The 3 boxes are an excellent tool to help you visualize and nail your verse "development" as well as the overall "journey" of your song.

Your "process" is the way you get through the process of starting and finishing a song. Every artist or artisan has a "process" which is honed and relied upon to complete one's art. And usually in the early years of writing, everyone's process is fairly unique. This one process is what is relied upon to write most songs. Typically, as more skills (and more varied skills) are developed, more than just one process emerges. In this class, Bonnie points out a variety of ways to get a song started and finished, while also briefly pointing out what has worked best for her.

If (when) you find yourself up against the dreaded "curse of the second verse" not knowing how to proceed, what to say next, or where to go, a suggestion: "Take a left!" Get off the familiar road you're on and get yourself lost. If you're not lost once you've gotten lost, you may discover new things, and new ways to write about them, for, "A right road tends to find other right roads." If you get completely lost you can always turn around and go back where you started.

In this video, Pat explores the differences between all the points of view discussed in this series.

Dive deeper into the lyric writing topic "Point of View" in this multiple part lecture series with Pat Pattison. Throughout the series, Pat dives into both "1st" and "2nd person," "direct address" and more, resulting in a comprehensive lecture series covering the most common points of view found in song lyrics. In this video, Pat continues to provide examples and suggest ways to think about and use "1st person" in your songs.

Dive deeper into the lyric writing topic "Point of View" in this multiple part lecture series with Pat Pattison. Throughout the series, Pat dives into both "1st" and "2nd person," "direct address" and more, resulting in a comprehensive lecture series covering the most common points of view found in song lyrics. In this video, Pat continues to provide examples and suggest ways to think about and use "1st person" in your songs.

Dive deeper into the lyric writing topic "Point of View" in this multiple part lecture series with Pat Pattison. Throughout the series, Pat dives into both "1st" and "2nd person," "direct address" and more, resulting in a comprehensive lecture series covering the most common points of view found in song lyrics. In this class Pat provides a brief overview of the points of view and also gets into some details about the use of 1st person.

The third part of Andrea Stolpe's "Destination Writing" trilogy shows a simple technique for writing unique new choruses every day.

In this popular Songwork video, Andrea Stolpe shows you how to use her method, "Toggling," to consciously switch back and forth between internal and external language in songs. Consider using "Toggling" to write your next song!

If you're not supposed to use cliches in songs, then why does it actually work well sometimes?