When is a songwriter not a songwriter? When they're not writing songs. I've produced next to nothing since the Spring and have not even felt like it. It's not even a block - it was just not on my radar.
Now I have a few ideas and a bit of drive to start producing something again. At times like this I tend to reach for objectwriting (anyone who has any of Pat Pattinson's books will probably know this). What you do is write for 10 minutes on a random word, trying to use all senses (5 usual ones + "body" + "motion").
Does it produce amazing lyrical gems to slot into your next song? Not really - but it gets the creative side of your brain going and ideas tend to flow much easier when you actually come to write. If you're lucky you may get some usable nuggets, but that's not the point, it's the process that gets you thinking in the right way. I like to include outlandish metaphors and generally just let ideas come, even if dreadful, trying to avoid the obvious.
So I'm going to to this daily for a while using the word that appears at
www.objectwriting.com . I'll post them in this thread for others to see and comment on if you like. Or if anyone wants to join in we can compare notes (best not to look before we've written!).
I'll start off with:
Ladder (10 mins - 25 October)
The yellow rungs have dirty black marks of a hundred steel toed boots, chipped and worn smooth down to the dull gun metal beneath, scratched like sunglasses left for too long in a kitchen drawer.
Black rubber hooves bulge with the weight of steel, human and tools. A springing sound emerges and echoes along pillars of welded scored tubes, grinding against brick where small dusty fingerprints are starting to work their way into the wall smelling like damp paint.
My stomach feels empty in anticipation of a fall that never will come. My fist grips a little too strongly on the side, mistrusting the looseness of gloves which keep skin safe but don't transmit the comfort of contact. My other hand grips a swinging toolbox scraping along the sides and my thigh, tight beneath jeans worn white and smooth with occasional threads picked by sharp-edged hauling.