Someone asked what stimulates my 'creative juices'.

Inspiration is probably a manifestation of boredom, seeking to find pleasure in the fantasy of Songwriting.
I'm mainly focused on Lyric-writing. My guitar playing simply accommodates the poet who sings his poetry instead of simply writing it or even reciting it. I enjoy my Lyrics. I think I get something satisfying done. Some rise to the point of being literary, literally well-constructed stories with their beginning, middle and end. Some simply have satisfying Rhythm and Rhyme, Lines that I feel build a coherent theme.
Satisfaction is in the mind of the seeker thereafter, of course.

I had the epiphany that you, as a Songwriter, are the first listener. You should be 'hooked' by the Hook Factor in what you hear, just as you hope any other 'consumer' will be. Your critical ear should be 'satisfied' with that Introductory Movement. Its Hook Factor 'hooked' your interest, serving that function, only going on long enough to do that, unless it is extraordinary. (People always cite, "Stairway To Heaven" and "Hotel California", with long Intros, and being long Songs.)I reply, "Yeah! Write a Song like that. You can go on as long as they do if you write a Song like that!"

Hey! That Introductory Movement is probably where my creative juices...I call it Creative Flow...start. I get a couple chords going on guitar, the Rhythm hooks me, the first listener, the infinite Melodic possibilities traversing between two or three chords come into play, and soon a Line of Lyric comes out of my mouth. 
The Line of Lyric hooks me. I want to know what the Singer-Character is on about. What he's said in the Verse I Line 1 had some nugget of Hook Factor, the word meaning, the implication of a story I might like to 'hear', to 'know', and...strategically, I think, a sense of the Singer-Character. It's not me. It's a fiction. But he could be interesting. I know me. He's not going to be nasty and have to call Janet Miss Jackson. He's not going to bore me with mundane details and take me nowhere. I've met 147 of him and they almost all took me somewhere I liked going, and got to be more consistently satisfying...there's that word again...as the years went by. 

The Singer-Character may not come fully realized. Sometimes I write a few Lines and don't have a full sense of him yet. It's his story but I don't know him well enough to tell it. He incubates. Rhyme often takes me a little deeper into his psyche. To get to that Rhyme I had to have a coherent Line of thought, of conversation. He can't just...doesn't just grab a Rhyme...Grab-A-Rhyme... "insane", "realize", "What can I say?", he said something in Verse I Line 2 that advanced the story...his story...made sense in the context of the idea in Line 1 that hooked my interest to start with.

"Put on a hat! Take off your coat! Babe, let's you and I rent a boat! I'll row us, to the Kentucky si-hi-a-hide!"
("Over The River Tonight, copyright 1979 by Gary E. Andrews.)

I'm hooked. He's talking to someone, thereby introducing a Love-Interest Character.
Suddenly it's interesting! Love makes the world go 'round! And suddenly, suddenly there's a world where there are a hat, a coat, a Babe, and a boat, going 'round!
I...the first listener...want to know more. I want to hear his story. And as the first listener, the Songwriter, it's up to me to find it, to tell it, to let the Singer-Character tell it, to get on his vibe, to get to know him so I can let him tell it.
I don't want to force it. I can force it. I can fabricate and Rhyme and make stuff up. But it's always better if I give him time to materialize, to let him incubate and become more fully formed as a Character, a reality I can imagine.
And, imagining, I can 'suspend disbelief'.
Someone said it that way. You begin to believe in the story in the Song, the story in the book, the story in the movie, suspending the disbelief that it is real, and believing in it as real. The dinosaurs aren't hoaky. They're real. Or realistic. The love isn't fake. These people really mean what they're saying. (Demi Moore and Rob Lowe in "About Last Night".)

That's where the creative juices begin to flow, where I attune to the Creative Flow, in that suspension of disbelief, because that's what I'm looking for when that first Line comes out of my mouth. I'm looking for a story I...the first listener...want to hear. I've learned to look for it. I've been here before. I heard good stories here before and I expect to hear another good one. 

Last edited by Gary E. Andrews; 05/19/20 10:36 PM.
There will always be another song to be written. Someone will write it. Why not you? www.garyeandrews.com