There’s a familiar feeling most songwriters know well. You sit down, open a notebook or pull up a session, and then… wait. You figure something will come. A melody, a line, a feeling. Something to kick things off. And when nothing arrives, you close the notebook and tell yourself you’ll try again when the time is right.
The problem is, that time might never come, or at least not on a schedule that helps you actually finish anything.
This post draws on ideas from a great piece by Andrea Stolpe over at andreastolpe.com, and it’s worth a read in full.
The core argument is one that gets repeated across every creative discipline but rarely sinks in for songwriters: the writers who build real bodies of work aren’t the most inspired ones. They’re the most consistent.
The Problem With Making Inspiration the Starting Point
Inspiration is real. It’s a great feeling when it shows up. But it runs on its own schedule, and if you make it a requirement before you start writing, you’ve handed control of your output to something completely outside your control.
Stolpe uses a gambling analogy that lands well. When inspiration hits, it feels like a winning streak. Everything clicks, ideas flow, the song practically writes itself but betting on that feeling to show up when you need it is not a strategy.
It’s a lottery.
The result for most songwriters is a stop-start pattern that never really builds any momentum. A burst of productivity followed by a dry spell, followed by waiting, followed by frustration. Repeat.
What Routine Actually Does for a Songwriter
There’s a common assumption that creativity and routine are opposites, that structure kills spontaneity. The reality is the other way around.
When writing becomes a regular habit, you remove one of the biggest creative obstacles: the daily decision of whether to begin.
You just show up. And once that question is off the table, something shifts. Your focus moves from whether to write to what to write, and that’s a completely different headspace.
That consistency also creates momentum. And momentum, more than inspiration, is what carries a song from idea to finished piece. In fact, the act of writing regularly is often what draws inspiration in, not the other way around.
How Writing Time Builds Instinct
Here’s something that doesn’t get talked about enough: regular writing practice builds creative instinct, and instinct is what separates good songs from great ones.
Stolpe points to Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” as an example worth thinking about. The vulnerability of the lyric is obvious, that’s what most people point to when they call a song timeless. But look closer at the structure. The lyric repetition. The way each verse focuses on a single idea. The refrain that closes each verse and gains meaning as the song progresses. The melodic shapes that seem simple but are clearly chosen with care.
None of that came from one inspired afternoon. That level of craft comes from a writer who has spent serious time inside the writing process. The instinct to make those decisions develops slowly, through repetition.
What Unfinished Songs Are Actually Teaching You
Not every song you start is going to be worth finishing, and that’s fine. But here’s the thing: those songs are still doing something useful.
Every time you write (even something that goes nowhere) you’re getting a look at how you write. The melodic shapes you keep returning to. The chord movements you default to. The structural choices you make without thinking about them. That self-awareness is genuinely useful, because it gives you something to work with and something to push against.
Even your average or abandoned songs are showing you the map of your own creative habits. That’s not wasted time. That’s the feedback loop that really underpins real growth as a songwriter.
What To Do on the Days You Don’t Feel Inspired
You certainly need a plan for low-inspiration days before they happen, because when you’re staring at a blank page with no energy and no ideas, “I’ll figure it out” is not a plan.
A few options that have worked for me in the past:
- Explore melody without touching lyrics. Just hum, noodle, record voice memos. Take the pressure of words completely off the table.
- Free-write for ten minutes. Set a timer, don’t stop, don’t edit. It doesn’t have to be song material. It just has to be writing.
- Experiment with chords or rhythm. Play something you’ve never played before. Change the tempo, the feel, the key. Let the music lead somewhere unexpected.
- Write something intentionally bad. Give yourself permission to produce something you’ll never use. It takes the pressure off and often loosens things up more than any amount of waiting does.
The goal on these days isn’t a finished song. It’s staying inside the process long enough for something to start moving.
The Shift That Changes Everything
Stolpe describes a progression that most experienced songwriters will recognise. Early on, the feeling is “I don’t know what to do here.” With more time inside the work, it becomes “something feels wrong in this section.” Eventually it becomes “I think I know how to fix it.”
That progression is the difference between a songwriter who waits and a songwriter who writes. And it only happens one way, through repeated time inside the process. Not through waiting for the right feeling, but through showing up and working through the uncertainty until something becomes clear.
Inspiration still has a place in all of this. A great idea, an unexpected emotion, a line that arrives out of nowhere — these things are worth chasing when they come. But they’re not responsible for your body of work.
You are…
So, if you’ve been waiting for inspiration to kick things off before you start writing, try flipping it around. Build a writing routine, however small. Show up on the days you don’t feel like it and just do something that keeps you inside the craft.
Trust that the practice itself will do most of the work over time.
