Ultimately, success as a professional songwriter comes down to one thing – and it’s not just how talented you are.

Great artists know that holding themselves to exceptionally high standards is what makes and keeps them great. But living creatively also means giving themselves a break from time to time.

The Internet’s most comprehensive – and beginner-proof – guide to how to write a song. Even if you’ve never written one before.

One of the hardest things about being an emerging artist is that it can feel like it’s taking forever to get your shit together. Here’s Daniel Sax’s important video, The Gap, on the topic, incorporating the words of Ira Glass, host of This American Life.

Lots of emerging artists undersell themselves by aspiring to be a version of someone else. Here’s how and why to aspire to be something even better.