Picture
I spent many years intoxicated.  Not by alcohol but by words and melodies swimming through my private moments of inspiration.  I began to believe that reworking the initial inspiration would somehow break the spell, reducing my writing to the everyday. No, I needed to remain a free spirit moving with the flow, pleasantly whimsical and averse to all structure and order.

There's a danger believing that artistic people by default are disorganised and that's how the magic happens! There are no special powers or forces that are summoned through habitual disorganisation and spontaneity. Quite the opposite in fact. It requires great discipline to organise all those amazing moments of inspiration in order to capitalise on work already undertaken, blood already sweated and tears cried. It takes a true understanding of the sometimes complex creative process to complete what began as a good work and make it great.

So embrace the creative process which begins with the often inexplicable inspiration but ends triumphantly after a process of diligence, culling, cropping and pushing through the painful barriers of rebirthing.  It's called rewriting and all great songwriters do it.
 
 
Picture
Here are my Top 5 ways to lose a listener in under 60 Seconds, as posted to Twitter.
Rule #5 - Employ a complicated melody using big interval jumps and awkward phrasing. 
Rule #4 - State lots of facts about yourself one after the other. Ask no questions, make no commands. 
Rule #3 - Be sure you don't include repeatable phrases but if you do, definitely do not repeat them! 
Rule #2 - Go on, use a cliche in the opening line of your first verse.

Click 'read more' for the number one way to ensure your listener switches off.
 
 
Picture
The kettle is boiled, our pen is inked and we have plenty of blank pages to fill in our brand new notepad.  We've even cleared our schedule for a couple of hours.  'The world is our oyster', we muse as we stare at a list of possible song titles and wait for inspiration. Inspiration that never comes. Panic slowly seeps in subversively replacing our excitement with dread. 'Is this what writers' block feels like?', we wonder. 

Does this scenario sound familiar?  There are many and varied ways in which we might become afflicted with an inability to write.  It happens from time to time.  Often we're simply distracted by life's pressures. However, there is always something that we can do to either counteract or avoid times of barrenness and despair.
 
 
Songwriting Takes time
How often do we want to see results straight away?  I've learnt something while putting this website together.  Good things take time. Truthfully, it's a lesson I've learnt one hundred times over at least, yet here I was learning it again!  If good things take time then the question needs to be asked, 'When do we find the time to create all the good stuff?' 
I've tried finding time before but it always runs away from me. And fast!

I'm lucky.  I have some successful, highly motivated friends who are much wiser than myself.  According to their wisdom there's a big difference between finding time and making time.  It's the 'making' of time that we should be focussing on.