I write a lot of songs. And ostensibly, I write them alone, all by myself, a solo singer songwriter, not needing anyone else. Except, it isn’t true. Not even vaguely. When I look back over the last ten years (which covers pretty much all the songs I’ve written) there’s almost never been a time when I’ve not had someone escorting me on my way and helping me focus to get my work done. Here’s a timeline: *2000: I write my first song and maybe three others four songs over the …

       Lots of writers dawdle around when then write. Imagining what the next line might be or worse, what their Aunt Gerdie might say if she were ever to read that next line. This is the equivalent of trying to get from New York City to the crab nebula by car then stopping just across the Jersey line at the Vince Lambardi Service Area. You’ll never get there.     
      The proper way to do things is put all the critical voices in your head in cryogenic stasis for the next ten minutes or so, and set your hand warp speed writing whatever comes out of you hand until you finish filling both sides of the page. Once you’ve arrived at the end of the journey without quite realizing it is a great time to look back at the ‘exhaust fumes,’ your words, and see what you’ve got that might be worth revisiting. That’s where the good stuff is.

Often in our writing we strive for perfection, for completion, and yet perfection is boring. It is the oddities and imperfections that we remember in the end.

Stanislavsky says as much in this quote I found in David Mamet's "3 Uses of the Knife."

      "There are plays that you leave, and you say to yourself, “By God, I just, I never, gosh, I want to, now I understand! What a masterpiece! Let’s go get a cup of coffee,” and by the time you get home, you can’t remember what the play was about. "

       "And there are plays—and books and songs and poems and dances—that are perhaps upsetting or intricate or unusual, that leave you unsure, but which you think about perhaps the next day, and perhaps for a week, and perhaps for the rest of your life.

Lists of Song Ideas:

1. I used to keep lists
2. with all the things
3. I thought would be
4. great to write about.
5. Then one day
6. I’d get out the list
7. and look at all the great ideas
8. I at one point
9. wanted to write into life
10. Then, often
11. a half hour later
12. I was still flitting about
13. and indecisive about what to write
14. so I decided it must not
15. be a good day to write.
16. I don’t keep lists anymore.
17. Everything I could write about
18. is right in front of me
19. or in my memories and associations
20. I just need to choose and dive in
21. I could start with bike
22. or grass
23. or toddler
24. and just let my mind move my hand
25 until the page is full

Perfection is a bit like the Road Runner in Warner Bros. Cartoons and we're often like the Wile E. Coyote trying to catch it. We contruct eloborate plans and devices only to have perfection stick its tongue out at us and get away again. Like Wile E Coyote your energy would be better spent if you stopped chasing after perfection and started using your creativity to work towards building something solid and real. You’ll stop falling off so many cliffs that way.