I'm getting back into writing songs after a pretty long hiatus and I'm really interested in how others approach their music. In particular, this is the first time I am writing with another artist/band and trying to figure out how to turn the raw material (jam sesh) into a finished tune.

I'm also writing a bunch of folk songs again. Chords and melodies always come pretty easily, but I've always struggled with lyrics. Lately I've been trying to "learn to love the question" rather than search for an answer (I stole this from Rilke's Letters To A Young Poet). Instead of figuring what a song is about, I come up with a question and write lyrics about the question, leaving it mostly unanswered. The questions are cryptic and open ended but I've found they offer a lot of inspiration.

Anyway tldr - how do you write your tunes?

Collaborative songwriting is tricky, and different for everyone. The way my band does it, is that there is a 'lead songwriter' for every song. They come up with the core (chords, layout, lyrics mostly), then everyone else makes changes to that. Most of the time, it's simply adding one's own part to the song, and sometimes a group member will request a change to the core. The lead songwriter gets final say on whether or not each change fits into their vision of the song. In practice, we don't think of it like that exactly (with the terms and what not), but it happens naturally.