong9. Rude
10. Sing
11. All Of Me
12. Birthday
13. Daylight
14. Happy
15. Stay
16. Best Day of my Life
17. When I Was Your Man
18. La La La
19. She Looks so Perfect
20. Wrecking Ball
21. Summer
22. Ain't. it Fun
23. Call Me Maybe
24. Classic
25. Team
26. Mmm Yeah
27. Good Feeling
28. Somebody That I Used to Know
29. Dark Horse
30. Empire
Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have been listening to a pop station when I attempted this, of course it would be a love story. That's what pop music is all about. But from the chapter titles I can seem to ascertain, Latch - boy meets girl, there is some wild sex perhaps in Wild Wild Love, girl falls in love, boy does not in I Can't Make You Love Me. In The Walker we find him leaving her not wanting to get serious, rejecting her in Turn Down for What, and we can guess what happens in Me and My Broken Heart. In Stay she appears on his doorstep on a snowy November evening and she begs him to stay with her but in Am I Wrong she wonders if he is worth it. Now Rude and Sing, they leave me a little confused, maybe that is where the antagonist is introduced. She decides that she has to get her life back on track in All of Me and celebrates her Birthday with a new love interest. For the first time in months she feels the darkness slipping away in Daylight and in Happy she begins to love again.
All is well until the other man returns in Stay, believing he is in love with her. She agrees to go out with him one more time in Best Day of My Life but she ultimately rejects him. In When I was Your Man he realizes what he lost. La La La sees her with her new love but thinking about the other man still. The ex watches her dating the new guy in She Looks so Perfect and in Wrecking Ball we see him having a major meltdown when he realizes she has moved on. In Summer we see the characters growing up during a year without seeing each other and in Ain't it Fun we see them running into each other accidentally at a charity that they are both interested in. In Team we see them working together for a common goal and by the time the project completes they realize they both have feelings for each other. In Call Me Maybe we see them debating their relationship, past and present and in Classic her new boyfriend proposes to her chagrin as she is still dealing with her old feelings for her ex. In Mmm Yeah she shows up on his doorstep to have a romantic interlude with her ex lover to see if she there is true love there and in Good Feeling, she realizes that while she still loves him, she can't go back and decides to marry her new boyfriend.
In Somebody That I Used to Know, they run into each other several years later and she is happily married and he is still single. In Dark Horse we see the slimy underbelly of her marriage as it falls apart. In Empire she is a strong, independent woman and mother and in the end she calls her ex to invite him for coffee.
Would it work? Maybe. I don't think it is something I would write however unless he is a vampire or she is. Or they are some other mystical or supernatural beings. Or somebody dies. That is more my style but it was an interesting experiment at any rate.
Perhaps tomorrow I will try a different station.
