The "23 in '13" Challenge

Ah, writing lulls. We all get them, and sometimes, it takes a hammer to break through them. A structured, regularly scheduled hammer. What am I talking about? I stumbled across the "23 in '13" Challenge on the Sci-Fi Songs blog, and it struck a big fat 9th chord with me (that's the Mother of All Funk Chords, in case you're wondering). My production of new pieces was way down in the past year, and i was manly working on previously written pieces. There were circumstances in 2012 that led to that, but still...it sort of sucked.

The 23 in '13 made me think back to a few years ago, when I was doing a project I called "Songs from the Dumpster". Simply said, I was writing one song or piece a week and posting it (the Blog is dead, but the songs are still up). It did amazing things for my creativity and output, and I wrote some songs that I still like to this day (and some of those songs are ones that I spent part of last year fixing up and making better). Yeah, some of them are rough. Way rough. But they were DONE, and that did wonders.

Some people need a schedule to get things done. I'll admit to being one of those people. A set "done time" date forces a song to be completed, no matter what, and removes the "death by revision" process. There's a quote about songs...that they're not finished, they're abandoned. It can be hard to get past the "oh, just one more thing" feeling...and in the process, never actually do anything.

Which brings me to the 23 in '13 challenge. It's a schedule to complete 23 new pieces (one every two weeks) in 2012. Two weeks is a decent amount of time...it allows for some wiggle room, but keeps the creative gears working. It's also not as tight of a schedule as one a week. That project got a bit harried for me...and there were a few Saturdays where I was muttering to myself all day, because I was stuck for lyrics.

So, I'm a little late (ack! already one track behind!), but I'm up for the "23 in 13 challenge. Are you?