Write your melody first

A mate of mine Nathan said he got some advice of a songwriter friend of his that you should write the melody for your song first, before you lay down the chords. It's good advice. The reason, I think, is so that your melody is allowed the creative space to develop and become more adventurous without being unconsciously restricted by the confines of a simple chord structure.

This kinda stuck with me because it articulated the problem I could never quite put my finger on, with the songs of many acoustic guitar-wielding singer-songwriters. And mine too I suspect. Often their chord structures are simple (which is fine of course) but then their melodies are also simple; just a sung version of the chords. It just makes for flat; predictable music. I'm not saying following this method necessarily solves the problem, but it might help shakes things up a bit.

Writing less

For ages I had Wordless chorus from My morning jacket in my head. This is a song that really takes the voice as an instrument seriously and allows it to do its own thing a bit and chart a melody separate from the underlying, simple chord structure and the lyrics themselves. Often when I'm writing songs I'll write way too much -- and also the stuff I write has too much of a literal note for word arrangement. I should write less and allow the voice to do more. Let it stretch out some words and part of words and clip others.