Surviving White Paper Syndrome
It happens to all of us--the blank paper stares back at you, taunting you to put even one mark down to mar its perfection. This first act frightens even the best writer, but we all have to overcome it or risk getting nothing done. Here are a few ideas to getting over this nasty first hurdle.
GO THROUGH THE MOTIONS I find that outlining can often help get the wheels in motion. Just the action of placing those first hashmarks down to delineate a series of measures, leaving plenty of room for extra bars later, can really start you off. I'll even put the little guitar chord boxes at the start of each measure, and get an extremely basic song structure started. Sometimes, I'll even put some tentative, basic I-IV-V chord ideas down, and start to strum these out on guitar or bang them out on the piano, and just this simple action can drive me to change the initial scribbles into a nascent idea. Keep your tape recorder handy and get these ideas down for later transcription. A little editing, and you have the beginnings of some new material.
PICK UP THE INSTRUMENT Sometimes it helps to just put on a favorite artist or an old idea tape of your own and play along with it. With another recorder going at the same time, I often find myself stopping the other recording and creating some new riff based loosely on what I'd just heard. Write these down! You often find you have the makings of a new tune right here.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY This is a personal favorite. I pick a random song, listen to it, put myself in the position of one of the people in the story, and write my side of what the artist is talking about. For example, if it is a love song, imagine yourself replying to what the artist is saying to you--positive or negative, it can be fun, and often ends up being a great tune on its own. Musically, you can listen to a bit of a song on headphones and just record your response or fill to each riff you hear. This often ends up being a wonderful tune in its own right, and you can always change the chord line later and edit your bits to make it a completely original work. Another fun thing to do is to take the tune to a complete extreme and parody what is done--Weird Al Yankovic is a pro at this--or take an old song and do it in a completely outrageous way (my band did a Metallica-like metal version of the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" that our audience loved). This often provides a hole in the dike to get you moving to do more writing once you get those floodgates open.
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