[The Bard Rocks]

I just answered this elsewhere, but here is the gist of it:

The melodies come when noodling. When I like something that has discovered me, I start playing it, trying to refine what I hear (and trying to play it the same way twice when I do something I like). Then I think of what kind of song it sounds like to me. (If any - I write as many instrumentals.) Once that is identified, the initial words come pretty fast. Then comes a long period of refining them. Once it is captured in notation, I am less likely to mess with it.