Unblocking Writer's Block
Songwriting Tips by Molly-Ann Leikin

Many years ago, after writing an average of two songs a week, every week for five years, including those weeks that had Thanksgiving, Christmas and after-Christmas sales in them, I found myself deadly stuck. A long, agonizing, three months had gone by without a single, finished song coming from moi, and I was frantic.

Beyond frantic.

I was a staffwriter at the time, my first such gig, and I felt compelled to compose in order to recoup my advance. Not only that, but since I was so obsessively single-minded about songwriting in those days, I had absolutely nothing else going for me. So when my only activity was gone, all my self-esteem was gone with it.

That was devastating. I sat alone, shaking and cross-legged in the middle of the floor of my tiny guest house, wondering (a) when would I curl up and die of this and (b) how soon the big shredder in the sky would come get me, making room for someone with active, productive gray cells.

Fortunately, I found Karen Mack, who's retired now but who'd just written a book called Overcoming Writing Blocks. I had a private unblocking session with her that miraculously unclogged me and restored my creative flow within a few hours. What I learned from Karen, I have used with my blocked clients ever since. Nobody leaves my office these days without his/her creative process happily restored. Period.

I learned that blocks are usually caused by fear and/or anger. In fact, I wrote a whole chapter about this in my first book, "How To Write A Hit Song". Any time one of my clients comes to me suffering from being stuck, I always ask two questions:

l. What are you afraid of?

2. Why are you angry?

If they aren't comfortable discussing their very personal matters with me, I send my clients home to write private letters to themselves, listing everything - and I do mean every minute detail - everything they're afraid of - i.e. - what if the press finds out you're really the father of Michael Jackson's baby? What if you get the hiccups on your next date with Heather Locklear? What if she does? What if your next demo bombs, like the last one...?

What else are you afraid of? Don't leave anything seemingly unimportant off your fear list. Write it all down - even your fear that the ache on the North East side of your mouth will imminently become a lot more than a cavity, and you'll basically be looking at another Bridge of Los Angeles County.

Whatever you're afraid of, no matter how absurd it may seem, and how disconnected from writing you might think it is, write it down. Get it out. Look at it. And don't edit the list.

On another sheet of paper, make second list of everything and everybody you're mad at. Everybody. In my case, that's easy. I'm always furious with somebody. Like Pete the painter, who started our fence, then disappeared for two weeks and two days without telling anybody that he was going to visit his mother in Missoula for Halloween, then sauntered back up to my door at 5:59 a.m. one Sunday, telling me how well I looked, and wanted a little bonus to finish the fence. Oh really? I don't know about you, but that bonus request got me grinding my teeth.

Grinding my teeth doesn't help my creative process. It just helps my dentist. And frankly, I've contributed more than my share lately to Our Larry of Perpetual Crowns.

So when I'm angry, I try to write about it. Okay, what else am I mad at? Kind of you to ask. See, there is a conspiracy among the Westside Housekeeping Mafia, which seems determined to keep my home in danger of closure by the Board of Health. No sooner did I find reliable, delightful, gourmet Maria to cook for me and clean my house every week so you'd think Martha Stewart, not Ronald McDonald, lives here, when someone from my health club, who heard me kvelling about Maria, offered her a full time job in Malibu, which she accepted.

WHAT?????

Oh sure, Maria referred her second cousin, Teresa, to me, but Teresa was hitchhiking back from a hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque and no one knew quite when to expect her, exactly. But her friend's neighbor, Aldonza, who couldn't find my street because she doesn't like to turn left on Mondays, finally sent her ex-sister-in-law, Bobo, who brought her two year-old twins along because the twins had just been expelled from preschool.

Really?

So for six hours and eight minutes, while I was paying someone to clean my house, guess which consultant got to baby-sit duplicate, runny-nosed, incorrigible, peekabooing, Egyptian toddlers, who understood no English? That would have been fine, considering most English-speaking kids their age aren't particularly articulate anyway, except this pair didn't like any of my songs! Not even the platinum ones!

Whew!

That's a lot better.

Yes...

Gone. I feel much better just writing about it, screaming on paper, pounding the computer keys, so I'm sure venting your own rage will make you feel cleansed and freer, too.

I help people in many fields to overcome their blocks, assuming they want to overcome them. So far this week I've worked with an aerospace engineer and her t.v. newswriting husband, a Tupperware salesperson, a golfer/folk dancer/under wire black bra salesman, plus a dermatologist with very bad skin.

They're all feeling much, much better and are back at their careers, feeling powerful and positive again. Please let me know if I can help get you unblocked, too. I'm very good at this. And it makes me happy using my gifts to help you use yours.

© 2000 Molly-Ann Leikin

Go back to more songwriting tips