Songwriting

I have been writing songs with my friend Steve for over a year. We have gotten into a rhythm and scheduled weekly sessions which works out fine. We use IM and either write one line each or one writes a bit and the other improves on it. It really depends on the degree of energy, the type of song and so on. It's always a collaboration, though I am unofficially in charge of the words and he deals with the music.
So it is up to Steve to check for flow, awkward words or to stop we when (not if) I get too verbose. It helps me simplify my writing. It is great to have someone critique your work as it unfolds. When I like a line but we decide it doesn't fit, I put it in with the other "misfits", hoping they can eventually turn into a song. Songwriting is quite fun because I end up looking at words in a different light. For example, after writing this, I know we will write a song called "Misfits".

Often, I get myself a title and write a song around it. I usually like the ambiguity of the word and like to write on two levels. I guess the difficult part is to not write a poem since I don't know anything about songwriting. I just enjoy playing with words and Steve enjoys playing with notes. We figured something's bound to come out of this.

So - a funny thing happened today. I started singing a new song. It came out of nowhere, all prepackaged and ready to go. I just had to write it down. It doesn't seem to be a song I remember but who knows!? Anyways... It was a fun experience.