How to write a song

I've been trying to write a song about writing songs. Here are my thoughts. If you're a writer too, I'd love to hear how you go about it.

Q. What's it like to write a song?

A. It's endlessly fascinating. It's a solitary business. It's a rewarding, satisfying one. It's like putting together a jig-saw puzzle. It's mysterious.

Q. How do you go about it?

A. It's hard. Just getting an idea for a song is hard. Once you've got the idea and you make a start, finishing it can be quite painful.

Q. Why painful?

A. Because, having come up with an idea, having made a start, believing in it - you want it to be good - "just anything" is not good enough. So you spend a lot of time carefully choosing the right words, the right notes, the right chords, the right form, to make sure you "say" exactly what you want to.

I like to have a lot of time to spend on a song. In that time I can really focus and concentrate on listening to my inner self so that I can 'hear' what I'm trying to express. So I like quiet, or a stillness, to really listen. (It's like going into a 'zone')

I imagine that preparing to be quiet and still for the process to begin, is similar to meditating.

Sometimes you just stare at a blank page or space, going over as many different ways to say what you're trying to say, until you're satisfied that what you come up with fits with what you've done before, and also that it makes sense.

It's helpful to brainstorm ideas and words on the topic I choose to write about beforehand, so that my time is not spent chasing words when I'm 'in the zone' and/or 'on a roll' and things are going smoothly.

So it's true: the creative process is 99% perspiration, and 1% inspiration. But when a song is finished it is really satisfying.

These are my experiences, and there are loads of ways to go about it, but all of them are valid and a little bit mysterious.