February Album Writing Month

 Here's a warning; this blog may stray slightly off topic over the next four weeks. Here's the deal/low down/goose/explanation/goose/truth/goose again:

The last two years, I've taken part in FAWM (February Album Writing Month). The idea is to write 14 songs in 28 days, because of one simple principle: writing a lot of songs in a hurry does more for your songwriting than labouring (or procrastinating) over a single pop masterpiece.

That principle is ridiculously true, for me at least. Before I FAWMed, I had never finished a single song, for a given value of finished. When I FAWM, I always get at least 14 new songs, and at least two of them are far better than I could have come up with without the time pressure of 14 in 28.

This year, I'm not doing it. I'm not writing 14 new songs, anyway. But I'm going to take advantage of the excellent community, feedback and project-mentality motivation to go through older songs, rewrite them and record them. As a new WORLD RECORD amount of my friends (three) are trying it this year too, I might get involved in a couple of original collaborations, if nothing else.

So that's what I'm going to be thinking about/doing/obsessing over this month. The focus on the blog is still going to be books, but some songs might get the odd look in as well. You have been warned.

(And if you think it sounds like the most fun ever, it is. There's still time to sign up here, and add me here.)