A guitar student of mine recently decided he wanted to get into songwriting for the first time. Having dabbled in it just a little bit, his first questions had to do with where to start. I have long since forgotten exactly what my process was (I was only 12!), but I do remember what caused me to sit down and write. I couldn’t really play very many chords, meaning I couldn’t play the songs I wanted to, so instead I decided to make up my own. It came naturally in that I didn’t spend too much time worrying about how it was coming out. I hadn’t yet developed an “inner critic” or a sense of having to get “somewhere” in terms of a finished product.
And that is a really important point to remember. If you’re reading this article and you’re only just starting out, try not to read or think too much! You don’t write by reading about writing, you write by writing. It might take you a minute to get your head around that line, but essentially if you start loading your brain up on HOW to write, you may actually impede the process.
So I’m not going to tell you how to write in this article, I’m going to give you some ideas to get you in the mood to write. If you’re 14 years old, outside of school and homework and maybe some chores around the house, you’ve got lots of time to fiddle around with writing. If you’re 42, you probably don’t. Many songwriters will express the idea of only writing when the inspiration hits them (yes, and I’ve said that too!), however, it’s not always practical to jump out of your chair at work or out of bed in the middle of the night when inspiration hits and start writing. But you can write it down and work on it later.