How do you write songs? How do you start and don't give up too soon?

[Natalia Sanderson]

Hey guys I wanted to ask you if you have ever written own songs? How do you start writing them? I know there are as many opinions as musicians but start like that:

1. Search for inspiration: topics for lyrics or music styles, melodies I heard and liked
2. I write the lyrics or at least some lines I can later use for the melody.
3. Then I play some chords and try to find a progression I like
4. Then I try to play in in different rhythms to find a cool way of playing it. And add a melody.
5. For the chorus I mostly take this chord progression I wrote.
6. As verse I try to find some other chords progression or I just change the dynamics of chorus to make it sound like a verse.
7. I think of how to structure the song – chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus is the most frequent I guess.
8. Then I practice the song a bit.
9. And I record it to evaluate it later on.
10. I try to do such exercises as often as possible to get better. (here is the full version of my how to write a song routine, with some detail info, in case you want to read).

My problem is, I mostly don't get to the recording point because I give up on the idea How do you deal with it? Songwriting can be pretty frustrating haha.

[oldies65]

Don't give up,keep at it I went twenty years between songs and then one night a melody hit me,no I haven't written any million sellers but I've written.

[Jerome]

A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.

[Lovely]

It just comes to me and usually at night.. Then in the morning I actually start writing the song.

When it comes to how long do I write, it depends. Sometimes it takes days from initial starting point and sometimes I will finish it in a day

[Constance]

I am by no means a song writer or official musician but I do play around in a DAW, what I learned is that your work will never be finished and it will never be good enough. Jay Z said on the Letterman show that one of his most popular and top grossing songs is a project he could not complete properly, and till this day it bugs him whenever he hears it. With that in mind you should get what ever you can down as soon as you can, do not work to make a mastery but work for a day of completion, to go to bed knowing you got a step ahead. The process you state above is very well thought out and nice but it could be a little demanding, not all good thoughts come at once and you could write something just to change it later, I do so all the time and it drives me crazy. Maybe relax on the solid game plan and go for feeling, maybe you have a sweet chorus but no chords, write your idea down and put it away--not forever but for now. Later you maybe able to piece something together or improve it, but if you don't keep the idea it will vanish as quickly as it came. Art is expression and experience and they are fickle, making music will get tedious if you are hard on yourself it will make all the more difficult.
Remember that the turtle won the race lol.

[Jerome]

Good advice Constance. Ideas are as fickle as affairs. They don't last and you wake up the next morning wondering where it all went...…

[vincent]

songs always come from little instances in life, kids, work, play for me, one little thing, so something someone said triggers the write.
almost always one liner I will hear or somebody will say. most of the time with that I can hook it up with a small melody.
I put that away so I don`t loose it and the song builds after that,. I write in verses, 1 2 3 4 b kinda like that with the little melody.
as it develops always little changes in all the song, sometimes it seems like I change one little thing, leads to more changes.
its fun for me. Vincent