Say what you want about the man, but John Mayer put up a really cool blog post yesterday. I have the hardest damn time linking to specific posts on his blog (Hey John, how about some Permalinks??), so here is the blog entry in it’s entirety:

“I can’t really explain what happens when, as an artist, you get that message from the inside that says “time to make another one.” One day you’re sitting around, living off the fat of the land, and then as if from out of nowhere, it taps you on the shoulder. The slate goes shiny and clean. Those colors come back – it all starts as colors – then moods, then settings, then sounds, then words. And churning beneath that the entire time is the doubt; doubt that you’ll find the rhyme, doubt that you’ll ever connect that verse with that chorus, doubt that you have anything left to say that matters.

“I live for that streetfight, though. The knock-down drag-out anything-goes battle between what you have in your hands and what you *think* you might possibly have in your mind but have no proof of. But when you win, man… look out. There’s nothing better.

Why go back at it so soon? Because I suck at everything else and I hate being reminded of it.

“If you think we writers do what we do for anything else than patching up voids, you’re mistaken. It’s all void putty. Take away the guitars and the songs, and my life story becomes completely unremarkable. I’m not getting down on myself, I’m getting up on the gift… I’m not much without it, and I’m blessed to have it.

“So I’m getting back in line for another round of musical code cracking, a cell phone voice mailbox full of my own scattered melodic ideas, and sheets of paper in every pants pocket scribbled with words I swore were cool at the time.

“Tuesday afternoon I lay down the first idea… because a man can’t get a solid groove on putting out records every two years.”

POSTED BY JOHN MAYER AT 09:22 PM FROM LOS ANGELES, CA (Link)

I took a couple cool things from his entry:

1. He writes phrases and ideas on random scraps of paper that he swore were cool-sounding at one time but now sound totally lame.
   Many songwriters can definitely identify with that. So don’t let it discourage you when a lyric that sounded great last night sounds lame today. Just laugh about it. Even some scraps of lyrics I wrote last month sound as lame as some of my high school poetry.
2. He doesn’t seem to be able to write on demand.
   Instead, learn to recognize when that great idea hits and be ready to drop everything to ride the wave of inspiration and creativity. That doesn’t mean that you don’t critically and methodically analyze, rewrite, and re-examine songs later. You need to do that. But recognizing the initial tidal wave of inspiration is important, I believe, so try to be as accommodating as possible when inspiration washes over you.
3. He uses Pro Tools.
   Many do, including me.