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

[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.