Bring a Notebook.

If there ever was a cure for not being inspired, it's to bring a notebook (and a pen) anywhere you go. It not only helps with songwriting, but you'll find many other uses for this as well. I remember as a youngin', hearing on the radio, that Marilyn Manson had this notebook of phrases and one liners that he carried with him everywhere.

It's a form of writing from the lyrics out. With this method however, you're only taking pieces of lyrics to form music with, as opposed to sitting down, and writing full blown verses. Once you choose a phrase from your notebook, that you think is song worthy, SCREAM IT! Make it your battle cry. If it's not good enough to scream, it's not good enough to be part of your song!

If you can scream it, you can dream it. Once you have a phrase, written down and all, you should be able to visualize singing it towards a crowd, and hopefully the crowd will sing it back! Even if it's a crowd of three or four family, and friends. I can't stress enough the importance of visualization, but I have a whole nother article about that.

This method goes along real well with recording yourself, see my article titled "bring a recorder" for more info. The cool thing about having a written log, of phrases and such, is that it's open to interpretation. If you recorded yourself singing the phrases, (and I encourage you to) It's still a mighty fine idea to have a written log, because you may interpret the phrase differently the next day after you wrote it. For instance, maybe you wrote something out of anger one day, and wanted to sound really angry singing, so you recorded it. The next day, you're in a completely different mood, and you notice how awesome this phrase sounds in a melencholy, or sad tone of voice. You can then add both interpretations to your song, or scrap the first idea all together. The possibilities are endless!

John Lennon!