I get e-mail every week from somebody in Ohio or Oklahoma or Ontario asking how you "make it" as a songwriter. I haven't made it. But I've been here eight years and I'm still here, which is more than most, and here's what I know.

1. The title is the hook, and the hook is the song. If you can't say what your song is about in the title, you don't know yet. Write the title first. Then write toward it.

2. Nashville is a co-writing town. I fought this for two years because I thought my songs were my babies. Then I wrote with Dwight and we finished more in one Tuesday night than I had all spring. Two heads, one song. Find somebody whose weak spots are your strong ones.

3. Songs aren't written, they're rewritten. My first draft of "The Good China" had five verses and a talking part. A talking part! Cut what the song doesn't need, even if it's your favorite line. Especially if it's your favorite line.

4. Keep your day job. I mean it. Hungry writers write scared, and scared songs all sound the same. I'd rather clean teeth and write what I want. Besides, you'd be amazed what people will tell you with their mouths open.

5. Don't mail your tapes to publishers you don't know. Most of them won't open anything they didn't ask for, and it comes back to you marked RETURN TO SENDER. You get in by meeting people, and you meet people by showing up.

6. Show up. Go to the writers' nights. Go to the workshops. I joined NSAI my first year and the workshops taught me more than I want to admit. Sit in the back, listen, clap for everybody, and buy something even if it's just iced tea.

7. A good guitar-and-vocal work tape is enough to start. You don't need a full band and a fiddle player to pitch a song to your publisher. You need the song sung clear and in tune so people can hear the words. Spend the money later, when somebody asks for it.

8. Sign up with a performing rights society (BMI, ASCAP or SESAC) once you've got songs getting played or recorded. That's how writers get paid when their songs are on the radio. Ask around, they're all a little different, and nobody picks the same one for the same reason.

9. Protect your work. Put your name and the date on every lyric sheet, keep your notebooks, and for the ones that matter, register them with the U.S. Copyright Office. Mailing a song to yourself in a sealed envelope is not worth the stamp, whatever your cousin says.

10. Be nice to everybody. The girl answering phones at the publishing company this year is running the place in five. I've watched it happen three times.

And one more, for free: write what you know, then write what you're afraid of. That's where the good ones live.

— Carol Ann