Originally Posted by: Carl King
Showalter is definitely the master of this stuff. His solo material is fantastic, with the way he weaves all the instruments together with vocals.
-Carl.

Thank You for this.

Sorry for the belated response. I would say you have enough knowledge at this point to get everything together. Take it one song at a time. Like I mentioned before, starting with vocals is tricky because the human voice isn't tuned before hand like a guitar or keyboard. You can be singing in a key that may not be too guitar friendly (i.e. Ab, Eb, etc.) But, I would strongly recommend in your case buying a capo (I suggest the KYSER brand.) This will help you get around this roadblock and will make great use of whatever chords you know.

To start, take one song you have already and write out the form. Here is an example song format from the pop song "Time of Your Life" by Green Day.

Intro
(G - G - Cadd2 - D) 2x
Verse
(SAME) 2x
Pre-Chorus
(Emi - D - Cadd2 - G) 2x
Chorus
(Emi - G - Emi - G - Emi - D)
Interlude
(SAME AS INTRO/VERSE) 2x
Verse 2x
Pre-Chorus 2x
Chorus
Solo (contains verse 2x and pre-chorus 2x)
Chorus
Interlude 2x
Outro Chorus

This is a very common structure to most pop songs. In this instance, the intro and verse chord progressions are the same. Than we have a pre-chorus, and a chorus. There are only 3 sections to this song, each being used for different things. This is a great model to use to base your own song on. To not replicate it verbatim, used this model for your song;

Intro (2 chords)
Verse (2 chords)
Pre-Chorus (4 chords)
Chorus (4 chords)

Interlude (2 chords)
Verse (2 chords)
Pre-Chorus (4 chords)
Chorus (4 chords)

Bridge (2 chords)

Chorus (4 chords)
Interlude (2 chords)

Here we have four sections. Again, let's make the chord progression used for the Intro, Interlude, and Verse the same. We than have a pre-chorus, chorus, and bridge. From there, we need to figure out the chords we want to use and take it from there. Hopefully this form will work with what you have already written lyrically.

The thing to know at this point is what key the song is in. This will aid us in knowing what chords to use. Can you post your lyrics or message them to me, along with an audio recording of you singing? This will make this much easier. If not, the best advice I can give is get a capo and first find the register that feels the most comfortable with your voice. From there, try messing with the chords you already know to see what works. Use the formula I posted to help you start and than organize from there.

As far as any creative direction, Carl is right. Try taking the vocal melodies in different directions other than the what the guitar is doing. Simple chords with very little motion can really leave a ton of room for some fun vocal work. Don't get too complicated on either side....yet! Keep it simple, but don't be afraid to experiment with different melodies and ideas.

This is one of those things that is a little tricky over a forum. Best of luck and feel free to post that stuff if you want.