All week long, I've been at the Swannanoa Gathering in Asheville, NC. It's a great songwriting "camp"- no camping involved tho or I wouldn't be here. Today was the last day of all the classes and all the concerts.
I think I listened to so many people, that at this point, I don't even know what kind of stuff I learned! Now it's just time to sort of sit with it, and process it.
One practice I began this week, you can apply to just about any area of your life. It's something I already "know" but it was so good to be reminded and then to be sort of forced to practice it for a week. And it was this: To approach a project you want to work on in small increments of time. So for me, each day, I'd sit with my guitar for 20 minutes and just PLAY around with my songwriting. I sat with the same song each day for 20 minutes during a portion of one of my classes. Some days nothing was really happening. Some days I came up with something stupid. And some days I came up with some stuff I actually liked. But the thing is, I SHOWED up. Each day. And that is a great habit to form.
Typically, I sit down with a song and spend long stretches of time on it. So when I don't have a big block of time, I think I don't have time to write at all. But a little 20 minutes here, and a little 20 minutes there, and all that time in between when your subconcious creatively works on things you don't even know about--and you've got yourself a song. Or a novel. Or a series of sketches. Or whatever it is that you like to create!
So consider trying it yourself. It can be just 15 minutes. And it's okay if all you do is SIT THERE. Your only job is to show up. Doesn't that sound easy?
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