SONGWRITING THOUGHTS(to answer bob's diary jot):

1)first of all, lemme get off my chest that if you want, i can help you songwrite during the summer... i've got a few other sideprojects i wanted to do myself, and wanted to change my OLD website to exclusively music stuff... i mean, the songwriting process is hard with a group of ppl, even harder going at it solo, and even harder when you are going solo WITHOUT editing software... i fall in the middle, as i go at it solo, but have some laptop technology to back me up in thinking, drumloops, etc... fun, fun...

2)i'll admit my style tends to like guitar talent more or less greater than the vocals... so i'll admit straight off that i concentrate more on guitar than vocals, although that 1st recorded piece i did wasn't exactly van halen material...

3)but technically, here's what works for me:
-write out a rough poem of what i wanna say
-play my guitar to it, using simple stuff, ie power chords, trying to sing/shout/scream/etc with it
-edit either lyrics or guitar, rinse and repeat...
-when i'm finally satisified with the skeleton of the music, then i try to get more elaborate, sticking in riffs and stuff like that in places of chords...
usually, you can't just finish your poem, and THEN try to work on your guitar... for me, that messes it completely up... i find you usually need to work on tiny parts together at one time...
when you're finally done with the skeleton of it, feel free to go nuts... riffs, fillers, pickings, whatever, it's all open here... for me though, i find that if i'm adding drumloops for recording purposes, that it's best to do it RIGHT after this... that way, you can play it while you're recording your guitar/vocals to keep them in line of tempo...

4)drumloop software...
well, if you're interested, i really LOVE this application:
HammerHead Rhythm Station
easily one of the best software things for creating drumloops on your cpu... it's good... just try it... you can even import other sound schemes to work w/it... like tom-toms, or turntabling sounds... really great for helping out your lil songwriting projects... just remember your sheet music knowledge :)

5)recording software...
um, sorry can't help you there, as far as freeware goes :) i use cakewalk music creator 2K3(it's really good), but i can't find anything freeware on downloads.com that you might be able to use... you can use bon wav2mp3 converter to convert wav files to mp3 files, but the wav recording thing on most win cpus only goes about 1 min max... you'll need to do some searching...

6)recording equipment...
here's how it works for me...
take a look at my guitar setup at the top... now imagine a third 1/4" cable coming out the output part of the amp, coming into a 1/4" to 1/8" mono(or was it stereo? anyways i use mono) adaptor, which plugs into the recording slot of your cpu... if you've got a mic, and a "Y" cable, you can actually record vocals AND guitar at the same time... although for me the adaptor part really helps make the guitar sound a lot more crisp... so you won't have to record the guitar in front of a mic and pick up all sorts of other stuff... and i usually have the drumloop software looping the clip, or playing what i want while i'm going, so it's easy to keep tempo... btw you can get the adaptor @radioshack...

btw, on a more personal note, songwriting has me admiring the whole songwriting process too... granted, sometimes i just wanna get pissed at the crud the media sometimes cranks out(how in the world can you admire a person who has good looks and ONLY uses 3 chords+lyrics about effing everyone?), but more or less, i've learned to admire almost everyone in the songwriting process... guitarists, vocalists, drummers, bassists, and especially the studios+their editing stuff(that's why it always sounds so crisp... they've balanced everything on the tracks to make it perfect, whereas i'm still clipping my guitar tracks or playing them too soft to my taste... or cringing at my own voice)... i bet if i actually made my stuff my professional career, that i'd admire every more ppl in the process(like the ppl who get the word out on the streets or distribute the music, as well as the fans who actually take the time and money to buy the music)