Playlists
At the keyboard, waiting for words to come, I often flip over to Spotify, looking for new playlists. Always hunting for some melody, some tangible experience I haven’t heard before. Triggering some thought I haven’t thought before. I ask friends on Facebook for songs and create new playlists. I browse playlists already created in genres I don’t normally listen to. I listen to Spotify’s “Discover Weekly” – created just for me! – religiously.
Turn up the volume. There’s the beat. There’s the hum. And my fingers respond to it. They move across the keyboard, trying to find their own rhythm.
I learned to type because we couldn’t afford a piano, an instrument I would still dearly love to learn. What we did have: a typewriter. A clicking, clacking keyboard rather than a melodic one. So, I learned to type, feeling the keys as the stories, like a melody, appeared one letter – one note – at a time beneath my searching fingertips.

jenny maloney View All →
Jenny writes dark fiction that her mother hates. Her stories and essays have appeared in Across the Margin, Pantheon, Shimmer, Black Denim Lit, Skive, and others. When she’s not writing her own stuff, she’s reading mysteries for Criminal Element. When she’s not writing fiction or reviews, she’s writing/directing/performing/designing plays at Springs Ensemble Theatre.