“The shortest of short story-writing” is how Ben Watt describes the process of songwriting, as he prepares to return to the Small Wonder Festival.

Watt, who created the best-selling albums Eden, Love Not Money, Idlewild and Walking Wounded with Tracey Thorn as Everything But The Girl in the 1980s and 1990s, is also a published writer.

In 1997 he penned the memoir Patient, about battling the life-changing autoimmune disease Churg-Strauss syndrome.

It was while promoting this book that he came to Brighton on invitation from Diana Reich, who is now the artistic director of Charleston’s short story festival Small Wonder.

She asked him to hold a songwriting workshop as part of last year’s event.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” admits Watt.

“I was pleasantly surprised by the cross-section of people who came along.”

For the workshops Watt is drawing from his own experiences as a songwriter, producer and head of two independent labels, Buzzin’ Fly and Strange Feeling. “When I do the workshop, I’m going to look at different ways of tackling songwriting problems,” he says.

“I’ve asked people to come along with a great title they have never been able to write a song for, or a great opening line they have never been able to finish.”

When it comes to songwriting, Watt and Thorn, who married in 2009, write in different ways.

“I don’t think we have ever collaborated on a lyric,” says Watt. “Tracey waits until the idea comes to her fully formed – although she can never quite tell when that moment will be. She will just sit down and write it within minutes, which I’m very jealous of.

“I tend to have a line or idea or opening and I’m never quite sure what I’m going to say until the end. Sometimes it goes another way I didn’t expect.

“I was speaking to Michael Stipe [of REM] who said he found it hard to write until the band was playing loudly in front of him in a rehearsal room. That’s when he would get his notebooks out and weave something out of the air.”

The biggest problem with songwriting was the lack of room to explore an idea.

“Pop music brings its own pressures and difficulties,” he says. “You’re looking for an obvious front door on to the song, an access point for the listener, but at the same time you’re trying to introduce a freshness or make it stand out.

“Someone once said, ‘Poems are made of poems,’ and you could say the same thing as a songwriter; you are very aware of other songs that have been written.

“One of the hardest things is to keep reminding yourself that the drive to be great and different shouldn’t drive out the good. There will always be a need for good work; good songs and good books.

“Sometimes you can beat yourself up by trying to be great – it is such an achievement to be good!”

He believes it is becoming harder for bands to establish a career.

“It’s never been easier to get on the first rung of the ladder,” he says. “But now the gap between the first rung and the second has never been wider. That’s why we are seeing an upsurge of workshops, master classes, conferences and panels, because a lot of people are finding it harder to get further.”

This year he made the decision to slow down his work on Buzzin’ Fly to focus on his own creativity.

“I played quite extensively on Tracey’s solo record because she asked me to,” he says.

“It was something I hadn’t done for ages, picking up a guitar or sitting at a piano and playing.

“It’s easy to start a label these days, and get involved in lots of social networking, but before you know it another day has gone by when you haven’t written or created anything.

“Last year it struck me whether it was making me any happier, and whether I would prefer to be squirreled away in a room writing for writing’s sake.”

He is now 75,000 words through a projected 90,000-word novel based on the life of his father, a jazz musician, and his actress mother.

“They stuck together through thick and thin,” he remembers.

“They had a tempestuous life. I was the only child of their second marriage. They had both divorced and remarried, which made for quite an interesting upbringing.

“My dad died six years ago and I started to write his story earlier this year. My mum was a good archivist, keeping quite a lot of stuff, although she is now in a care home with dementia – she’s not the person she was.

“I still see her a lot. I think she would be pleased that I’m writing this book about them.”

  • Ben Watt will be at Tilton House, Firle, on Saturday, September 29. The event runs from 9.30am until 5pm and tickets are £90/£80. Call 01323 811626 for details.
  • For more on this year’s Small Wonder Festival at Charleston, which also features Joseph O’Connor, BBC arts editor Will Gompertz, Margaret Drabble and a celebration of Angela Carter, visit www.charleston.org.uk/smallwonder.