Video Lesson: Composing a First Draft with Flow and Edit

We accepted a challenge by a history teacher to create a video lesson on lyric writing using one of the techniques from Songfarmer. So here’s an example by Owen Temple showing how to compose a first draft of song lyrics, switching back and forth between the Flow mode of writing and the Edit mode of writing.

The cure for the blank page - or writer’s block - is alternating between these two different modes of writing, Flow and Edit, back and forth, until the song is finished. Writer’s block or a blank page happens when you try to Flow and Edit at the same time.

Using this method, Owen writes a first draft lyric of a song about George Washington.

For more guidance and techniques for writing songs, check out the book by Owen and Gordy Quist: Songfarmer: Writing More and Better Songs.