Before

After

The main reason for cutting it all off was that I was just over it. I was over how it made me feel when I looked in the mirror or when I saw myself in a photo.

The long hair was becoming “old hat”.

As soon as my hair came off I immediately felt so much better about myself. I literally had a weight lifted off my shoulders (there was a lot of hair that come off) and I felt free. I also noticed that with my new found freedom, a new sense of creativity was appearing before me.

I even wrote a new song for FAWM.

This experience has taught me first hand that the muse loves to call on people who feel good about themselves. I suppose this makes the muse feel welcome.

This is another example of how the smallest changes make the biggest differences.

Oh, about the song. It’s called “Hear You Scream” and it’s about a friend of mine who is living a life he doesn’t want to live in, but won’t speak out about it.

It was sparked by a line that popped into my head as I was strumming the verse chords “But who am I to judge you on why you choose to live this way”.

It’s amazing what comes out when you open the door to let the muse in.

Keywords: fawm, songwriting, songwriter, songwriting tip, songwriting idea, songwriting help, songwriting blog, songwriting resource, songwriting zen, corey stewart

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For quite a while now I’ve been adding to and maintaining quite a substantial songwriting ideas archive of my own and the challenge I’m faced with now is that I have so many songwriting ideas at my disposal, I don’t know which one to start with first.

I’m becoming paralysed by too much choice. Hmmm, maybe the answer lies in randomness and restriction. Confused? Ok, let me explain.

In my experience, I’ve found that giving yourself all the time in the world to complete something allows the beastie called procrastination and your inner critic to join forces and provide you with (what seem to be) very valid reasons for not doing what your supposed to be doing.

If you restrict yourself to a deadline then your focus becomes much stronger and your procrastination/inner critic dialogue becomes less obvious. That’s the restriction part of the equation now what about the randomness part?

The randomness comes from picking any songwriting idea at random to start with. An example would be that I take a page full of possible song titles (see picture above) and pick one at random. Then, I set a timer for 10 minutes and in that time I start building on the randomly chosen songwriting idea.

Once the 10 minutes is up I determine whether I have sufficiant momentum to keep going. If not I start the process again with another randomly chosen songwriting idea from my archive.

The timer I’ll use will either be one of a few online timers or this wonderful example (see picture below). Whichever way I go it will make for an interesting outcome.

Here are the steps again for you to consider:

1. Pick a songwriting idea from your archive at random
2. Set your timer for 10 minutes and start expanding the songwriting idea
3. After 10 minutes if you’re going with the flow then keep going. If not, repeat process with another randomly chosen songwriting idea

Give it a go and see what happens and if you’re not registered with FAWM yet then consider doing so because deadlines are sometimes good for you.

Until next time, happy writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician

PS: Feel free to download my FREE eReport “11 Ways To Eliminate (Song) Writers Block FOREVER” if you need a little help getting out of a rut.

Keywords: songwriting idea, songwriting process, songwriting, songwriter, songwriting tip, songwriting help, songwriting zen, songwriting blog, corey stewart

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It’s almost that time of year again where we sharpen up our pencils, clean out our ears, tune up our instruments, calibrate our home recording equipment and prepare ourselves to test our songwriting processes to an inch of its life.

Yes, it’s FAWM time.

For those who don’t know, FAWM stands for February Album Writing Month and the deal is, to write an albums worth of material in the month of February, which is set at 14 songs in 28 days. You can find out more about this brilliant songwriting concept by going to www.fawm.org.

On the FAWM website it describes the concept in this way:

“This is the club. Each February, FAWM.ORG forges a collaborative
community where thousands of musicians of all walks and skill levels
write an album’s worth of material in the shortest month of the year.
That’s roughly one tune every other day. “Fawmers” are a mix of music
professionals, students, homemakers, and folks who work dayjobs but
rock nightclubs.”

The website is easy to navigate and is very straightforward with its information. My suggestion is that you sign up (it’s free, no catch) and participate. Later on in the year they also run something called 50/90 (50 Songs In 90 Days) but we’ll cross that bridge when the time comes.

There is no real point to FAWM. It’s not a contest and no-one gets judged, it’s a concept which tests us as songwriters. How is our songwriting process? Are we ready to tackle inspiration, the muse head-on?

I’m going to give it a go, are you? Let me know if you do.

Until next time, happy writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician

Keywords: fawm, 50/90, songwriting, songwriter, songwriting tip, songwriting process, songwriting idea, songwriting help, songwriting zen, songwriting blog, corey stewart

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