A vocalist wants to work with me on some music if I write the lyrics and melodies. I can mix, produce, etc but I've never done anything with vocals. I feel like anything I write would be dull or cringe.
Do y'all have advice or anything I should try to avoid?
Personally I would get the backing track together, put it on a loop, figure out a melody and then just keep looping and freestyle riffing on that loop until some coherent words come out that sound good. just revise from there until it feels complete
Building on this, once you have a rhythm, you can start to imagine what your lyrical structure and flow is like. Once you know how the words are going to fit in the rhythm, look for words that articulate the thoughts and feelings that went into the melody. Then find words that rhyme with the previous set of words, and string them together with the beat as a guideline for how many syllables you can fit.
Unfortunately, your first few goes are going to be either word salads that don't really make sense or pretty derivative of lyricists and poets you like. But a wiser fella than I once said "Sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something."