If I can’t write a song, then I might as well write about song-writing.
Today it feels that writers’ block is a very real thing. But really it’s a putting words to music block, as the writing seems to be flowing pretty normally. What people describe as writers’ block is often a lack of self-confidence, I think. You’re afraid that what you write will stink. This is what I see in my high school students. When you’re staring at a blank page (or screen), it’s always best to just put something down. Voila, it’s not a blank screen anymore. The real beauty of word processing is that it doesn’t wear down erasers. You can change it later. Keep writing, even if it’s shit. Chances are it will get better.
Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase: You have to write through the shit. I live by this. You won’t start out writing good songs, or poems, or anything. So even if you know what a good piece of writing looks like, it doesn’t follow that you will know how to write well yourself. Like walking, you have to start out slowly, and you’re going to fall on your face a lot.
So just write. You don’t have to show it to anybody. Just fill up the pages with your garbage. You can even crumple them up and toss them into the trash without ever re-reading them. It’s like bleeding a brake; eventually the good fluid will come out.
The worst thing for me is when I am sounding just like somebody else–and here I am talking about the actual words on the paper, not the sound of a given song. (And it’s okay to sound like someone else if you’re trying to) I hate my writing to be cliche. I imagine it’s a common problem. I think that’s what kids struggle with writing papers: not to plagiarize. (The secret to that, kids, is to read about something and then close the book–if it’s an informative essay, that is. The facts don’t have any ownership, just the way you express them.)
For creative writing, cliches consist mostly of phrases. (Again, when writing Country I tend to lean toward these, somewhat purposefully, because it’s part of the genre, but that’s a subject for another post.) It was a dark and stormy night is a classic one. It was a dark and stormy Friday or It was a dark and storm weekend are not much better. But if that’s all you can come up with–without getting yourself stuck–just write it down. You can change it later. It beats staring at a blank sheet of paper.
Song-writing is a special case. I think it’s sometimes good to write whole songs that are terrible! And I’ve been known to labor long and hard–over years even–to make a song less crappy, without success. But I don’t necessarily think the time is wasted. You just have to wade through the muck to get to something half-way decent. And even when you get to the good songs, you may continue to write a stinker now and then. Just keep it to yourself, and be forgiving.