How Mark Seymour and Hunters and Collectors inspired me to get moving on NaNoWriMo

It's day 2 of the 50ks in 30 days challenge and I only just got started.

I'm down for 30,000 words - to be written in the month of June.

*I've been thinking about my story a lot - I tend to do that. But today I got the kick start I needed, inspired by a song lyric.

I was in the car and a song came on the radio. It was the Hunters and Collectors' classic from the early 1980s, Say Goodbye. Lead singer, Mark Seymour, wrote the lyrics after he and the band returned from three months on the road. Seymour's girlfriend was furious that he was hardly ever home and was always dog tired from touring.

The song features the wailing lament, sung by a group of blokes, You don't make me feel like I'm a woman anymore. I love it.

But then, and here's where I had my sparky moment, I heard the line from the song:
My heart is beating too big, it's beating too big for the space that's meant to hold it.

How evocative is that? Yet so simple. We've all had that bursting heart experience, and Seymour has it perfectly articulated. It's so much better than the tired cliche, My heart beat like a drum.

Of course I can't steal the lyrics (though it did cross my mind) but I could work on simplifying my writing style, losing the cliches and taking a more visceral approach to the descriptions of my characters' emotions.

I've jotted down some of the lyrics from one of the most famous Hunters' songs, Throw your arms around me. I've listened to it hundreds of times, but never tire of it. It's a timeless ode to that passionate, all-consuming desire we experience when we first fall into lust. It's all too fleeting.

I dreamed of you at nightime

And I watched you in your sleep

I met you in high places

I touched your head and touched your feet

So, if you disappear out of view

You know I will never say goodbye

And though I try to forget it

You will make me call your name

And I'll shout it to the blue summer sky

And we may never meet again

So shed your skin and let's get started

And you will throw your arms around me

And you will throw your arms around me

*If procrastination was a profession, I'd get the top job. "What do you do for a crust?" you ask. Pause. "I'm a professional procrastinator," I reply. "Wow, that sounds interesting," you say. Pause. "Well, it is, but then again, it isn't."

PS: I just thought I'd throw in a Hunters and Collectors album cover featuring Mark Seymour's inspiring bicep. Woohoo.