I've become something of an amateur songwriter in my spare time. I like to sing as well but I know my voice isn't strong enough to be an actual singer. But I think some of my songs are pretty good. I need advice on what to do. Should I just keep it to myself as something that pleases me in my sparetime or should I attempt to make something of it? I'm aware that they could be plagiarised if I send them off to someone or also aware that they may well not be good for commercial use. But I think it would be quite fun to be a professional songwriter or someone in the music industry. What does everyone think?

my recommendation would be to team up with somebody/band who like your lyrics in order to get them out to the public. once you have a track record of writing songs people like, then you can offer that to other people, but being a bedroom poet doesn't get you anywhere.

I recently wrote some lyrics which I thought were good, but didn't have a band to record them and I couldn't be arsed to make up a pretend band by playing all the parts myself on an old tascam 4 track. I used to make demo tapes that way, but didn't have the ambition to send them off, just played them to friends. it was different music to that which my band played and I didn't like to ask them to get together just for my material. Hence why I recommend you learn from my mistake and get the music out there. there was no youtube in those days, so it must be easier than it was.

I write lyrics...with vague melodies...is that being a songwriter?

We should have a songwriter's/budding musicians club on DS...I notice the odd post regarding this pops up in advice and GD every now and again.