The Whole Story

Hello Internet friend! My name's David. Quick story time of how I became a songwriter, if you care to join me in reminiscing. The short of it is, I'm a songwriter today.

So, I threw the unmarked burned disc into my dad's old 5-disc CD-changer that sounded like it was breaking whenever it switched CDs, and awaited my fate. The CD was a 1-to-1 copy of The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner (1999) by Ben Folds. Track 1: Narcolepsy.

A 90-second intro that sounded like someone was trying to destroy the piano they were playing, then the lyrics began:

This is a condensed version of the WriteHook app. WAY more features in the real deal.

Seemingly unprolific, but you must understand. The average 13-year-old southern white boy in the year 2005 at this point would have heard church songs, angsty country ladies from Mom, and Dad Rock from, well, you guessed it. I was used to all the themes you hear time and time again: God, Love, Money, Loss, Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll. And now... a Kermit-like piano man singing a playful song about a chronic disorder? Is that even legal? It rocked my world. I pulled out a toy keyboard I'd had since I was 10.

As an extremely ADD kid, and a late bloomer in the maturity department, I can tell you that school was hard. I said everything that came to mind to anyone who would listen, and couldn't keep my hands to myself. Ever wondered why you've never read anyone's recount of school where they were the bully, and not the bullied? Well here's your first. It was a truly lonely experience, and I'm incredibly lucky to have had family and teachers in my life who had patience with me, built up my self-esteem, and believed I had musical gifts long before the day I got that CD. I say all this to make a single point - being a lonely bored kid + Ben Folds giving me the permission I felt I needed = Songwriting became everything. I wrote songs as therapy, as creative exercises, to impress girls, and to perform at school talent shows, where everyone put aside me being a hot mess and genuinely congratulated me on a great performance. For one day a year, I was the coolest kid in school.

I'll speed up the story. I went to college and got a Music Education degree, played in a couple of bands, taught music for years, got another Music Education degree, moved to NYC, taught some more, left teaching, and became a corporate hack / tech bro (and apparently website builder?).

During all of that living, I also wrote hundreds of songs. 21 years of being a quiet observer, trying to capture an essence, give it a genuine emotion, and see it through musically. I've poured over videos of my favorite songwriters and how they work, read all the writer's block articles online, and used and paid for every songwriting tool under the sun. Eventually, I had the idea to make a songwriting tool myself - something everyone had access to that could make them the best songwriting version of themselves.

WriteHook was built by me, a songwriter who wanted a tool that helps me write songs - not a tool that writes songs for me. A way to have lyrics, chords, rhymes, and a drum machine all in one place without juggling a dozen browser tabs or paying for a subscription to something that does most of it halfway. It grew into something worth sharing.

AI lyric generators are everywhere. WriteHook is a place where that's not an option by design. The tool helps you find the right word, hear how a chord sounds, and stay organized. It doesn't suggest what to write next. And that's not an anti-technology stance. It's just a belief that songwriting is about expressing something specific to you, and that tools should support that process rather than shortcut it. What you write in WriteHook is yours, in every meaningful sense.

I also wanted this to be free. Not "free to try" or "free with limits" - free. Every feature is available to everyone, always. There are no ads. There's an optional supporter contribution for people who want to help keep it running, but it unlocks nothing extra. The tool is complete as-is.

That's the plan going forward, too. Sustainable through supporters, not through locking features or serving ads. All I ask is that if this tool plays well for you, to give me a tip. Cheers!

The baking analogy, your inner superego, and practical advice from a guy who writes a lot of songs.