songwriter needs help.

Hey guys. here's the problem im facing right now.

i enlisted into the marine corps in 2006 and before i went to bootcamp i wrote tons of songs and had them all in a small book (this was over the course of about a year and a half).

That book has since been lost. I lost it my first day in bootcamp. through all the chaos of the first day or two i managed to lose track of it and it is since been lost forever.

i had roughly 30 or 32 songs in there about everything you can think of.

here's where im getting frustrated. I want to sit down and write lyrics but i cannot think of the words to put on paper.

I'm having the worst case of writers block in my life

Do you guys have any tips to get past a writers block like this?

any and all help is greatly appreciated!

Two issues that I see, lost songs and writer's block.

Lost songs:

You'll think of fragments of those songs now & then. When that happens, write as much of it as you can remember. Don't force it. You'll probably be able to piece several of them back together again.

Writer's block:

There are 2 approaches I take.

1. Write through it, even if I write crap.

2. Get drunk. The ideas tend to come in the early part of a drunk. (1st hour or so.)

I don't have any particular tips, but I just googled:

getting past writer's block

and a whole list of articles came up on that subject. It sounds like you are in good company! Perhaps one of those may help.

I had written maybe 30 songs a long time ago, placed them in a notebook, and my x-wife must have thrown it out at some point. Some songs are lost forever. But some I have recovered, even after many years. I made a list of titles as I recalled. That in turn caused me to remember specific phrases in some of the songs, and in some a substantial part of the lyrics. Recreating the music part is the laborious part. But after so many years, many of them just aren't good enough to worry about. At least that was my experience.

Good luck.

Rick

True dat. I might have 3 keepers in the first 50 songs I wrote. Maybe. Just start the process anew and don't focus on what you lost.

I had a notebook of songs. It was from a very prolific point in my life. Age 19. I'd just written some songs I still love 30 years later. And then that notebook, my car was broken into in Hollywood while I watched X. I KNOW there was a lot of good stuff in there. While Exene and Billy Zoom were killing it onstage... When I got back to my car, the stereo was gone... and my bag. With the notebook. I didn't care about the car or the stereo.

Sucks.

But the only thing you can do, and you should do even if you don't lose your notebook, is write. Write the worst {censored} imaginable. Don't try, but don't be afraid of writing crap. Fill another notebook. Don't lose it. And by page 50 or so you might have something to use. Or maybe by page one. Either way, the only way... is to be willing to write {censored}. Bad horrible crap. Don't hold back.

Just write. And don't lose it. Sucks, doesn't it?

Thanks guys. I'm sitting here reading your suggestions and I'm kicking myself going, "why the f*** didn't i think of that." haha oh well your input is greatly appreciate!

Open ended question for eveyone out there.

Where do you find inspiration to write and how to you go about turning your thoughts into a song?

When you write crap material do you keep it and work on it later or do you just scrap it altogether?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

For me, it's all about my mindset. Anything and everything jumps out and inspires me, but only when I am open to it.

Similarly, many of those inspirations turn themselves into a large amount of motivation to make music, but only when I am in that open mindset. In this case, inspiration usually comes from a firm concept for a story or a feeling, and/or a musical hook or sound or vibe. Usually very basic, and then my imagination gets to work.

When I want to write a new song, I try to contain the inspiration in my head but not express it or articulate it too much (in my mind) until I am sitting down and ready to go. Then I just go with it. Play around with some chords, some rhythms of chords, and see how I feel. Then the words kind of just come out in phrases I play around with.

Even if I'm not inspired by anything specific when I sit down to write, the music will bring out something I end up liking...but again, only in that particular open mindset.

When I write crap material, do I keep it? Depends in what way it's crap. I don't consider ANY of my stuff "crap", but there certainly are many things I've done that I have no interest in finishing or ever hearing again, that's for sure!

I consider every single song written, AND every single ATTEMPT to write a song (even if I don't finish it and don't like it enough to get beyond the beginning parts - because I wasn't in the right mindset), as growing experiences. The more songs I write, no matter how crap or how good, the better I write.

Inspiration come at me from everywhere. Things I say, or hear others say, things I read, other songs, tv, etc. Subconsciously my brain is always on the lookout for a lyric, or more importantly a story to tell. Every subject has been written about before, so to me originality is damn near impossible, the trick is to hit the same tired subjects from a new angle.

I've never been able to schedule or force inspiration, I can't sit down with the intent of writing a song. At best I can finish a song that is mostly written that way, but new ideas come when they want to. Being able to jot down or even sing lyrics in to my smartphone has made me more prolific. Not that I write more, I just don't forget 90% anymore.

I misplaced a notebook of lyrics I wrote when I was just a pup. A lot of them have come back to me over the last 20 years. Sometimes I will write something down only to wonder if it's new, or I am am just remembering something I lost. These days I keep all my songs synced between the phone the iPad and computer. Not to mention backups. I'm a bit paranoid about it.

I prefer to write early in the morning. Maybe I have more energy in the morning.

Allow everything. Change things around later. There can be a good idea in there, I don't want to miss it.

I keep a recorder near me. If I have an idea for a song then I record it.

Sometimes I write songs as an exercise, just for practice. I think writing gets easier with practice.

There are some excellent suggestions here. Some will work for you, some may not. I would add one more. You might try going back through this forum and seeking out Stickboy's monthly challenges. I have found these to provide great focus and a push outside of the usual boundaries I have imposed on my writing. I don't always come up with a response to these challenges that merits sharing, but I always come up with something.

Sometimes I'll get an emotion or vibe I think could drive a song. If no words rise out of that immediately, I hang onto the vibe, pick up the guitar and start banging out some chords that match the mood/vibe I've got going, sort of letting my mind roll around like a big ball of crumpled adhesive tape, picking up little stray bits that I toss around for a bit, seeing if they might not lead to more of the 'story' of the feeling I want to explore.

One thing I don't do is throw out much at all. If a scrap represents some sort of impulse or feeling or vibe, I'll hang on to it. Usually it just sits in my scraps folder, sometimes it surfaces on its own. Sometimes I go through the scraps folder when I'm empty headed and trying to prod myself.

Oh, and, by the way, Thank you for your service.

Get Pat Pattison's book "Writing Better Lyrics'. Start doing the exercises.

Get a small-hand held digital recorder. Start hammering out some rough ideas and record them while you're doing it. Then listen back the next day, while you are at work (or where-ever).

You will have a ton of ideas and inspiration in no time.

:thu: Excellent book and advice.

Are you a lyric first, or music first writer? Most of us are one or the other. I'm a music first guy. So writing for me is keyed to how often I pick up the instrument. That's the spark.

Lyric writing comes slower and harder for me. But I seriously find that when I wake up in the middle of the night, that semi-dream state is a perfect crucible for lyric experimentation. If I'm working on a song, i actually like it when I wake up @ 3:00 am. I'll just lie there and churn over the particular song storyline. Takes my mind off of the personal worries of the moment (which are always MAGNIFIED in the hightened imaginative mid night mind set). It gives me something other than my problems to focus on. I actually look forward to it.

During daylight hours, my mind is too wrapped up in the problems of the day to be totally committed to creativity. That night time dream state is a boost.

On the same vein, I iron out the glitches in a song while the sun shines. That's a time for calculted reasoning. This works better than that stuff. But creative spark is more like a dream activity.

I'm more so the lyrics first writer. but i have written lyrics to music before. not often though

Okay I wrote a little essay...and then it disappeared so I'll condense it this time.

1) The harder you work, the luckier you get. And the more inspired. Having said that, don't hammer away at something when you're getting nowhere - you'll just get discouraged and jaded. Step away for 10 minutes or an hour. It's likely that the solution will come to you. Inspiration comes from your unconscious mind and sometimes it needs time to think about it. Get obsessed, stay obsessed. You know it makes sense!

2) Take notes whenever an idea occurs. Try to push out as much of the idea - lyrics, melody, story, situation, images - as you can at that time. I generally use a note taking app on my smartphone (Evernote), but a notebook works just as well - or a digital recorder. However you decide, you must carry it with you at all times.

3) Use a rhyming dictionary and a thesaurus. Saved me many times. Thesaurus will give you lots of different ways to say the same thing - can reinforce meaning without repetition of words and can give you a 2 syllable word to replace the 6 syllable one that just doesn't fit. Rhyming dictionary is a godsend when you are struggling with a nasty rhyme scheme. However, it saves me more time when it tells me that there isn't a rhyme for a particular word and so I can get on with rewriting the whole line rather than wracking my brain for hours.

4) Read books - any books. Magazines etc. There are stories to be told everywhere - and songs to be sung about them. The radio is also good. Quite often I'll hear a song and think "Well I wouldn't have done it like that, that lyric should be used in this way....". I remember once hearing a song with a lyric 'And you're sleeping on the other side of town' and thinking "How does he know?". This song was the result : http://soundcloud.com/richard-clough/04-clare

Stephen King wrote a great little book 'On writing'. It's aimed at budding authors, but there is some good general advice.

Good luck! :-)

Hey, Rich, looks like your first version of the post got put into the 'moderation queue,' which has been happening to the first few posts from at least some new members here.

It's an anti-spambot protection thing -- HC's agro anti-spam bots against a world wide web of rapidly multiplying spambots -- the software equivalent of cockroaches -- we're under continual spambot assault here. (Yes, folks, this is how future bot wars will actually play out... the future may be dystopic, but it will also be mostly quite mundane, I suspect.)

Also, there doesn't seem to be any way for us moderators to override it -- but it doesn't effect everyone or every post. I mean, there isn't much difference between the one that got put into the moderation queue and the one that the system allowed. (And, by the way, I can 'approve' that post and make it visible, at your discretion.)

Anyhow, this issue mostly seems to go away once the new member has 5-10 approved posts (talk about a catch-22, eh?) If you have any more problems -- or if anyone else has any problems with posts that 'disappear' -- please let me know by PMing me.