Art is less a task and more an exploration. There are many paths to the end goal, if there is a goal.

You can write a song so many different ways. Lyrics, melody, harmony, form — put these out in any order.

Being a professional artist requires output though, consistent output. Methodology is helpful to this end.

I usually write harmony, melody, form, and then lyrics — not strictly in this order but often so. This helps the flow of songs come out. Deliberately switching up the order every now again brings more challenge but often more growth.

I am searching for new songs these days. I have so many tools at my disposal, and there are so many ways to write. It's overwhelming really.

I think the way to get a song out is to simply pick a path, a methodology, and to stick with it until the song is complete. You may diverge, but only for so long. Too many songs remain stuck in the purgatory of incompletion.

Maybe being a songwriter is somewhat like being Charon — bring the songs from their life in the ether and birth them into the afterlife through completion. The metaphor is a bit off because Charon ships off the dead, and perhaps a birth analogy is more pertinent here, but I think there's something to it, especially for those songs stuck in purgatory.

I like the image of guiding the lucid, half living songs into another plane of reality.