Lightning Flash Writing

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot about memory, going back as far as my July 2025 Substack, I think. But it makes sense, because the memories in my mind were some good times, and even if they weren’t, they’re over now, so I can see them through rose-colored glasses. When compared to what’s going on now, almost everything from before seems rosy, so I’m okay with camping out in the past for a bit.

Especially because March is right around the corner, which means it’s almost time for March Sadness! I submitted my essay in mid-December but still think of it often, hoping it’s as “good” as I remember (“good” in quotes because do any writers still feel good about work after you send it out, or are you immediately suffocated under a wave of “oh shit.” No? Just me? Please share your secrets.) and will make its way past the first round.

After seeing the bracket, I don’t really think it will, and now I need to fill out my bracket and decide whether to be optimistic and list my song as moving into the second round, or to try and get more points for a winning bracket since I won’t be winning anything else. I mean, 90s sad songs?! There are too many amazing competitors based on music alone, and when you look at the writers crafting the essays… well, it’s going to be fun no matter what.

Along with my project of reading two classic short stories a month (which takes me back to college), I’ve decided to start listening to more music. I listen to music ALL of the time – all day while I work, driving, sitting in the school carline. But I listen to the same things over and over. I still have my iPod chock full o’ goodness, and now my computer with iTunes and all the music stored won’t turn on, so I can’t update it. But that’s okay, because I have thousands of songs and dozens of playlists and, if I may toot my own horn, I make really good playlists. So I have no problem putting one on and listening to it in order, as I intended to tell a story, or even shuffling it for the surprise of what comes next.

But still, it’s the same old songs. So I decided to listen to three albums a month. Not random songs because they’re in my head. Not the same old playlists. But full albums. Preferably new to me, because I haven’t started loving a new band since the Struts. However, with my mind rooted in the past lately, I went back to the first albums I owned as a kid. Actually, I woke up one morning with these lyrics in my head: “When you walk by every night, talkin’ sweet and lookin’ fine, I get kinda hectic inside.” A song I hadn’t heard or thought of in… decades, probably. Yet I remembered the words, and I could hear it so clearly in my mind that I needed to hear the real thing. So I pulled up the album and started to listen.

Disclaimer: “Daydream” by Mariah Carey was the first CD I ever bought. I feel like this is something no one would ever guess about me, but it’s true. And I loved it. My friends had it too, and we listened to it all of the time, and hearing it recently took me right back to fifth grade. I still remember every song and almost every lyric. For someone who can’t remember what I went into the kitchen to do, this was a mind-blowing experience.

So I decided the next album I listened to should also be from way back when: All-4-One’s self-titled masterpiece. This was the first cassette I bought with my own money. Ronald, my third-grade crush, used to sing “I Swear” at the lunch table (for me, I swore), and I was obsessed with it. When my mom finally took me to buy the tape, I remember carrying it with me everywhere.

The third album I listened to last month in full was “Jagged Little Pill” by Alanis Morissette. I’ve listened to this one more recently than the other two so it wasn’t a major trip down memory lane, but listening to it after “Daydream” did transport me back to elementary school with that same group of friends, except now we were 6th graders, ruling the school, so edgy with our concept of “ironic” and hearing the word “damn” in a song, not to mention the sexual undertones we were desperate to decode in “You Oughta Know.”

This month, I’m striving to listen to all new (to me) albums, so if you have suggestions, let me know. I’ve already listened to Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos”, but there are still two slots left (plus, you know, three every month for the rest of the year).

For this month’s short story project, I’m reading “The Lottery” and “The Daemon Lover” by Shirley Jackson. You should read them too, and we’ll discuss them!

(Last month was “Cathedral” and “So Much Water So Close to Home” by Raymond Carver, though I ended up reading so much more by him.)

Think of a song you loved as a kid, or a song off the first album you ever bought. Listen to it over and over until an idea comes to you, either inspired by the song itself or by your memories. Write a 500-word piece of fiction or creative nonfiction using that as a jumping-off point.