Looking Back; Reflecting on the May Songwriting Challenge

If you’ve followed my blog at all during the past month, you know that I took part in the Song-a-Day May Songwriting Challenge. The challenge began with a callout from the founder of a songwriting group that I joined on Facebook named “The Sounding Board: A Roots and Rhinestones Songwriters Critique Group.” As I have been in a bit of a songwriting rut these last several months, I thought that this challenge would help me break out and get back into the groove of things a bit. 

I bought a new notebook and went to town. After titling the first page “Hooks, Lines & Stinkers”, I jotted down a list of different concepts to use for inspiration down the road. Some of these came out of the blue, on the drive to work, or from things that I’d heard from strangers throughout the say. Some of them came from conversations that I’d had with my honey, where we’d pause after saying something completely random, and both agree about how that’d be a good line for a song. Some of them were ideas that I’d started and completely forgotten about. 

The challenge kicked off with a bang. I finally felt like I was back in the game, and I was enjoying writing. I mean, I was truly enjoying writing, for the first time in months. For so long, I’d been my own worst critic, beating myself up over lame lines to the point where I eventually talked myself out of completing anything. Since this challenge was an exercise in quantity, not particularly quality, I was able to let my hair down a little and just write. Now, it wasn’t all rainbows and kittens, I still beat myself up over lines not being clever enough and hooks not being catchy, but I learned to accept them.

That all changed about half-way through the month. The self-doubt kicked in and I began to dread sitting down with that notebook during my lunch break or after work. I procrastinated, fell behind, caught up, fell behind, caught up, fell behind, and wrote eight in a two-and-a-half-hour session as the final push to complete the challenge. With that whole non-rhyming exercise thrown in there, it became a chore. I’m not saying it was all bad, but the quality of my lyrics suffered, and I felt ashamed to claim them as my work. 

After the challenge, I decided to take a breather for a week and reflect. The challenge, though it was frustrating at times (I mean, no rhyming. At all. AT ALL, Y’ALL!) really helped me to grow as a writer. It helped me to accept the fact that I don’t have to write something that I am trying to pitch every time that I pick up a pen, and that sometimes chilling out and writing for the sake of writing is the best way to pick yourself out of a rut. Will I be doing a challenge like this again? Sure. In the near future? Heck no. I’m a quality over quantity gal, and posting low quality lyrics killed me, but it was another stepping stone in the process and I know I will be stronger after this challenge. 

In the next few months, I’ll be looking back at some of the things that I’ve written, re-writing, and hopefully playing them out to get some feedback. My dream is still to play the Bluebird open mic before I turn 30…I have several months left so hopefully I can turn one of these challenge songs into something Bluebird quality and make that dream come true.