Dear Novelists & Novelistas,🏃Welcome to Mile 4 of Novel Marathon – The 2023 Edition!Hope you’re staying warm, wherever you are! This past week it snowed in the northeastern part of LA, where I live – not a regular occurrence! Of course the snow didn’t stay, but it’s still nice to drive my kid to school in the morning and see snow-dusted hills in the distance…This week, we’ll continue to sketch out the plot of our novel, check-in on progress, plus I’ll share a little word count hack for those of you who like to handwrite your initial draft ✍️Here’s the last batch of assignments we worked on: https://novelmarathon.substack.com/p/novel-marathon-mile-3Here are the readings and assignments to work on for the NEXT two weeks:📚Required reading Ch. 7 & 8 in The One Year NovelistCh. 8 in Story Genius🌟Extra credit readingPgs. 16-18 in Refuse To Be Done✏️ Your Assignment👟Three-quarter turnAfter the midpoint of your novel, when your MC doubles down and commits to a cause or fight, what might happen that sends your story in a new direction? Brainstorm five possibilities. And what happens at the end? Is your MC going to “win,” whatever that means in your book? 👟Collect generative epigraphs See a passage in a book that could be an epigraph for the one you’re writing? Following Matt Bell’s suggestions, start collecting these passages in a file – or, even better, paste them after the title page directly into your working draft. If you keep doing this, you will have way more potential quotes than what you’re going to need. In the meantime, let other people’s writing inspire you while you’re trying to figure out what kind of book YOU are writing. 👟 Accountability check-inIt’s time to check in with your group of three friends who will keep you honest. Let them know how it’s going. If you’re behind, no need to make excuses, just focus on what you’re going to do in order to get back on track — for example, you could go back to an earlier episode and pick up where you left off. Remember, long distance races are run and won on your own time! Previous assignments can be found at novelmarathon.substack.com👀 Watch & 🎧Listen Follow Novel Marathon on YouTube or TikTok. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Newsletter 💌 and latest post: https://novelmarathon.substack.comMore info💡: https://www.novelmarathon.comGood luck & happy writing! ✍️