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February Album Writing Month
My experience of taking part in February Album
Writing Month (FAWM)
I became aware towards the end of January of
something called February Album Writing Month.
It’s arranged through a website called
www.fawm.org, and I thought that I would check it
out. I’m glad I did.
What is February Album Writing Month?
FAWM is available to anyone, whether you are a
musician or a lyric writer. All you have to do to join
is to go to the website and register. There are no costs, overboard with polishing their song or lyrics ideas.
although you can make a donation to the site if you
wish.
The idea is to encourage people with an interest in
music to boost their productivity by aiming to write
at least 14 songs/lyrics during the month of February.
Participants post their songs on the site and others
then are free to offer comments.
How did I do with achieving my target?
I normally set myself a target of writing at least 6
new lyrics every month, so the prospect of aiming for there were hundreds of other talented musicians and
14 was both daunting and exciting. I wasn’t sure if I
could achieve it, especially given that the start of the
year has been very busy with family, work, and other
writing commitments.
I decided to give it a go and reckoned that, even if
I fell short of 14, it would probably motivate me to
achieve more than I would otherwise have done. I
made a strong start, adding 4 lyrics within the first
week. One of them was a case of finishing a lyric I
had started previously but the other 3 were brand
new.
Weeks 2 and 3 saw me hit a wall though with only
2 additional lyrics added, and it looked increasingly
unlikely that I would hit my quota. However, seeing
others posting about how they’d succeeded, plus the
existence of the hard deadline, helped me to refocus
my efforts. I added a few more lyrics and, as the
remaining total started to come down, I became
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February Album Writing Month
February Album Writing Month
more confident and determined to get over the line.
By adding 6 in the last week (4 of which were in the
last 2 days), I finally hit my goal of 14 new lyrics,
which was a great feeling. I actually ended up with
one more that I didn’t post because I was holding it
back for a separate lyric writing contest. So I’m really
pleased with the quantity of lyrics that I was able to
complete!
I was also pretty pleased with the quality of the
lyrics I created. Site participants are told that it’s ok
to publish rough drafts, and encouraged not to go
So some of the items I uploaded will probably need
some subsequent editing, but that is pretty par for the
course for any songwriter.
What was my overall experience of FAWM?
I probably have a lot to learn about how to get the
most value out of the site. I had heard about FAWM
through a lyric writing contact on another
songwriting website that I participate in, and I signed
up to follow their activity, which they reciprocated.
I did likewise with a handful of other Fawmers but
lyric writers on the site and I probably only scratched
the surface of starting to interact with them.
I saw that some lyric writers and musicians have
teamed up on the site to collaborate on songs, and
that feels like an exciting opportunity to explore
in future years. And I liked how they had a weekly
theme for people to write songs about. This year’s
weekly themes were entitled ‘Wanderlust’, ‘Transform
a nursery rhyme or folk tune’, ‘Inanimate object’, and
‘Finishing something’, and they inspired 3 of the new
lyrics that I produced.
From what I saw on the site’s forums there is a nice
positive supportive ethos on the site but I struggled
to find the time to interact more and probably didn’t
get the full value out of the site that I could have
done. I didn’t get a huge number of comments on the
lyrics that I posted, and most that I did get were from
the people that I had followed. So if you’re looking
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