I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve sat down, guitar in hand, notebook open to a blank page, only to come up with nothing.
The ideas that felt endless yesterday are gone today.
The muse must have gone on vacation.
If you’ve ever felt that way, you know how painful it is.
A blank page is never just a blank page. It’s self-doubt wearing a mask.
It whispers:
“Maybe you don’t have it anymore. Maybe you’ve already written your best songs.”
But it’s not just you who feels this way.
All songwriters, from beginners to the best, hit those dry spells.
The difference isn’t that great writers never get stuck. It’s that they’ve learned how to keep writing anyway.
They don’t wait for inspiration.
They build systems and habits that make songs happen.
And when it comes to systems, one of the best tools I’ve found is writing prompts.
Why Prompts Work
A prompt isn’t a shortcut.
It’s a spark. It gets you moving.
And that movement gives the muse a reason to move closer.
Most of the time, we don’t get stuck because we lack talent.
We get stuck because we’re circling the same old ideas.
We’ve worn grooves into our own minds:
clichés we’ve learned to lean on
melodies we’ve already exhausted
metaphors we’ve used one too many times
A good prompt can jolt you out of that rut.
It forces you to see the world from a new angle.
Suddenly, the same chords feel fresh.
The same rhymes carry more weight.
The same blank page feels like an invitation instead of a wall.
The truth is, my best songs rarely came as bolts of lightning.
They came from a small nudge:
an image
a question
a turn of phrase
Something small that cracked the door open wide enough for a song to slip through.
A Prompt You Can Try Today
Here’s one I use often:
Flip the syntax.
Take a cliché you’ve heard a thousand times, and reverse it.
“You get what you pay for” becomes “you pay for what you get.”
One is about value.
The other is about regret.
Notice how that little shift changes the meaning completely.
Suddenly, you’re not just recycling a tired phrase.
You’re uncovering a new emotional truth through the lens of something we’ve all heard before.
And that’s where the magic is.
Try building your chorus around it, or flip another cliché of your choosing.
You’ll be surprised how quickly it takes you somewhere new.
(If you want more prompts like this one, I put together the Song Sparks Vault: 50 prompts I’ve used myself to turn stuck moments into finished songs. You can check it out here.)
The bottom line is this:
It’s not just about showing up.
It’s about showing up ready to write.
Prompts are just one way of showing up prepared… like carrying matches instead of hoping lightning strikes.
So the next time you find yourself staring at a blank page, don’t panic.
The songs are always there.
You just need to give them a way out.
If you enjoyed reading this, the highest compliment I can think of is if you restacked it or shared it with one person who you think it would help.
I am loving this ideas