I never learnt from anyone else ... me, I just made up songs from as early as I can remember and have made them more structured as I've grown older (that's called "crafting", I believe).

My biggest tip to aspiring writers is to follow your own instinct. If you're finding it difficult, that's because when you break it all down into "how to" chunks, it IS difficult. I've been attempting to teach the basics to children at a local primary school - I have small groups of willing, fairly bright kids for an afternoon a week in half term blocks, and some of the time I find myself wanting to hit my head against something solid because it's so tricky explaining why some lines work and some lines just don't. And how to get your head into gear for fitting words to melody lines and then making them (a) make sense and (b) rhyme.

But my experience is that when a song is desperate to be written, it virtually writes itself. I tend to trust those songs more than the ones I struggle with (maybe wrongly).

I'm sure Tom and Yorgos have explained it all brilliantly in their tips ....I did write mine down once as an article for a magazine, so maybe I should upload that to my website (if I can find it again!).