"We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is
nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts."

A. W. Tozer

Bruce Springsteen on his songwriting process:

It would be like having a shapeless piece of clay or something in front of you, and you start to run your fingers over it. You're just sitting there with the clay, you don't have an idea of what that clay is going to be yet, you just start running your fingers over the clay. And as you're running your fingers over the clay, your emotions, who you are, the issues that are on your mind, the sounds you may want to hear, the shapes you may want to hear, the shapes you may what to see, your relationship to the world itself begins to define itself in the images, music and lyrics that are just kind of flowing out of you.

Then there's a point where also your studied craft comes into play. In other words, okay, you've plummeted a certain amount: you've got your basic story, you've plummeted into some of your unconscious, and you've come up with something that feels like life. It feels like it has some breath and some blood in it. But now you've got to call on your craft to refine it, to write well, to make good choruses, or verses. And so your craft comes in, but you're still listening. The main thing is what you're doing if you have your clay in front of you: you're seeing all the time. What is assisting you in moving forward? Your eyes -- you’re seeing, you’re seeing. If you're a musician, what is assisting you in moving forward with a song? Your ears. Every time you strum the chord, you're listening. What is the song telling you? What is the character telling you about his fate? And if you listen hard enough and if you yourself are a seeker -- in other words, your motivation is that you are in search of whatever it is you might want to call it, truth, experience, reflection of the world as it is -- you want to sing your blues away, you want to sing about your gal, your friends your town, your country, your day at the beach, what ever it feels like, alright. These things come forth and begin to sort of give shape and refinement to your thoughts and emotions.