Tip #9: Collaborate

Continuing our series of tips for writing quickly.

If you're racing to meet this year's FAWM challenge (writing 14-1/2 songs by February 29), the single easiest way to get there faster is to collaborate with other writers. If two or three of you work together on a song, that song provides each of you a full credit towards your FAWM quota.

It's so much faster, it might even feel like cheating. But it's not cheating; it's a way of getting the job done.

In a real-world situation where you have a recording session scheduled and you need to write an album's worth of songs quickly, pulling in collaborators is the rational thing to do. No one will deduct any points if you're not the sole songwriter on your album — but they sure will hold it against you if you give them an album of songs that aren't up to snuff.

Of course, collaboration has other advantages besides getting work done faster. You also get the unique results of two creative minds working together.