OK. I confess -- this is no way to run a blog. Writing an entry once every couple of months, or even less frequently (alright, it's actually been just under four years)... that's just not how this whole blogging thing…
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Sep 23, 2021
Oct 30, 2017
A Writing Life
You may notice that I have changed the title of this infrequent blog, from Thoughts About Songwriting, to "Thoughts about a Writing Life". I haven't stopped writing songs -- far from it. But I have been writing a number of…
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Dec 9, 2015
Refocus and restart ... Getting to progress
Wow ! Turns out, it's been months since I had anything new to say in this space. Well that isn't going to continue. In the intervening time, I've finished the first draft of a first novel, and gotten two thirds…Read more
Mar 1, 2015
Songwriting workshop - moving ahead on March 21
I can't put it off any longer: I'm going ahead with the first of my own songwriting workshops. It's not the one I thought I would offer first, and for which I wrote a nifty little workbook -- currently sitting…Read more
Feb 8, 2015
Time to Get Moving
I had two poems included in an art exhibition this weekend -- they'll be hanging in the gallery and hallway for another week or two -- and that's fine with me. It felt good to be doing something with those…Read more
Feb 1, 2015
A Poem - Out Loud (Title: For Colleen Peterson) 
So ... long before I was a lyricist, I wrote poetry. For most of my years in high school and university, that was what I expected to be: a poet.
This particular poem, titled For Colleen Peterson, with Thanks…Read more
This particular poem, titled For Colleen Peterson, with Thanks…Read more
Oct 12, 2014
Narrowing the Funnel
The point of a funnel is ... the point. It's a big, wide (-ish) catching basin that narrows down to something that fits into the tiny bottle, or whatever. Funnels are about focus.
Oddly enough, so is songwriting. Big, long-reaching…Read more
Oddly enough, so is songwriting. Big, long-reaching…Read more
Sep 18, 2014
So ... what? - The Verse-Chorus pairing
There's a funny kind of relationship between a verse and a chorus, in my opinion. The idea is that a verse leads to the chorus, or alternatively, to the hook line at the end of the verse, in an AABA…Read more
Aug 31, 2014
Get Yer Silly On !
I take songwriting seriously. Very seriously. Really, I do. But sometimes, you just have to get yer silly on. Or your whimsy. Cut loose. Sometimes, it's important to just ... lighten the heck up! A lot!
There we are, industriously…Read more
There we are, industriously…Read more