The RPM Challenge begins on February 1 — just a few days off — and all over the web, musicians will work to produce an entire album in just one month. This is the music version of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and inpsires the same passion and creativity. I've had numerous writing students who participated in NaNoWriMo and used it as a way to surgically burn away their self-doubt, destructive reliance on "inspiration," and cherished illusions about the process of writing, acquiring in a mere month the kind of discipline that often takes writers many hard years to arrive at.
The rules of RPM Challenge are simple: write and record 10 songs, or 35 minutes' worth of material, in the 29 days of February, using anything and anyone you can shanghai into your project. Last year, over 850 records emerged from the competition. The RPM site will connect you with other challengers and let you offer support to one another as you go.
This is the challenge: record an album in 29 days, just because you can.That's 10 songs or 35 minutes of original material recorded during the month of February. Go ahead… put it to tape.
Don't wait for inspiration – taking action puts you in a position to get inspired. You'll stumble across ideas you would have never come up with otherwise, and maybe only because you were trying to meet a day's quota of (song)writing. Show up and get something done, and invest in yourself and each other.
Anyone can come up with an excuse to say "no," so don't.
(via /.)
