I think I wrote some time ago about the book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance“, which was used by lots of performing musicians in a bid to analyze and improve their musical skills. The book has nothing to do with music (and almost nothing to do with Zen or motorcycles, to be sure).
But sometimes you can learn important lessons by using something entirely unrelated as a metaphor.
I’ve come across a web page meant to help artists and designers through a period of creative drought. But songwriting is designing, of course, so even though they don’t mention music or songwriting on this page, it’s refreshing to hear advice from someone who’s main gig is not songwriting, but painting, writing novels, designing ads, and so on.
The page is called “Top designers share their secrets to beating creative block“, and I highly recommend reading the ideas if you’re a songwriter who deals with writer’s block and you need some motivation to get going and keep going.
I will say that I think my favourite quote on the page is this one by Sean McCabe, hand lettering artist and entrepreneur:
Deciding where to start is the enemy of starting. You can’t steer a parked car.
If you get stuck a lot as a songwriter, I’m guessing that you’ll find a quote or two on that page that will provide you with the kind of motivation that will perk you up and give you some inspiration.
Written by Gary Ewer. Follow Gary on Twitter
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