Heck, this is a tougher question than it appears. I have an organizer/3-ring binder thingy I carry around with me everywhere I go. I have 3 sections I call "hooks" "working lyrics" and "lyrics". In the "hooks" section I list any hooks or ideas that come to my head before they escape, many times with a little explanation of the premise of the song. Based on a seminar I attended I created a little template (I don’t always use it) that lists the song title, hook (usually same as title), premise of the song, key words & phrases, and other notes. I also have a second page to this template where I roughly define the story line in song format (VCVCBC, or AABA…etc.). Once I’ve decided I’ve developed an idea to where I want to start writing I’ll transfer these notes to the “working lyrics” section.
In the working lyrics section I will just start writing. Verses & choruses & bridges OH MY!!! Usually at this point melody will help to start shaping the lyrics for me. I will write chord changes in here as well and often make quick recordings of melody lines on my little hand held recorder. I can end up with several pages of chicken scratch in this section. When I feel like I have beat it up enough, then I start a fresh page on the “lyrics” section.
In the “lyrics section, I keep a clean copy of the lyrics. Sometimes hand written, sometimes typed. If I make small adjustments to lyrics I will simple erase a line and replace it. If I do a major rewrite I will start a new page. I will sometimes include chord changes here if I hadn’t already had them worked out.
With rewrites and all, this can end up to a lot of pages for one song. I have all of these pages indexed with a table of contents in each section. When a song is done, I will create a file for it and take all the related pages and any related work tracks I have and file them all together. I know have a nice file documenting dates and progress on songs I have worked on. Never know when that could be handy
So I guess my method is kind of a hodge-podge trying to keep some semblance of order of what comes from my chaotic mind.
. I don’t always follow all of the above steps. Sometimes something just hits and I write it. More often than not I work hard on each song though.
I like Aaron’s idea about the facing pages. I may incorporate that in my little system.
Probably more than you wanted to know!!!