"To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong" - Joseph Chilton Pierce

There are a whole range of reasons why some songwriters actually fear the thing that they love to do the most. To list them all can be a whole series of articles themselves.

I used to feel fear whenever I was writing. Fear of the song not being good, fear of failing to write a song, fear of not having good (or original enough) ideas, fear of the audience not liking my creativity, fear of not being taken seriously........Man, the list could go on and on. It's amazing what we can talk ourselves into isn't it?

I wrote my first song at 15 but it took me until I was in my thirties to face my fears and conquor them by looking at myself seriously as a songwriter.

I find sometimes it helps by breaking songwriting down into very simple 'lowest common denominators'.

To me writing a song is putting words onto paper (or tape) based on a tune that's in your head. Sounds simple enough (probably a little too simplified but I think you get my point) but for some people it seems to be a task similar to climbing Mt. Everest.

The fear seems to come from the possibility of falling short of an expectation of what the end result should be (generally that expectation is that the end result is going to be 'perfect'). It's like that anything that falls short of that expectation is bad and therefore to be feared and avoided at all costs. I'm sure that there are people out there that equate writing a 'bad' song to being a bad person.

If you are one of those people heres a little tip, relax a little, relieve yourself of any expectations and just write without prejudice. Conserve your energies for something much more useful and productive (like writing more songs).

Imagine what it would be like to just put down anything that comes into your mind and not feel guilty about whether it's good or not? How much freedom is in that?

We live in a world that expect instant results and fixes for everything. It expects that 1+1=2. When you write, try to cultivate the concept that 1+1= whatever you want it to be. When you are able to grasp that you are more than half way to songwriting freedom.

Every songwriter has fears. Your job is to look at yourself and your writing and dig deep to find those spaces where you feel at your most venerable and ask yourself "what am I really scared of?"

For me my main fear was of my songs not being liked. I thought that if people didn't like my songs then they didn't like me as well. What absolute rubbish!!

I dont have that fear now but it took me a long time to pinpoint it. Once I had found my fear I started to challenge myself and everytime I played a gig I would put one or two new songs in the set.

I faced my fear and did it anyway.

The article that I mentioned at the beginning lists seven main fears that songwriters have inside of themselves. Read it and note down anything that strikes a chord in you (no pun intended) and then act on it. Don't paralyse you and your writing by fear, liberate yourself by taking action.

Until next time, happy writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician

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