I write verses, usually, not tunes so much-- I extend songs for worship that aren't long enough.

Here's how I do it, and I usually get a pretty good word/syllable/pitch match.

Sitting at my computer I run the song I want to work on, over and over, while I open up other windows including a word-processor. I might look it up as-written on a lyrics site, incl Mudcat thread research. I just let the song run and run while I'm doing all this, soaking up the sound and feel of the tune and the feel of any existing lyric approaches others have taken.

When I am done doing this research, and getting my WP ready, I pray and/or ask myself for some more words. What needs to be said? It comes, and I grab it into the WP as the tune still continues to run.

I can do a similar process if I am driving, by singing the song as known and then letting the new verses come, but unless I record it or write it down the best of it is usually lost.

Later, I edit the text I have created to make the syllables match the pitches even better, and I might find new verses coming to me then, too. At this point it's all just "creation" mode..... catching and smoothing whatever comes.

Still later I decide which verses to use and how to order them. If it's for our band they become set in stone-- published to our songbooks.

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Tunes, when they come, usually come when driving or riding shotgun. There is a balance of attention between the music mind and the seeing mind that seems to open up the creativity channel. The basic tune comes and I'm whistling it. I repeat it over and over and allow my mind to folk-process it into a "final" form." At that point, my mind also starts suggesting either a bridge, a chorus, or some variations. I add them, hoping not to lose the "verse" as I do them.... Sometimes the mind suggests harmonies and other instruments' parts. I might whistle these, too, accompanying in whistling the main tune my mind is hearing.

Again, unless I record all of it, I will probably lose the best of it.

Later I try to find time to either arrange it with chords or, better, catch the notation using software- in case I forget how it goes. But I have a pretty good tune-memory, once I have "performed" it, and from that point I can usually recall the whole tune just from hearing the chord pattern.

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Sometimes it's words first, tune later. Sometimes it's tune first. Sometimes I can hear someone else's tune and get a whole lyric for it. Sometimes I can ghost-write a lyric from another writer I know well, from scratch, or add verses in their "voice." With the hymns it's very easy to ghost-write in the idiom of the original.

~Susan