Another February Album Writing Month (FAWM) is approaching. The first time I did one, two years ago, it was terrifying; it was a real question whether I could write fourteen songs in twenty-eight (or twenty-nine, since I was lucky to start in a leap year) days. But my third time around, I’m much more blasé about the whole thing. I never even really made a decision to do it this time around; I just assumed that it is what I’d be doing, if I don’t have anything else preventing me from doing it. In fact, one of the very best things of FAWM is that it ushered me into a mindset that it is not hard (for me) to write songs. Sure, sometimes they take a lot of work to make good (and sometimes they don’t), but I can write songs whenever I set my mind to it. The biggest reason I’m treating this upcoming FAWM like it’s no big deal is my recent Fearless Songwriter experience, in which, for the third time, I wrote seven songs in seven days. But this time that week overlapped with a trip to Panama, which required writing a song during a day in which I was literally traveling the entire day, and other days in which there were only small free moments in which to write and finding internet access to post was extremely challenging. I managed to make it through just fine. It is, though, going to be a big deal. Especially if I want to write good songs. It will require sustained attention over the course of the month, while trying to have something akin to a normal life, so I probably should actually start getting psychologically ready for it. Hence this post! There are some genuine downsides to FAWM: - I will write a bunch of songs during the month that never see the world outside of FAWM; is it useful to write bad songs? - I don’t actually need a huge volume of new songs. I have more great songs than I could possibly put on my next CD, and until that’s recorded any good new song is going to bump an old one off. - It will take time away from other things I could be working on, including writing the book I’m in the middle of, or preparing to record the next CD. - My spouse does not like my participation in this process. (That seems to be generally true across FAWM participant couples.) It’s hard to explain or understand quite what the difficulty is, but my efforts to make it unburdensome for the rest of my household make it more stressful for me. And it’s true that my focus during the month will be much more on songwriting than on most other things, which inevitably has repurcussions. But there are countervailing upsides: - The more I write, the more I write – I get ideas when I’m in the middle of actively writing. Even if some of the songs are terrible, I’ll get new ideas for songs, some of which might be great. - I want to focus more of my life on music, and this will help that focus. - Realistically, I waste too much time, on random blog-reading and Facebook. If songwriting replaces some of that, it might actually bring balance to my life, without losing too many other things I want to do. - There’s a genuinely great community around FAWM and it is fun to hang out (musically, virtually) with these people. I haven’t prepared much this time around; aside from a few scribbled middle-of-the-night thoughts from the past week or so I haven’t been squirreling away song ideas like I have in the past. Today, though, I should clear out my music room so it’s an inviting space (it is currently piled high with extra stuff from the most recent basement flood), and go through some old songwriting notebooks to find scraps of ideas I haven’t yet pursued. Wish me luck, and stay tuned for reporting on how the experience goes.