Chelsea Dehner Guest Post: Reflection on the January Challenge

Chelsea Dehner: Song A Day Challenge 2026

In January 2020, Sarah started doing this “Song A Day Challenge” and I so badly wanted to be a part of it, but I had never written a song before. I thought that writing a song was for someone that was born with this talent and had been doing it their whole life! Finally, that month, I was able to actually write my first song! Ever since, I’ve looked forward to this January Challenge and it’s been responsible for a majority of the songs I’ve written and for pulling me out of my post holiday/dead of winter blues.

My second son was born on December 5th, 2025, so I spent a lot of January holding my baby. Despite this added challenge, I somehow managed to make time each day to create. I taught myself to be OK with whatever came out as my song for that day.  It was the first time that I mostly made all of my melodies without the use of any instruments since I didn’t have the use of my hands and it was actually really fun! Without an instrument, I wasn’t able to cling to my usual patterns and came up with different chord progressions than my norm. 

What did my songs look like this year? 

Some days were fragments of ideas while others were a full song. Some days were lyrics only, some days were melody only with nonsense lyrics, some days were just a chorus, and one was l a quote that I want to one day turn into a song. Other days I was able to have a full VCVCBC fully realized song with lyrics, melody, and chords. 

What about collaboration? 

I am afraid of collaborating due to imposter syndrome 🙈 BUT I tried to get creative in how I could collaborate this time. In one song, I used a text from my friend as the chorus and wrote the whole song around it. In another, I used a concept from a friend of something she was struggling with and thought would make a good song.  I  collaborated with my husband by making a madlibs style song and singing over him playing random chords on guitar. My favorite collaboration this month was with Sarah. We both sent each other lyrics to a song we had written but without letting the other hear our version or know the chords. Then we had to make our version with those lyrics and send them to each other. I loved the way she interpreted my lyrics that were about my dog getting out of the yard and made them sound beautiful and poetic. My version was a silly country “Before He Cheats” style song. It was so interesting to see how we both used our musicianship differently and then what similarities we had. Also, I have never had someone write music to my lyrics before or written music for someone else’s lyrics. These examples aren’t exactly collaborating in the room together but still a cool way to get motivated and work with friends. 

What for?

It felt really good to have shown up for myself for an entire month in one way or another to create. Once February hit, I really missed the challenge. My pattern the last few years has been to really show up in January for songwriting but then only write one or two more songs for the rest of the year.  Why January? The community, the need for light in the darkness of winter, the hope that I’ll turn these songs into an album or EP one day, the excitement of collaborating with others, the adrenaline rush of having to make it no matter what each day, the joy I have in sharing each day’s song with my husband or other close family and friends, the way that this challenge serves as a time capsule for what’s going on that year, the ability to look back at videos and see how little my first son was and see our dog, the list goes on and on! 

I held myself accountable because I knew that I’d be opening the email each morning and I wanted to make sure that each time I read the new email, that I’d have written a song the day before. Some days I’d dread writing my song because I didn’t feel like I had an original idea but then I’d just force myself to sing something or go with whatever “lame” idea I had. Not every “lame” idea became a hit in my mind but some of them did turn out to be my favorites. 

Favorites?

My favorite songs that I made this month were a song called “Beautiful Besties“ which give me Sara Bareilles pop dance vibes and then my other favorite was a Honky Tonk/Dolly Parton vibes song about being born in the 1900s.

What now?

I told myself that this month I should pick a couple of the songs that I made and work on crafting them but for whatever reason… That makes my brain shut down, but I’m going to persevere or… I’m not and it’ll all be OK :-) maybe I will just keep coming up with ideas and that will be enough :-) I’m hoping I can use the lessons I learned in January to fuel my creativity in the future without judgment but we shall see. No matter what, I feel grateful for this challenge and I’m so happy that I do it! Each year, I learn more about myself and grow as a songwriter and human.