• Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Mail
Contributor Login
  • 0Shopping Cart
FolkWorks
  • Home
  • Events
  • Features
  • Resources
  • About Us
  • Archives
  • Contact
  • DONATE
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
overcoming writers block

WRITER’S BLOCK

REED'S RAMBLINGS / Dennis Roger Reed

WRITER’S BLOCK

By Dennis Roger Reed

overcoming writers blockIf you are a writer of any sort, you will have experienced writer’s block. People that say that they have never had writer’s block are big stinky liars, or so perfect they should not even be talking to us mortals. So what can you do to prevent/end/mutilate writer’s block? Pull up a beanbag chair and listen to another of my-know-it-all diatribes.

In the spirit of full admission, I will say that I have experienced writer’s block and there have been times that none of the brilliant ideas I will attempt to regale you with worked a darn. That’s because we are psychologically impaired human beings and sometimes things just are.

To attempt to relate this to folk music, let’s talk about songwriting. If you are a lazy songwriter, totally driven only by the muse, then having a dry spell is more the rule than an exception. Waiting for the bolt of lightning to hit can require a lot of patience. Disciplined daily writers power through dry spells by forcing themselves to write. The philosophy is that a bad song is better than no song, and in the world of pop music, many a bad song has been cut, released and become a hit. The writer probably began to like the song a lot better after the second or third check…

We often write what we know best, or at least we think we do. But if you look at your list of songs, are the themes remarkably different? Let’s see, a song about love gone wrong… a song about love that didn’t work out… a song about someone you love and how great everything is… a song of love and how it used to be so great but now it’s not so hot… etc. I am as guilty as the next writer, so I’ve forced myself to diversify. Have you ever written a song about a movie? Or a book? Depending on the source, you have John Steinbeck either envious or pissed off that Woody Guthrie could synthesize The Grapes of Wrath in 17 verses in Woody’s song Tom Joad. Using other types of art to inspire songwriting is a great thing to do. Sometime when you have several hours to kill, let me elucidate on how Bob Dylan’s Tambourine Man is filled with imagery from Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. That’s the kind of important stuff I did in college.

Musically, one can be inspired by listening to others. One such tactic is to listen to musicians who play in different genres of music than you do. Much has been made about the John Coltrane influenced solo in The Byrds’ Eight Miles High, or the East Indian music influence in Beatle George Harrison’s work. Another tact is to incorporate other instruments into your instrument. As an example, jazz guitarist Larry Coryell has said he listened primarily to horn players as he was formulating his style.

Or you could become a harder worker and write even when you don’t feel like it. Supposedly Chip Taylor’s Wild Thing was improvised on the spot. In 1961, guitarist and studio musician extraordinaire Billy Strange wrote a silly instrumental called Monotonous Melody in five minutes to win a $100 bet. He won the bet and months later hit the jackpot when he got a royalty check for $63,000. Unbeknownst to Strange, Chubby Checker had a big pop hit with Limbo Rock. Just add lyrics about limbo to monotonous melodies and… voila!

So challenge yourself, don’t be afraid to write a bad song, and support live music. Try to avoid the limbo and the twist.

Dennis Roger Reed is a singer-songwriter, musician and writer based in San Clemente, CA. He’s released two solo CDs, and appeared on two CDs with the newgrassy Andy Rau Band and two CDs with the roots rockers Blue Mama. His prose has appeared in a variety of publications such as the OC Weekly and MOJO magazine. Writing about his music has appeared in an eclectic group of publications such as Bass Player, Acoustic Musician, Dirty Linen, Blue Suede News and Sing Out! His oddest folk resume entry would be the period of several months in 2002 when he danced onstage as part of both Little Richard’s and Paul Simon’s revues. He was actually asked to do the former and condoned by the latter. He apparently knows no shame.

October 28, 2015/by Steve Shapiro
Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share by Mail
https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/overcoming_writers_block.jpg 146 350 Steve Shapiro https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FolkWorks-logo-large.png Steve Shapiro2015-10-28 02:19:322020-11-18 10:22:56

WRITER’S BLOCK

All Columns

Featured Columnists

  • Art Podell
  • Chris Wilson
  • David Bragger
  • Roland Sturm
  • Ross Altman

Folkworks Sponsors

Join our E-mail Community

As a valued member of our e-mail community, you will receive updates on events, stories, performances and more in our monthly newsletter, along with the occasional special announcement to give you the latest news in folk/roots. We promise your e-mail is safe with us.  We don’t sell or share our database with any third-party vendors.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
  • LIKE US ON FACEBOOK
  • JOIN THE FOLKWORKS FACEBOOK GROUP
  • BECOME A FOLKWORKS DONOR
  • ADVERTISE WITH US
YOU TUBE INSTAGRAM TWITTER EMAIL PRIVACY POLICY

All Material Copyright © 2001- 2021 FolkWorks. All rights reserved. Website by: Integritive

Scroll to top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website, analyze site traffic, and show event times in your timezone. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Accept

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refuseing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy