Songwriting, like recording, is usually a very repetitive process.  I have to play the song over and over, often hundreds of times, before I get it ‘right’ (if that moment ever comes!).

There’s usually an initial excitement, or at least an intense curiosity, when I start something new.  Something has captured my ears – a phrase of music, lyrics, or both.  Like with new love, excitement and passion carry the song for a while.  I fool around with the idea, let it carry me forward into the different dimensions and variations that suggest themselves.

Sometimes this initial period is enough and the song is done; or done except for some polishing and final tweaks.  But much more familiar to me is when the gust of wind that carried me aloft when I started the song dies down…

It’s good to remember at this point that just because I’m sick to death of the song at the moment, or on this day, it doesn’t mean that the song stinks all of a sudden – though that’s what my mind sometimes tells me.  I’m just sick of it.  That’s normal.

So then – like a football team for whom a long pass carries them halfway down the field and then they have to slog it out on the ground the rest of the way to the goal line – I’ve got to stay with it and do the dirty work.

It’s not that this part can’t be fun.  It’s problem solving, it’s looking at the song from a hundred different angles, it’s trying various solutions… this part can be very satisfying and rewarding.  I also believe it’s where some of my greatest songwriting growth happens – whether the particular song works out or not.  It’s literally learning the craft by doing.  Although every song is handmade and very few solutions are exactly reusable, I’m learning to think and problem-solve like a songwriter.

But it’s really easy to stop as soon as this resistance happens – and natural to want to.  I find that I take a two step approach when I encounter this.

First, when I get bored, fed up, sick of it, whatever you want to call it – I try to push through, not give up right away.  I often find something good right on the other side of that resistance.  It’s another habit – realizing that my mind is going to tell me to stop, sometimes right before something good wants to happen (though something good doesn’t always happen – that would be too easy…).

Second, a while after that, if I’m still struggling or if I start struggling again, and it’s not just resistance or laziness –  the joy’s really gone – I stop and move on to another song.  Most songs I finish are the result of coming back to them 5, 10, 20 times or more.

I know this second part (and even the first) won’t work for everyone.  Some people need to do one song at a time; they stay focused until it’s done.  I tend to have at least a few songs going on at once and don’t mind jumping around.  It seems to work for me.  If I get jammed up I try not to agonize over it.  After giving things a chance to work out by making that initial push over the first stages of resistance, I jump over to something else and come back to the song later or on another day.

There are few things better than having that first rush of inspiration turn into a complete song in one session.  It just doesn’t happen to me that often.  And training myself – and reminding myself, in the moment – to make that push, to not give up right away when I feel resistance or boredom, really helps me to both improve as a writer as well as to get songs finished (it’s not as good as a deadline for that… but what is?).