Great Songwriters Are Great SongReaders.

Read.
You can't be a great writer without reading. It doesn't have to be an 800 page Hemingway. It can be a 50 word review of a movie, a page of the newspaper, a list of book titles, a do-it-yourself handyman manual, half a page of Hamlet.
Listen.
You can't be a great singer without listening. The Band, Ke$ha, Woody Guthrie, Brandi Carlisle, Patti Smith, Rap, Americana, blues. Experiment: go on a genre binge and see how it effects your music!
Watch.
You can't be a great performer without watching. Learn from Springsteen how to lead a band, learn from The Black Keys how to throw yourself all the way into your show, learn from Dylan how to keep'm guessing.

Can you imagine a cook who didn't like to taste all kinds of foods? Would you want a meal made by someone that only liked to eat the same things every day?
Since the subjects of songs tend to be pretty basic: love..hate...love...loss...it is up to the writer to express those emotional activities in a fresh way. A way that entertains and seduces and educates.

A word or 3 about performing: be present from start to finish. Support every syllable with feeling. Whenever I am thinking (on stage) "I hope the audience is liking this" I am losing them. I can feel it. So can they. But when I forget to think and just lose myself in the music, I look up and the whole room and I are one. Why? Because I wasn't acting. I was exposing my truth.

So, eat words and listen to the sky and sing the driveway and lose yourself in the song of life.
It is then that you will have something to offer and an audience to offer it to.

Writing to the "Tempo Of The World"

The speed of life or "tempo" in your bedroom or studio is usally very different than the tempo outside. Which is usally why so many singer-songwriters play their songs onstage to a sometimes indifferent or restless audience.
It's not a bad idea to go outside for a bit and acclamate yourself to other people, cars, trees, chatter and the energy in general. Then come back in and write. It's easy to slump into the same ol' groove/tempo when you sit in the same spot and strum the same strum. Just go to any open mic night and you'll hear it almost all night.This is why we hear a seemingly non-stop conveyer belt of ballads. The truth is, uptempo's get more reaction from the audience, the music business and usually your pocket. Ballads when they are good are life-changing. But too many can be life-numbing.

Splash some cold water on your talent and go get'm!