This is another unexpected slice of writing advice bestowed upon me by a creative writing professor. His instruction was for us to get into the proper mindset for a specific tone or style by taking someone else’s work and writing it out several times by hand. It sounds odd, and I was quite skeptical of this advice at first—but it works.
Basically, when you take something that’s already been done and—momentarily—make it your own, it changes your perspective of it. The more you go over it in your own handwriting, the easier it becomes to grasp that style.
This specifically came into play for me when I was trying to write a song. As someone who feels more comfortable with prose than with poetry and music, it was hard for me to latch onto the mindset of song-writing. I was hoping to create something slow and ethereal, with a triumphant finish. But at the time, words and melody were failing me. So, I found a song that had all the qualities I wanted, and I wrote the lyrics out by hand. Then, once I was finished, I wrote them out again.
With each copy I made, the song began to work its way into my mind in a more technical sense, instead of just an auditory sense. Soon, I began to link my own phrases together that were similar in melody and style, but were nonetheless my own. And while I’m still no songwriter, this tactic was enough to get me through my dilemma at the time, and gave me something to work with further down the line.