Behind the FAWM Series #1-Songwriting

This is the first in a series of blogs I'll be posting about the songs I've written for February Album Writing Month.

The following posts will be about the individual songs written over the last 3 Februaries (10 of which will appear on my NEW album!) but today I thought I would share a little bit about how it felt to first sit down and write in a way I had never written before.

The idea of writing to a theme, to an existing title was a foreign one to me at the time, let alone writing to someone else's theme or title.

I was nervous that I would feel boxed in, limited in my creativity, and I also thought that if the title was already there, so was the song... right?

I was wrong...and right.

If you are not familiar with February Album Writing Month (FAWM), it is a challenge to write an entire album in the shortest month of the year, and there is website dedicated to this purpose which boasts thousands of users who attempt the challenge, and through community, critique and encourage one another along the way.

I took up the FAWM challenge, and I thought of asking my fans for song titles, because I thought it would build a closer community within that fan base, and help connect us outside of touring.

The VERY first time I sat down to write for FAWM, I was writing to the title, "Mittens and Magnets" (which will be the subject of my next post, since it was the first FAWM song written).
I sat down with all of my expectations about what the experience would bring, and I finished a song, meeting none of them.

Instead of feeling limited, I felt inspired. Instead of feeling boxed in, I felt set free.
Gone were the complications of waiting for inspiration, and then fitting my agenda into 3 minutes of song. The pressure of coming up with a brilliant idea, or the song no one has written was off.

As I would soon find out:
Songs don't show up solely by inspiration, songs show up by being written.
Inspiration doesn't write songs, you write songs.

However, the inspiration I was always waiting on DID come; it just came after I sat down and made myself begin.

Having a deadline was scary (14 songs in 28 days) and I did my very best to freak out about this as much as possible (my lovely husband can attest) but I would also learn that time wasn't my enemy, time was on my side, eliminating distraction and destroying every excuse I had to procrastinate.

The other thing I found interesting, was that the title, although sometimes obvious in it's meaning to me, was not obvious in it's meaning to the one who submitted it, therefore, the title itself was not the constraint I thought it would be.

I wrote earlier, "If the title was already there, so was the song."
This turned out to be true, but not in the way I had imagined it.

When I looked at the title, "Mittens and Magnets," a song did seem to form quickly, as if it was already waiting to be written - but not one literally about mittens and magnets.

The author of the title wasn't thinking of my children or my husband, not even of love and marriage when she submitted that title, but that's the song I saw, and what made sense to me.

The title was like a kaleidoscope, with a thousand little ideas bouncing off each other and waiting to be put together in focus.

This way of writing proved to be intensely challenging, but more intuitive than anything I had tried before.

So if you are the creating kind, I here is a bit of advice:

Throw out all your ideas about what it means to be a "artist," (read: I am so unique and my work is so mysterious! I can't do my work unless it's inspired!) roll up your sleeves and get down to business.

There are a million challenges you could give yourself (a song title, a specific deadline, themes, etc.) and contrary to what I used to believe, these are not obstacles but tools in your toolbox.
Use them to sharpen your skills.

I'll leave you with the vision of FAWM, a quote by Jack London:

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."

-FP