This quote is something that particularly resonates with me. I’ve been songwriting, for God, for probably 15 years, and I’ve had periods of high creativity and periods of low creativity - but my lowest period of creativity/loss of ‘mojo’ has been since the end of 2021…how can that be?

I had been mostly songwriting as an individual, but took part in a songwriting mentorship - and we went for a retreat in Oxfordshire. The mentorship (6 months) and the songwriting retreat was probably the most productive songwriting time I’ve had in my life. With previous songwriting and the songs done in collaboration - suddenly I had enough songs (that are good enough!) for 2 EPs.

You’d think that would be super encouraging and a brilliant launchpad, right? RIGHT?

Well, no, not for me. Suddenly, instead of being keen to write more songs and set myself up with more collaborations, I’m completely stuck.

The title of this blog is the main reason - a combination of pride and doubt is killing my productivity.

I know I’m a reasonable musician (On keys and bass, I’m pretty good, and I can hold my own on some other lesser used instruments (baritone uke, mandolin, melodica). I know I’ve got some skills on Logic X, and I’m an accomplished singer - have been singing for 40 years in choirs and leading worship for about 15 years.

Knowing that I should be able to do a lot towards the recording of the songs myself, is crippling, as it is a lot of work and my skills even though they are good, I’ve not managed to create a demo I would be happy to release on Spotify for example. So this is pride, but ‘over-pride’ - it’s causing me to doubt myself not just to the healthy level of having some humility - it’s saying to me you’re not good enough - so I don’t try.

And then there’s the other side of doubt (there’s good doubt and bad doubt). The one that says, actually the songs probably aren’t good enough. The people I’ve collaborated haven’t released the songs themselves - so are they in the doubt stage like me, that’s holding them back, or is it that they don’t think the songs are that good and don’t want to release them? If they don’t want to, then should I?

Doubt and pride are horrible blockers.

How can this blog post help you?

• Well I hope, if nothing else, it helps you to not be alone if you’re in a similar situation.

• I also want it to be the thing that reminds you that if you’ve ever shared or used your songs in a situation and someone has said they like the song, generally they aren’t lying or trying to boost your ego. They genuinely like it.

• Even more of an affirmation is when they choose to use that song themselves.

So, I’m going to make a positive commitment to try to get further with my EPs this year. I need to do this otherwise I’ll never write another song, and that would never do.