Singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright has begun making tentative steps to writing and recording her third album and says she wants to base it around music she wrote for a New York ballet company.

Speaking to , Wainwright said: "It mostly was inspired by work that I did for an incredible choreographer called Christopher Wheelson and his company Morphosis in New York, with the New York City Ballet that he works with.

"He had asked me to write some music for his ballet company and that first composition, it's called 'Tears of St. Lawrence', is sort of the beginning point of the next record."

Speaking of the piece, Wainwright continued: "I like that image because it's a distant meteor shower that actually took place in September this year, but also it has special meaning for me because the St. Lawrence River is the river that I grew up on in Montreal."

The planned album of original songs comes after a period of interpreting the work of other artists. Her new album, 'Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, A Paris,' is a collection of Edith Piaf songs and earlier this year she appeared in the Royal Ballet's production of Kurt Weill and Bertholt Brecht's 1933 ballet, 'The Seven Deadly Sins.'

"It's a lazy tactic that I have," she said of the performing material beyond her own songbook. "I just hope and pray that by singing these great other artists that somehow I will be graced with their talent when it comes to writing my own songs."