6/10/2009 12:14:21 PM
Gene Simmon's Family Jewels Show

4/3/2009 3:25:15 AM
Whooping Cough yuck?

3/18/2009 6:00:44 PM
Writers Block do you have the cure?

2/7/2009 11:31:28 AM
New Year and back to business

11/25/2008 1:06:44 AM
Happy Thanksgiving

11/10/2008 6:59:01 AM
Life in the Delta

10/29/2008 12:56:25 AM
Halloween...It is already here!!!!!!!!

10/25/2008 8:34:32 AM
Growing up in the Mississippi Delta - Clarksdale, MS

10/18/2008 6:23:45 PM
New Songs Up!!

3/18/2009 6:00:44 PM

Writers Block do you have the cure?
Well, I know all of us are songwriters here and I have been writing songs since I was 9 years old. Well sorta I wrote "If I could Fly" then I wrote "This Way" when I was 12. That is when it all really started for me and I have written close to 60 songs. But for the past few months I feel like I have writers block. This has happened before and then out of no where it ends and I write and write. What causes this and how can you keep if from happening. It is really aggravating when this happens. When this happens it feels like it will never end. Does anyone have the cure?

Guess I haven't found what works for me yet and it just comes and goes. I would like to know why this happens and how often it happens. Mostly how do you overcome this feeling without waiting for it to decide to go away?

Jax

3/18/2009 6:14:30 PM

Larree comes up with profound and revealing comments too. good analogy dude

3/18/2009 6:34:12 PM

What a great topic for a song!

3/18/2009 6:40:34 PM

I think Larree summed it up well. Just let it flow.

3/18/2009 6:47:04 PM

Slywit said "What a great topic for a song!"


Ok , on your mark get set , go,,

3/18/2009 7:33:38 PM

Okay Larree......guess "Writers Block" = virus
Treat the symptoms but there is no cure.
So I guess that brings us to the symptoms what are they exactly ?
Is it words or music? Hmmmm.....Kinda crazy huh
Probably both...after really thinking about it Living life is the main key most likely.
Just maybe there are times in our life when there is nothing important enough to inspire us to write about? Then one day something happens and we don't even see it coming! The words and music start racing through your brain and walla' a song written with feeling and inspiration from a source beyond our knowledge or control.
I am rambling again.....

3/18/2009 7:35:18 PM

I focus on writing imaginary songs for toothpaste commercials.

It's silly, no one gets hurt, and I get so sick of doing it that I quickly begin writing real songs almost immediately.

:^D

Kev-

3/18/2009 7:50:31 PM

Reading. Writing down things that strike you while reading or in movies or just in life, conversations you hear and poems...whatever, the news.

It's just a gathering of things that strike you. I think one thing that keeps the flow low is thinking our work has to be about our own lives. Why?

No one need care about my life. I don't have enough things changing in my life within a year to give me enough to write as much as I want to and am able to.

So I think gathering is great, and it puts you in a much cooler position when music starts to come if you're packing all these phrases that resonate with you.

And you don't really have to try. In a week various things you hear or read will just strike you, and you write it down. You don't need to try to make anything of it.

For instance, a couple things I heard as examples: some general saying the phrase "We brought 'em in as boys and took 'em out as men." Just struck me for whatever reason.

Heard a thing on a village in South America where the butterflies return every year. The people feel they are the spirits of their dead loved ones returning, so they put out offerings to them...

Somehow that's gonna probably get used, but mostly because of the way it was phrased.

I don't put thought into what I will do with these things, it's enough that for whatever reason (I'd usually rather not know the reason) they caught my attention.

3/18/2009 9:52:04 PM

Carry a note pad and pen at all times where ever you go and if a title pops into your head, write it down before you forget it. They say a good title practically writes the song itself.

3/18/2009 10:50:38 PM

---------------for every thing ----there is a season----

including writing IMO----but as these wise men say you must be ready to capture it!

3/18/2009 11:45:36 PM

I do agree, I even sleep with my pad and pen next to me. Sometimes I wake up with ideas that's for sure...

3/19/2009 12:07:40 AM

Lucky pad and pen!

3/19/2009 12:14:16 AM

Light flirtatious commenting aside ... lol ... :^D

Heck, my flippant comment aside ...

Don't sweat it, Jax. The occasional block should be expected and never freaked over. The freak itself causes more blockage. I've been there so many times I don't even notice it anymore. In the end, it's quality over quantity.

What I've had more freak over is, "Everything I do sounds the same as the last thing I did."

THAT disconcerts me far more than my ability to roll them off the assembly line.

3/19/2009 2:27:56 AM

Now, this may not work for everyone.....but....

I find having sex while standing in a hammock usually does the trick!

Usually jogs loose all sorts of things!

Hope this helps....

Kurt

3/19/2009 3:25:12 AM

Everything sounding the same may not be a bad thing by recording standards.

How many times have I heard all your songs on a cd have to match the genre!

WHY!

Why can't a cd reflect more than one genre of music?
Who made that law?
Why can't it be a collection of that artist instead a collection of that artist's genre?

3/19/2009 3:38:11 AM

Found this thread to late to simply come in and write "Weed?" and leave. But I just wanted to say that I found this intensely fascinating, seeing how other people write. What Bob says really has a resonance with me at my current stage, I had a TON going on in my life over the last couple of years and my lyrics were almost easy to write as a result, but things calmed down and I didn't know what to write about anymore.

But I have started doing many of the things you mentioned in the last several months and have been elated to find that I can write about stuff other than my own personal tragedies/triumphs. I still pull on things that are very personal to me, I think the most important thing about writing lyrics, or music in general, is to be genuine, so I think as long as you are doing that you can never really get stuck, just delayed.

I've always thought the most dangerous thing you can do is not to get blocked, but to get too comfortable, as you guys were just mentioning. I absolutely agree with what you have said about not wanting to stick to one genre even on the same cd. Our most recent cd has 2 really popular songs, a 2:30 indie "juno-y" type song, and an 8:30 Metal instrumental. Love to see other people pushing themselves, if you got block, it means you aren't settling. We should all keep striving to expand and grow.

3/19/2009 4:41:40 AM

I decided the cure is Gin.

And I've been pursuing that cure with some enthusiasm....
I'm still not really writing...but I'm less worried about it than I was.

3/19/2009 4:54:03 AM

"I focus on writing imaginary songs for toothpaste commercials."

Kev -

Shouldn't that be "songs for imaginary toothpaste commercials"?

BTW - Loved Anonymous Trolls, but every time I go to leave you a comment, IAC pukes! (I thought it could use a Kazoo....also that the style reminded me of "Billy Troel")

Kurt

3/20/2009 12:09:55 AM

I'm with NNB - but Wine and a Phatty instead of Gin!

"What goes around comes around"

Good Luck Jacq!

3/20/2009 1:02:23 AM ---- Updated 3/20/2009 1:11:09 AM

I must have been banned from comments for being bad, Kurt. Jesse wrote me privately with the same complaints ... (kidding IAC support ... it's a glitch I'm sure you'll get around to fixing)

Do as he did, send me an email. Billy Troel? ha ha ha ha ... that's so funny, because it's so close to truth.

Your syntax is also correct ... they are imaginary toothpaste commercials.

:^D

Kev-

3/20/2009 1:09:54 AM ---- Updated 3/20/2009 1:14:32 AM

Jax ...

Take it from an artist who is very curiously currently at the top of the Cashbox hip hop pick charts (that would be me, and I'm sorry ... it really amuses me) ...

It's about the artist, not the genre ... always.

The trouble stems from not being easily pigeonholed when we birth the weirdness that is the flight of our wandering minds.

K-

3/20/2009 2:53:07 AM

I guess a difference came for me lately as I gathered not just ideas that come to me bu a lot of stuff I heard. It is still gonna be something of a personal expression because you and I can hear the same stuff but what grabs one may not stick out to the other...

Anyway, I know all kinds of songwriters poets and novelists talk about it being central to their work: just writing down stuff they heard or saw or whatever. Different than the ideas we get about phrases and all, but just gathering observed stuff.

By why do you gather that stuff?? I'd rather not know, really, but it sure does turn my writing into something I get lost in.

So I guess what I'm saying is that process would be harder to block. It come from outside, and outside just keeps on going.

But it's filtered inside, and that's why you're an artist.

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