Songwriting 202

Despite all the external things and the unpredictable circumstances taking place around me, one thing is always constant...I love to write songs and to figure out how to keep writing better ones. It's a mysterious process, and I never know when the urge or impulse to write a song will strike. It's easier on me when it happens at home, because then I can grab a notepad and start scribbling things down. I have alot of half-written songs right now; I need to spend time finishing them. And I can't always tell the potential of a new song idea; it can seem like a wonderful, inspired idea at first, then it begins to lose steam later. But I can feel when something is really at a higher level. I am working on a new song now which really moves me and seems to have a unique emotional power to it. It's the kind of song I can hardly wait to do live, and I'll want to record it on my second CD, the one tentatively called "Our Mother's Place." What is it, the chord progression? The way the melody grabs me in these early stages of composing? The way I hope people will respond to it if I do my job? What is it that makes a song like this more potentially memorable and artistically potent than others? I don't know, but it's the mystery of this that keeps me hooked, and keeps me doing it...