Songwriter's Block Antidote Recipe

I hadn't written any new songs since October 2022, and now at the beginning April 2023, after a 5 month dryspell, I got back in the swing of my hobby again.  It's happened before, and when asked what got me back into it again, I always struggle to remember the exact circumstances that helped, so this time, I decided to write about what might've caused this while it's still fresh in my mind for future reference, and now, I'm sharing that with you.

A quick summary list of the combination of factors that worked for me this time:

1.  Hope:  a couple job interviews gave me hope for a better future recently, and although I didn't get the job, it got me excited about the possibility and lifted my mood.  Just a general feeling that you have things to look forward to in life can help the muse come back I suspect.  Some of the songs may indeed be blues and have negative or depressing subject matter, but even so, it's being excited about potential improvements in your life and in the near future that can get you thinking creatively again.

2.  Discovering New Music:  using my music streaming service, I put together a playlist and similar music got auto-suggested, and in the process of checking out new (actually old, but new to me) music that was interesting got me back in the mood to want to write something like what I heard, which is quite different than my usual style

3.  Reduced Stress:  having fewer pressures on me for a few weeks in a row helped me finally get into the right mood to start thinking creatively again, and maybe it's being in more of a state of relaxation that seems to help.

4.  Lack Of Sleep/ Too Much Sleep:  Changing up habits of sleep and getting away from a predictable daily schedule helps.  After consistently having a steady boring schedule where I got adequate sleep for many months in a row, I actually experienced a few alternating nights of either not getting enough sleep or sleeping too much, and this jolted me out of the rut I was in somehow.  Being too tired might've helped more than too rested, and once back in a flow, it was hard to shut of the creative faucet when going to bed to finally get sleep, new ideas would come to me and I'd have to get up and go work on them.

5.  Rain:  the surge of a weeklong creative output period of time coincided with heavy storms and on/off rain for an entire week, and flooding, so this may very well have been a contributing factor in some way.  You tend to stay inside where you have a guitar and a phone to record ideas on and a computer to type lyrics on.

6.  Forcing Myself To Finish Old Lyrics:  I have electronic documents with tons of song ideas and partially-written songs, and I forced myself to revisit them, forced myself to revise them, forced myself to complete one, which led to finishing another, which spurred me on to finish the music for them, and finally all this spurred me on to write new ones from scratch.

7.  Uninterrupted Quiet Time Alone:  you need the long stretches of quiet time to get back into a flow, and you have to actively get started on doing songwriting instead of just watching movies or other free-time pursuits.  Starting small, I told myself I would at least complete one song and this definitely got me back on a roll with the creative juices flowing and the muse returning.  Just going through old lyric documents and recorded musical ideas on my phone and spending time on this instead of surfing the web or whatever really helped.

8.  Riding The Wave To Completion:  Leaving songs partially written is never a good idea.  It's always better to make yourself ride out the wave to completion of a song while you're in the mood for it.  Doing this gets you in the right frame of mind then to continue on with more.  Just making yourself get started on it, even by just reading notebooks with old lyric scaps and listening to past failed recordings of songs or beginnings of songs can help.  Then it's crucial to keep going while you're on a roll with one song before moving to another or stopping.  Completing one helps you know it wasn't as daunting as you thought, and then finishing the next one comes even easier, because you've reminded yourself you can do it.  When inspiration strikes, it's good to push past logical stopping points so you don't lose the ideas.

9.  Telling Someone About The Drought:  it seems that before this recent wave of songwriting began for me, I told a friend I hadn't written anything in a really long time (for me), and just getting that frustration off my chest by itself may have also been a factor.

10.  Free Time:  Just generally having some actual free time, and not necessarily uninterrupted quiet time alone, still seems to help.  You can't write songs if you never make time for it, and if you're so busy with other things, you'll never get around to it.  So, free up the schedule once in a while.  I can only imagine how awesome it would be if you were one of those people where all you did for a living was write songs - think of the potential for productivity!  I'm sure being a real professional would come with pressures a hobbyist like me wouldn't understand, but still, I'd like to have that problem.

You have to write about "what worked" while it's fresh in your mind, and I'm doing that now for the first time ever.  Journaling about motivating factors quickly right after the creative period and before it starts to go away again or start to settle down is not something I've remembered to do before, and you forget if you don't capture it right away.  

The Actual Output Stats:  I had this rush of creativity writing a lot of lyrics for multiple songs - some were scraps that became full song lyrics, some were from scratch, some used existing musical ideas, and others were new music from scratch, resulting in about 5 completely written new songs in about 7 days, and progress on several more rough drafts.  One out of the 5 is definitely a keeper I will record and probably release someday.  That's close to my usual keeper ratio, and if I only have a couple spurts like this per year, that's only 2 good songs per year, but usually I have 4 or 5 spurts like this per year, and rarely a drought this long (on average), so that's why it takes me a couple years to have a new album's worth of decent material ready to release again.

Other free-time demands have crept back in that interrupted the flow a bit very recently, but it is still fresh enough in my mind to be able to think about what helped me get out of my funk.  Now I can refer back to this post the next time and although I'm not sure if the creative spark can be manufactured by following a checklist, it might help.  There are times during long periods of inactivity in a hobby like songwriting in which you question whether you'll ever be able to write a song again.  You start to dread this situation of wanting to write more, but not being able to, and you are quick to say you're just "not feeling it" and move on to reading or walking the dog or watching TV or whatever.  It's sort of like your procrastination becomes the new habit.  On the other hand, trusting your own experience that your lifelong adult hobby will eventually re-enter your life again is always a good thing to remind yourself of.

One final thought is:  lower the bar for yourself, don't expect too much.  It's counter-productive to say to yourself that you will never be able to top your best songs, but the reality is you kill that potential to think that way and not try.  It's even worse negative self-talk to think you'll never be able to write a hit like your favorite hits from artists you enjoy listening to.  Keeping your expectations low and not caring if you ever come close to those standards or not is way healthier, because it gets you back into your creative hobby of writing songs again, and if you write five and only one of them sounds pretty good to you, you wouldn't have otherwise had that one additional new song you wrote that you like according to your own standards of quality.

Riding the Drought Out

Thanksgiving is a time of abundance ‘round here, a time of overeating and napping and leftovering and bulking up to survive the winter ahead and watching a favorite movie like The Big Lebowski, and yet, it can also be a time of doing without and being hungry.  We reflect on our fortunes, thankful we’re able to contribute to the world in some way.  A big contribution of mine has been the ability to put music out into the world that didn’t exist before, even though I know all art is derivative of other art in small ways.  Having learned a little about writing and plagiarism over the years, I’d like to think if I’m copying, I’m not creating, but I know some can be unconscious.  None of us are immune to influence.

Feeling bad about past mistakes, mostly those of the foot-in-mouth or impatience variety, I’m coming to realize those are normal, and it’s okay that they happen.  I’m at that age where I’m taking notice of the inevitable decline of my parents’ generation, the decline of loved ones, of people’s bodies wearing out, of time being precious.  It’s also a time in which I’ve paid closer attention to advice about aging gracefully, and that includes not stopping what you’re passionate about.  Keep working, they say.  Don’t retire.  Stay active.  Have a purpose.  Do the things that get you excited to be alive.  For me, one of those is writing songs and recording music.  I’m thankful I have this hobby.

It’s been a while since I updated you in this blog on my activities.  I’ve been hanging out, enjoying life, going to the day job every day, boldly trying new things, tolerating, abiding.  Not much going on as far as creative output for a while, blogging or otherwise, but I remain convinced the future holds more.  You may have already become aware of the recent addition of more music videos on my official YouTube channel for your enjoyment.  The good news is there’s at least a couple more new albums on the way, and a lyric/chord songbook project.  As another winter approaches, you can hunker down for the holidays, get out and ski, and be assured that droughts don’t last because they never do.

Writer’s block or not, focusing on other things and waiting works, important things like family and survival, and the tension of expectation and demand can motivate.  I can only assume from the analytics that there are people who want to know about these things, that I have actual readers of this blog, that there are actual fans of my music and that they might be curious to learn more, although I know not who you are.  With all the competition for our free time and all the creative works out there to discover, it’s a wonderful thing.  I’m fortunate to have creative outlets, but as I’ve said before, just knowing there’s the potential for appreciators is an exciting boost to wait around for more inspiration to arrive.

Throughout my pretend “career” as a songwriter and recording artist, I’ve felt the need whether in blogs or real conversations with people to use my self-deprecating style to downplay the quality of my music secretly hoping it will make people pleasantly surprised should they actually make a decision to check it out.  Maybe the wisdom of age has taught me such an approach protects me from negative reaction pain, but at the same time it has taught me that talking about it at all in the first place helps it happen.  Telling people about creative projects you’re thinking about taking on makes them more likely to happen.  The fake-it-‘till-you-make-it approach works.

When you tell someone about a project you might take on, that in itself becomes a seed that can lead to germination.  Similarly, experience has also taught me that it is the ideas for songs that are the most important part.  Have a good enough idea for a song, and it will practically write itself, I’ve found.  The same theory applies to an idea for a blog post, a book, a project of any kind.  Writing this post will probably get me back on track, because I’m admitting to you and myself that if experience is a guide, more will materialize.  The complete opposite approach can work as well.  The prolific Stephen King doesn’t believe in ideas or outlines, and instead just starts typing his way through to completed works.  I guess I’m sort of doing that here in this post, with no concrete point in mind yet.

I am currently experiencing another prolonged period of abnormally low occurrences of songwriting, leading to a shortage of new material to record.  I’ve ridden out many since I wrote my first song back in the winter of ’89-’90, my first living in Vail, Colorado.  Many of the early songs I wrote in my ski bum days have made their way through rounds of revisions to become “release worthy” by my own weird standards, and new recordings of them in their final states will be making appearances on my next two albums – Bluebird Days I and II – which not surprisingly will include several that are either about skiing, mention skiing, or that were inspired by skiing.  If you’re into skiing, Vail is an inspiring place.

Speaking of inspiration and rocky mountain winters, riding out creative droughts for me is usually a microcosm of life in that it’s a temporary low, and like life, it’s full of highs and lows, peaks and valleys, strikes and gutters as the fellow says.  Dudes, and I’m talking about ski bums here, back in the early 90s, like me who were out there at that time and place, skiing, fitting in, takin’ ‘er easy for the rest, were easily inspired to write songs.  I was young, everyone around was young, the mountains were beautiful, the girls were beautiful, the powder and vertical capacity abundant, weed burning, beer flowing, etc.  I was also flat broke and in debt the whole time.  I learned life is about balance:  don’t get too high when things are going your way, don’t get too low when they’re not.

I try to not worry when the hobby of writing/recording is on hiatus.  Just like the weather, the situation is guaranteed to change based on history.  With a couple albums ready to release (one of which got pre-released already due to a distribution snafu beyond my control), it’s even easier to take it easy.  Everyone needs and benefits from time to reflect to get a fresh perspective, just as they need time off from a regular day job.  Time away makes you appreciate it more, as can be the case with love relationships too.  Most of us with a passion this hobby don’t do it for a living, and so we wait for the muse clouds to show up again. 

I feel lucky every time they do, as if it’s an honor and privilege to be chosen, so I am careful about not abusing the power or taking the gift for granted.  I realize that could arguably be construed as a self-deprecating sarcastic or ironic joke to those who don’t like my songs, but I assure you it’s unintentional.  It’s truly a blessing from a higher power to be able to write songs and record music at all.  Sometimes you deserve a break, and sometimes that break really sets you up better than ever to be prolific again.  Weather the dry as you do the stormy, appreciating the upside of both.  Balance.

Some claim you can force it, treat it like a job, schedule regular time for it, which can work.  I’ve tried that here and there, and the ratio of keeper to weeded out material is about the same.  You end up with more recyclable bits and pieces of songs that way, which can be good.  On the other hand, I tend to just wait and go with the flow when the songs rain in again.  It’s not unlike a ski bum waiting for a powder day.  It’s going to happen again whether you pray for it or prepare for it or not, and when it does, you’ll know what to do and be “stoked” which is far from some kind of Eastern parlance.  Here in the lukewarm midwestern swing state of Michigan, there’s a lot of abiding going on.  You’ve got the guitar, the computer with word processor and audio interface, the microphones, etc. all ready to be fired up again.

If absence makes the heart grow fonder, then certainly a temporary lack of creativity will make you like it even more when the new songs show up again.  Meantime, you find other free time pursuits, keep busy, try to help make a difference in the world in other ways.  Yes, adding songs to the world that didn’t exist before is a contribution to society, one that is in my humble opinion, a noble pursuit.  It shows you have fine personal qualities and high moral principles and ideals if you want to put new artistic creations into the world for people to potentially enjoy.  Knowing even just a few people out there are entertained by your music is very satisfying, and it’s worth riding out the droughts to be able to do it again.

Good art imitates nature, and it’s natural for seasons to change, and good art imitates good art, and to everything there is a season, mistakes happen, shit happens, dudes abide, all things must pass, and in turn whether it’s a movie or skiing or music, the world will not run out of it, you just might have to wait for a little while is all.  Re-use clichés, be not tired of the trite and contrived, everything is a re-hashing of everything that came before, and whether the art be high and fancy or lowdown and dirty, or not someone’s cup of tea, there’s nothing to worry about or fear – that would be a waste of time.  Live each day like it’s your last, seizing carp, and you might die in a song drought, but overall, you died with many songs because you rode out many a drought.  

I’m not clear on the psychology to explain why I always feel the need to warn people my music likely won’t be their cup of tea.  Lowering their expectations and hoping they’ll be pleasantly surprised is the opposite of tooting your own horn.  The confidence to admit you think your own creative work is pretty good is the same confidence that kicks in when you say you’re going to do something and then end up actually doing it.  Being true to your word aside, sometimes you have to commit yourself to things in life, dive in and start swimming, whether you think you know how to keep yourself from sinking or not.  Go without fear of failing, I say, because failing is not the end of the world.  Don’t freak out about the ideas not materializing, be calm knowing they will eventually, and when they do, run with them.  In times of creative famine, know a feast of excitement will return.

Why There's Not A Lot To Write About When Writing About Writing Songs

It's been over 6 months since I last posted a log (or would that be logged a post?) to this website, and I realize part of the reason is there's only so much to cover for the topic focus I've advertised on this Blog's  about page.  I am interested in writing songs, but I have never sought out other blogs where people who also like to write songs write about writing songs.  I don't really care how they do it or why they do it.  I know I like it, and I know how I do it, and I know why I like it, but I'm not sure others would be interested in any of this information. 

Occasionally, I like to write about my experiences with the craft.  I've expanded the subject matter to include recording music and trying to sell music.  I've also occasionally thrown in a review of recorded music I've purchased as a consumer or live music concerts I've attended and enjoyed.  Why anyone at all would care about what I think about any of these kinds of topics is beyond me.

Even so, I blog on without an audience.

For Starters, There's Not Much To Talk About Even When Asked in Conversation

If you can't think of much to say when asked about your experiences with the hobby/craft of songwriting and/or recording in person with people, then it's highly likely you won't be able to think of much to write about either.  Figuring out what people like to hear about is important, and that's what I'm hoping to get closer to by the end of this post.  What kind of music do you like?  That's always a fun conversation-starter, but as for songwriting, it's more of a chore.  That said, people do ask, and I do reply.

The Inevitable Questions

People who know I write and record songs ask about it from time to time.  They like to almost half-jokingly ask when the next release will be available.  They also ask if I still write and record, and whether or not I have any plans to perform live anywhere in front of an audience.  I had one relative ask for an additional copy of my Christmas covers CD recently. 

The Standard Replies

I always say yes, I still write songs, still record them, still release an album every two years on my birthday, still don't play live anywhere, still haven't sent a song to a famous artist for them to record yet...but that it remains a part of the fantasy.  Sometimes they leave it alone after my brief reply, but sometimes ask why I don't try to get one recorded, and then my reply to that is always that I haven't written one that is good enough yet.  Sometimes I go on to explain that even if I had a worthy song, I'd have to pay a lot of money to have pros record a proper demo of it in a real recording studio first before submitting it to artists, and I don't have the money.  Sometimes they say you should keep trying, sometimes they leave it alone and the conversation moves on to something totally unrelated.  When it does, I'm usually relieved.

Waning Interest

If my friends and family who do not write songs are satisfied with the above exchange, one might think fellow songwriters would want to talk about it longer, but that's not really the case either.  The few I've spoken with over the years are typically like me in that they've learned all they care to about the craft, and have settled in to a way they enjoy it, and don't particularly want to learn from hearing someone else's approach.  The interest wanes.  People who like boats, for example, can hang out and talk about boats for a long period of time and thoroughly enjoy it, as if they can't get enough of it.  Not so with songwriters, I've found.  Maybe it's common to any creative pursuit, or maybe it's the fact that it's typically a solitary pursuit.

Blog Awareness

So, I guess I'm typing my thoughts on the way to a conclusion here that even if I were to read up on and follow ways to increase the readership of a blog by targeting an audience of other songwriters, there may simply not be much interest.  As a musician and solo artist who releases albums, maybe the fans out there would want to read this.  I've read the autobiographies of Bob Dylan and Neil Young for example, because I was interested in their lives and how they came to be songwriters.  I suppose I would've been interested in knowing more about their approaches to writing songs if it had been in those books.  If they had blogs about their experiences with writing songs on their websites, I would read them.  It could be that there's simply not much information to share.  Neil says "wait for the muse to show up" and Bob remains mysterious about it as if he's been blessed from a higher power with the songs and as a result needs to tour a lot as a form of payback or gratitude.  Not much to go on there.  How one writes a great song is treated as somewhat of a trade secret or accident by most it would seem. 

Shifting Focus

So, my focus therefore should be more varied about me as a recording artist to appease those interested in me because they are fans and consumers who have bought my music and want to know more about the person who wrote and recorded the songs they liked and bought.  Rather than just talking about the songwriting part, that is.  Truth is, if you look back at the last few years of blog posts, I've already shifted the focus accordingly.  I exhausted all I knew about writing songs in just a few posts.

The Motivation

What gave me the idea is the story behind the song part that might wreck your interpretation, but might be really interesting, and if you want to know those, I provide them on the site.  So, one can't blog about what is essentially the same process for each song, and a paragraph or two explaining what motivated each song idea. 

You'll notice that from my albums page (www.scottcooley.com/albums), you can then click on an album to view links to subpages for each song.  From that starting point, select a song page and you'll see a paragraph or so explaining the "story behind the song" that I wrote about what I remembered happening when I wrote the song.  These may be interesting, or they may disappoint in the case that you'd already formed your own opinion of what the song meant to you when listening to it.  Fans derive their own meaning and envision what the writer's thought process might've been, and when learning what that writer was actually thinking about, may think less of the song as a result.

The Summary

If there are songs of mine you like, chances are the way I wrote them was not that exciting.  Likely I had a moment of inspiration for the main song idea, which brought about a chorus and title, and then I wrote verses that supported it by telling a bit of a story, and as I did this I made the number of lines in each verse match, and if there was a bridge it took a different perspective, and I probably looked up in an online rhyming dictionary a few of the rhymes.  Then I probably looked at the typed up song and read the lyrics back to myself in my head and a meter and dummy melody formed in my mind, and then from that I instinctively knew where the chord changes would be, then I picked a key good for my vocal range, and then possibly looked up on a chord family chart what chords were available in that key, then strummed a bit, and then sang while strumming, and then I had a song.  Usually if the idea was good, and the lyrics turned out well, and the singing of the melody was catchy, then there's a good song.  That's the songwriting process summary for me, and although there've been many an exception, there's not much else to say.  That's why this is a general solo artist blog, expanded to be about anything music-related, for anyone who likes me as an artist. 

The Mystery

The reason is that how a good song comes into existence has an indescribable element of magic to it.  Stars align, all cylinders simultaneously fire, and there's more pure accidental luck to it than craft.  There's only so much you can say about the happily automatic.  It's hit or miss, and if a few cylinders didn't fire, some sweat equity crafting might make up for it, but it's rare.  It's a mystery why and how good songs happen, but we music lovers are glad they do, and we know them when we hear them.  It's a matter of taste, and taste curation is what artists should be writing songs about, and what they should be blogging about too, I suppose.  Narrow focus is what the experts recommend to nail down what's appealing, but I'm too varied in what I write about and the style of songs I write to have a good shot at this type of thing.  I don't want to only write post-industrial shoe gaze alt-surf songs that are only about the things that type of music fan are into, let alone blog about the things that crowd are into, whatever those things may be.

Tales From The Road, Tales From The Studio, Causes

Famous major label artists and bands blog about their experiences on tour and recording albums in real recording studios that their fans apparently read.  I'm a fan of a lot of solo artists and bands, but I never seek out their blogs.  I don't really want to know about their adventures travelling from show to show or how their album is coming along, but that's just me.  I guess I don't care if they support certain causes either.  If they recommend music they like, however, I might be interested to know that.  Maybe I'll do more of that.  This blog post has allowed me to think harder about what might be interesting for people to read about, should I ever gain an audience for this blog.  If you're reading it, chances are my future blogs peaked your interest to read older posts, which means this blog post helped me focus on what you'd like and I gave it to you.  Hopefully, I've continued to do that with the music as well along the way.  Peace out, y'all.