Ever wonder why rock stars make the big bucks, while poets and storytellers often dwell on the fringes of Pawn Shop and Welfare Office, scribbling character sketches on the backs of empty Food Stamp booklets?

It's because a powerful lyric is the fastest path to the human heart. Learning to write
lyrically, for many scribes, is the key to nailing down an original vision, and/or voice. Also, working within the song form forces the writer to explore his or her craft with economy, and "right brain" ingenuity.

Here's the exercise:

Take a story or poem of yours that, for whatever reason, has up to now, not "cut mustard"-- and that you've "shelved." Or, take a piece for which all you have is an idea, or an opening line, or the barest glimpse into the hearts of a couple sketchy characters. You get the idea? Now...

Turn the unrealized piece inside-out. Make a song out of it, using the following format:

1.Verse

Chorus

2. Verse

Chorus

Bridge

3. Verse

Chorus

As a template, I refer you to this amazing song, by Steely Dan.

Haitian Divorce

Verse 1. Babs and clean willie were in love
they said...
So in love the preachers face turned red.
Soon everybody knew the thing was dead--
He shouts; she bites, they wrangle through the night, yeah,
She go crazy; got to make a getaway
Papa say

{Chorus}

Oh - ohhh

no hesitation
No tears and no hearts breakin
No remorse
Oh - ohhh
congratulations
This is your Haitian
Divorce

Verse 2. She takes the taxi to the good hotel
Bon marché as far as she can tell.
She drinks the zombie from the cocoa shell
She feels alright, she get it on tonight, yeah... Mister driver
Take me where the music play
Papa say

{Repeat Chorus}

BRIDGE

At the grotto
In the greasy chair
Sits the charlie with the lotion and the kinky hair
When she smiled, she said it all
The band was hot so
They danced the famous merengue

Now we dolly back
Now we fade to black

Verse 3. Tearful reunion in the usa
Day by day those memories fade away
Some babies grow in a peculiar way
It changed, it grew, and everybody knew
Semi-mojo
Whos this kinky so-and-so?
Papa go

{Repeat Chorus -- Fade}

You may find that your story, having "tried on a song" for a short time, has now become something totally different from what you'd originally intended it to be. It may clue you in--to what is missing in the unrealized story. It may solve problems of structure and pacing that previously plagued the embryonic piece of writing.

Or, you may just write a hit song!

Either way, I hope this exercise unlocks some doors, and that you have some fun, which is, after all, what writing is supposed to be about.

Good Lyric Hunting-- to you all!

Question for readers: should I weed out some of the less "literary" events? For example, do readers of this page care about books about planning weddings? Or do you want all of the bookish events I can track down? My temptation is to include only events that pertain to either fiction or poetry, but then that leaves out all the memoir-type stuff and some good non-fiction as well. What are your thoughts?

Also, if you're a part of Seattle's lit scene and you know of events that aren't being covered here, shoot me an email at dclapper@smokelong.com, and I'll add them to future calendars. I'm still playing with format, too. Right now, I'm pretty much copying and pasting (with a little tweaking to make all events follow a similar format). If there's a particular event that I have a little more insight into, I'll make sure to include that.

Monday, May 5

7:00pm
Richard Hugo House
Hugo Works in Progress

7:00pm
University Book Store
Diana Abu-Jaber, Origin

7:00pm
Third Place Books
Sarah O'Leary Burningham, How to Raise Your Parents : A Teen Girl's Survival Guide

7:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
WILLY VLAUTIN, Northline

7:30pm
Town Hall Seattle, 1119 Eighth Avenue, $5.00
DANIEL BROOK, The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America

Tuesday, May 6

6:00pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
MARC ACITO, Attack of the Theater People

6:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
ELLIOTT BAY BOOK GROUP, The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

7:00pm
Richard Hugo House
Lamba Literary Award Finalists' Reading: Nicola Griffith and Corrina Wycoff

7:00pm
University Book Store
Dr. Christopher Sanford, The Adventurous Traveler's Guide to Health

7:00pm
University Book Store
Ch'oe Yun and Bruce Fulton, There a Petal Silently Falls: Three Stories

7:00pm
University Book Store (Bellevue)
Linda Chalker-Scott, The Informed Gardener

7:00pm
Third Place Books
William Dietrich, Rosetta Key

8:00pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
ALEKSANDAR HEMON, The Lazarus Project

Wednesday, May 7

12:00pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
LISA GARRIGUES, Writing Motherhood: Tapping into Your Creativity as a Mother and Writer

12:00pm
Green Lake Branch, Seattle Public Library, 7364 E Green Lake Drive N
DINAW MENGESTU, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

7:00pm
Douglass Truth Branch, Seattle Public Library, 2300 E Yesler Way
DINAW MENGESTU, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

7:00pm
UW Kane Hall, Walker-Ames Room
Maresi Nerad and Mimi Heggelund, Toward a Global PhD?: Forces and Forms in Doctoral Education Worldwide

7:00pm
University Book Store
William J. Bernstein, A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World

7:00pm
Thrid Place Books
Elizabeth George, Careless in Red

7:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
DOMENIC STANSBERRY, The Ancient Rain

Thursday, May 8

12:00pm
Broadway Performance Hall, 1625 Broadway
DINAW MENGESTU, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

7:00pm
The Henry Art Gallery, 15th Ave NE & NE 41st Street
Roger Ballen, Shadow Chamber

7:00pm
Piggott Auditorium, Seattle University, 901 12th Avenue
DINAW MENGESTU, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

7:00pm
Town Hall Seattle, Downstairs, 1119 8th Avenue
Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart with Sanjeev Khagram, Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World

7:00pm
University Book Store
Mark Sarvas, Harry, Revised

7:00pm
Third Place Books
Charlie Ayers, Food 2.0 : Secrets From the Chef Who Fed Google

7:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
SIRI HUSTVEDT, The Sorrows of an American

Friday, May 9

6:30pm
Third Place Books
Ellie Matthews, The Ungarnished Truth

7:00pm
Microsoft Auditorium, Seattle Public Central Library, 1000 Fourth Avenue
DINAW MENGESTU, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

7:00pm
University Book Store
Chelsea Handler, Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

7:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
ANDREW FOSTER ALTSCHUL, Lady Lazarus

Saturday, May 10

11:00am
Queen Anne Branch, Seattle Public Library, 400 W Garfield Street
DINAW MENGESTU, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

2:00pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
EMILY R. TRANSUE, Patient by Patient: Lessons in Love, Loss, Hope and Healing from a Doctor's Practice

4:00pm
Columbia Branch, Seattle Public Library, 4721 Rainier Avenue S
DINAW MENGESTU, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

4:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
RAJ PATEL, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System

6:30pm
Third Place Books
Cynthia Lair, Feeding the Whole Family

7:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
SARAH KATHERINE LEWIS, Sex and Bacon: Why I Love Things That Are Very, Very Bad for Me

Sunday, May 11

2:00pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
KERRY REICHS, The Best Day of Someone Else's Life

In the latest Stranger, he has an article about Seattle that I, at times, adore. Particularly the section "Seattle Is Sarcastic About Sports," part of which reads:

The blue uniforms, in combination with being called the Mariners, made me feel strongly that they actually wanted to be playing Marco Polo in a swimming pool but were forced into professional baseball and so wore blue uniforms to "continue the dream" of "screwing around" in a swimming pool for five hours every day with no responsibilities.

Sounds a lot like my own opinnion of the Mariners before I moved here in 1990 (and at several times since). The whole article is full of stuff that'll make you nod and/or laugh. Give it a read: What I Can Tell You About Seattle Based on the People I've Met Who Are From There.

Historical Fiction, In a Flash
I recently read Amy Knox Brown's debut short story collection, Three Versions of the Truth, which combines contemporary short stories with pieces of fictionalized historical flash. The book, and the concept, is brilliant. Brown writes her own stories about Sitting Bull, Custer, and Comanche, to name a few. As you can see, all of these are mid-western characters, and most of the stories take place in Nebraska, where Amy is from.

I moved to Washington state from Colorado in 1998. I've been here ten years, and still, I know very little about the history of this region. This is what I do know: Seattle is the home of the grunge movement, which includes the legendary bands Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. It is also the home of many infamous serial killers, including Ted Bundy. The state as a whole has a strong labor movement, which has seen its share of strife, especially from the IWW, aka the Wobblies. That's not a whole lot, is it? Okay, I know Jimi Hendrix was from Seattle, and it's the home of Microsoft and Boeing, but what happened further back in time? Who are some of the great characters of Seattle's past?

After reading Amy's collection, I find myself interested, and I thought it would be fun to write a fictionalized flash about, or involving, a Seattle or Washington state personality. So that is the exercise I'm proposing—in 1,000 words or less, turn history into fiction, give it your own spin, your own voice. Show us what Seattle's founding fathers did for leisure. Was there rivalry among them? Lust? Take us inside Jimi Hendrix's childhood, or the daily struggles of Chief Seattle. Show each other, and me, what it means to be a Washingtonian. Wikipedia has a good list to get you started. Ready now? Go!

The Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program is the first in the country - and perhaps in the world - to be offered not by a college or university but by an organization of writers. In this, it resembles many free-standing arts institutions offering degrees in music, art, dance and theater. Authorized by the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board, WWW MFA classes began in August of 2005. In August of 2007 the Workshop celebrated its first graduation.

Students may focus on any of four areas: fiction, poetry, nonfiction or writing for children/young adults. The program requires three workshops, one of which may be in a second genre. Students also take at least two craft courses, one of which must be in a second (or third) genre. Two directed reading courses in the core genre are required. A third directed reading or a third craft course may be taken in another genre. The program is capped by a book-length creative work of publishable quality. For details, use the Program Catalog link at the top of this page.

 As a low-residency (also known as brief residency) program, the WWW MFA requires students to attend intensive ten-day residencies on Whidbey Island each August and January. Residencies are followed by sixteen-week online semesters. For current and recent residency schedules, use the Residency link at the top of this page. Residencies are available on a continuing education basis to those who don't wish to study for an MFA. See the Residency-only link on the Residency page.

The Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program is one of the most flexible low-residency MFAs around. Many other brief residency programs require fifteen-credit blocks each term and must be completed in two years. Ours will offer five-credit individual courses so that students may work at their own pace, taking from two to six years to complete the program.

The WWW MFA has a limited number of scholarships available.

For more information, please check out their website.

Also note that the students at WWW love the short-short form and hold a monthly contest with no entry fee and a prize of $50.00. Check out the details of that here.