While reading a music forum recently, i came across a thread where the poster had a problem to write a complete piece of music. No, his problem wasn’t writer block, as he constantly came up with new short ideas. His problem was that his ideas kept piling up, without ever becoming complete pieces of music.

 I have in the past suffered from the same syndrom, unable to finish anything i was starting. How did i manage to get out of this vicious circle then?

Well, it was just a matter of saying “do it now”.

Yeah right, words are nice but what about action, you say? Well, “do it now” is all about action. Basically, i realised that doing something, even if it wasn’t the best method to push a project forward, was much better than doing nothing.

Don’t get me wrong, i do like planning and i think a minimum amount of planning is required, but once you start fretting about it, wasting not only hours but days wondering about how to go on about something, the best thing you can do is pick a method and do it.

If it turns out not to be a good method, you have educated yourself and you can then choose a different method the next time you are faced with a similar project. If it turns out to be a good method, your project is done and you can move on to the next project.

Let’s get back to our songwriting project.

You’ve come up with a great riff idea, you do a rough recording, you save the audio file as “thunder riff” and you put your guitar back into its case, satisfied with the knowledge that you have written a riff that could potentially become a hit song. The following day, you pick up your guitar again, write a lovely melody, record it quickly, and file it away under the name “nice melody”. Once again, you are satisfied. One year later, your hard drive is full of those short recordings, and none of them has turned into a song. Sound familiar?

Where did you go wrong, then?

That’s where:

“and you put your guitar back into its case, satisfied with the knowledge that you have written a riff that could potentially become a hit.”

Don’t put your guitar back into its case!!! Follow up your idea, challenge yourself to write a melody to sing to, write a few lyrics and you’ve got a verse. Now, you can put your guitar back into its case, right?

No, no, no! Having the chorus or verse of the song isn’t enough. You need to write the other parts. Once again, do it now, don’t put that guitar back into its case until it’s done.

In fact, why are you reading this? Switch off the internet, pick up your guitar, open up the short audio file you recorded yesterday or the day before, and force yourself to write a song around it. Focus your creative energy into writing parts to transform this short recording into a full song. You aren’t allowed to record any short audio clips today, you are only allowed to record a complete song.

Tomorrow, do the same with a previous short audio recording of yours.

Do it now!

Recommended reading (for tomorrow; now, you should get off the internet and pick up your songwriting instrument):

http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/do-it-now.htm 

Related articles (to read tomorrow; now, you should get off the internet and pick up your songwriting instrument):