Songwriting is the creative process of joining together lyrics, melody and music, and this process requires focus, time and patience.
However, all creative people have a nemesis buried deep inside them waiting to wreak some havoc and put a spanner in the works.
It’s called your “inner voice” but really it’s another name for your ego.
You know what I’m talking about, we’ve all been there, it’s that little voice inside your head that tells you that you have “nothing to write about” or that you’re “not good enough” or that you’ve got “no time to write” and so on.
If writing songs requires a certain level of activity then to write more songs we need to increase that activity, and one of those ways is to consistently win the battle with your inner voice.
As songwriters we need to be open to fresh new ideas, thoughts, feelings, experiences and observations and keeping that momentum going requires a steady flow of words from brain to paper.
If we lose the daily battle with our inner voice then the songwriting idea valve gets shut off by our own negativity, reasons and excuses and we simply dry up.
Hence the songwriters block.
Songwriters stop writing songs not because of their reasons and excuses but because they have let their inner voice talk them into believing that those reasons and excuses are the truth.
We need to find ways to distract, pacify or perhaps make friends with our inner voice and make it work for our songwriting, not against it.
I’ve always found that the best and most direct way to cure a dose of songwriters block is to just write anything no matter how corny and cliche it may be. I’ve written a lot of “bad” songs from doing this but I don’t see anything in the songwriter’s rulebook that says that every song you write has to be heard by others
The next time you’re sitting down in front of a blank piece of paper and nothing seems to be coming out, just write whatever comes to you and keep going until you fill the paper with words.
As you’re doing this really listen out to what your inner voice is telling you, accept that it’s not the truth and keep on writing.
Maybe you’ll write a song about how you defeat your nemesis.
Hey! It might even be a good one 🙂
