September 2026 Book Recommendation

Okay, first, let me get this out of the way. Although my September book recommendation is called How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy, it’s not a book about songwriting, it’s a book about the creative process.

A book that will help you get pass what tends to get in the way of a lot of writers —overthinking.

Jeff Tweedy is an American musician, songwriter, author and record producer, but in this book he’s a teacher with one important lesson: How to create with freedom and joy.

With a premise like that, I couldn’t resist.

Here are three takeaways:

1) Lower the stakes

The title gives away the secret: How to write ONE song.

Not a great song, or a good song, just one simple song.

Tweedy helps take the pressure off (worrying whether the work is good or bad, publishable or not) and gets you to the first draft.

This is where many writers stumble, they think about unnecessary things or look too far ahead.

Don’t focus on a career or the next chapter —focus on that one scene, one paragraph, or even one sentence.

Creating something from nothing is not only fun, it’s a powerful place to be.

2) Don’t confuse ‘being’ with ‘doing’

“Being something isn’t real in the same way that doing something can be real.”

This cuts into the heart of the whole book. Tweedy doesn’t want you to BE a ‘songwriter’ he wants you to WRITE a song.

It’s something I’ve repeated more than once, the verb (writing) is more important than the noun (writer). It’s dangerous to focus on what you want to BE rather than what you want to DO. Your days are made up of choices, of tiny actions: Do you write that chapter? That scene?

Or do you let those distracting thoughts of what a ‘true writer’ is get in your way?

As Ray Bradbury said, “Don’t think!”

3) Short circuit your critical voice

Word ladders, list exercises, free-association, Tweedy offers these and a lot of other exercises to help people create word/imagery combinations they’d never consider while trying to be brilliant.

These deceptively simple exercises help remove the original meaning of words and generate new ones.

For example, by drafting 10 adjectives to describe outer space ( such as circular, cold, silent) and pairing them with ten random nouns ( such as summer, kiss, lawn) Tweedy came up with pairings like:

a circular summer

a cold kiss

a silent lawn

In the book he took all ten pairings and crafted a poem (not a perfect one, not a great one, just a poem) in fifteen minutes. Reviewing his work he found some imagery he’d been looking for that he could put into a song he’d been working on.

I’d say that’s a productive fifteen minutes. Fiction writers can do the same. Poems are great, but also consider generating scenes from random object/ setting/ emotion combinations or write dialogue that starts from something you read on the back of a food package.

Here are two examples I got from items in my cupboard:

Let’s date (found on the back of a bag of date sugar)

Talk about a powerhouse! (found on the back of a packet of chia seeds)

There’s no right or wrong. You pass if you try, you fail if you don’t. It’s that simple.

How to Write One Song wants to remind you that you’re smarter and more creative than you think. Give yourself the chance to prove it.

Get your copy – Retailer link Bookshop.org

Get your copy – Public library link https://search.worldcat.org/