When we first got back into the folk scene, a few years back we went to a club which was run by a couple who did about half of the evening, but had a "bit in the middle" where others could do one song. This may not sound like the ideal format for many singers , but it had the advantage that you really learned the song that you were doing well.

Unfortunately the club folded some time ago, and we got into bad habits of not learning the songs properly and using words. This can be OK for an initial exploration of if a song is likely to work or not, or finding if you're doing it in the right key (you can't always do this just by practising at home), but it doesn't really get you performing the songs as opposed to just singing them.

I write songs as well and have a huge backlog of ones that I haven't memorised the words of.

Hence a resolution for a moratorium on writing until I've learned the words of the ones written already. I do this by using that time when you're laying in bed waiting to fall asleep, and in the morning when you've just woken up to go through words in my head. You can use advancing age either as an excuse, or as exercise to try to keep the brain active. Having said this, I do find that it takes a few performences to get a song right -it has to "mature in the cask " a bit.

I don't object if other people use words though. It's up to them.