Goals & Obstacles... plus more updates

What are yours for our 50 days?

With 70 writers already registered for our live webinar and 300 more following along on SubStack (and we’ve still got a month to go), I’d love to hear everyone’s goals for our 50-day challenge as well as the obstacles you hope won’t get in your way. For me, I’m making final revisions on a novel after some big changes, and I hope to have 2/3rds of the book revised by the challenge’s end. My obstacles? Travel, sleepiness (why am I waking up so early?), my own self-doubts and perfectionism, and worries over my sister’s health. How about yours?

And more updates, including some new writers joining us to offer their insight: David Abrams, Maurice Ruffin, Meta Wagner, and Hank Phillippi Ryan. See the schedule below:

WEEK 1: GOAL SETTING & GENERATING METHODS (OCTOBER 4-10)

October 4: Intro & Setting Goals (w Kelly Ford, Real Bad Things)

October 5: Pantsers (w writer Lissa Franz & Louise Berliner, Texas Guinan: Queen of the Nightclubs)

October 6: Plotters (w Virginia Pye, Shelf Life of Happiness & Anjali Mitter Duva, Faint Promise of Rain)

October 7: Something In-Between (w Dawn Tripp, Georgia & Jane Roper, The Society of Shame)

October 8: Burrowing (w Jessica Keener, Strangers in Budapest & Grace Talusan, The Body Papers)

October 9: How to Stay in the Chair (w writer Tracey Palmer & Belle Brett, Gina in the Floating World )

October 10: What holds you back? (w Dariel Suarez, The Playwright’s House)

WEEK 2: CHARACTER BUILDING (OCTOBER 11-17)

October 11: Goals & Yearning (characters w & w/o agency) (w Ilan Mochari, Zinsky the Obscure & Marjan Kamali, The Stationery Shop)

October 12: Observer vs. Participant & Protecting Your Character (w Steve Almond, All the Secrets of the World & Kate Racculia, Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts)

October 13: What your Characters Need to Learn: Flaws & Wounds (w writer Meghana Ranganathan)

October 14: Attitude (w Margot Livesey, The Boy in the Field & Courtney Maum, The Year of the Horses)

October 15: Is it backstory? Or is it a second plotline? (w Aube Rey Lescure, The Foreigner & Shilpi Suneja, House Caravans)

October 16: Supporting Characters (w Nancy Crochiere, Graceland)

October 17: How to Find the Stakes of your Story (Hank Phillippi Ryan, Her Perfect Life & Maurice Ruffin, The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You)

WEEK 3: POINT OF VIEW (OCTOBER 18-24)

October 18: First Person Pros & Cons (w Maya Shanbhag Lang, What We Carry)

October 19: Third Person Limited Pros & Cons (w Linda Schlossberg, Life in Miniature & Whitney Scharer, The Age of Light)

October 20: Third & 1st Person Omniscient (w writer Julia Rold & Weike Wang, Joan is Okay)

October 21: Second Person & The Royal We (w Allison Amend, Enchanted Islands and David Abrams, Brave Deeds)

October 22: How to Handle Multiple POVS (w EB Moore, Stones in the Road & Mark Guerin, You Can See More From Up Here)

October 23: The Author/Character/Narrator Merge (w writer Shuchi Saraswat & Karen Wilfrid, Just Lizzie)

October 24: Voice (w Rachel Barenbaum, Atomic Anna & EB Bartels, Good Grief)

WEEK 4: EARLY PAGES (OCTOBER 25-31)

October 25: Unstable Ground Situation (w Rosie Sultan, Helen in Love, & Steven Lee Beeber, Heebie Jeebies at CBGBs)

October 26: Inciting Incident (w Rebecca Rolland, The Art of Talking with Children & Devi Snively, Bride of Frankie)

October 27: Point of Attack (w Ron MacLean, We Might as Well Light Something on Fire)

October 28: Character Determines Incident, Incident Reveals Character (w Lise Haines, Book of Knives & Katherine Sherbrooke, Leaving Coy’s Hill)

October 29: Tension (w Katrin Schumann, This Terrible Beauty)

October 30: Setting: Place & Time Period (w writer Hesse Phillips)

October 31: Mystery & Clarity (w Emily Ross, Half in Love with Death)

WEEK 5: WHAT IS A SCENE? (NOVEMBER 1-7)

November 1: Scene vs Summary (w Susan Bernhard, Winter Loon)

November 2: Intention & Conflict/Negotiation (w Crystal King, The Chef’s Secret)

November 3: Turning Point/Most Important Moment (w Henriette Lazaridis, Terra Nova)

November 4: Consequence (w Sandra Scolfield, This is Not a Novel)

November 5: Sensory Detail (w writer Lara Wilson & Dan Fogarty, Kill the Prince)

November 6: Pacing & Time (w writers Sharissa Jones & Stacy Mattingly)

November 7: Dialogue (w writer Pamela Loring)

WEEK 6: HOLDING UP THE MIDDLE (NOVEMBER 8-14)

November 8: Escalations & The Signature (w writer Nicole Vecchiotti)

November 9: Beyond Freytag (w Ethan Gilsdorf, Fantasy Freaks & Gaming Geeks)

November 10: The Dramatic Question (w writer John McClure)

November 11: Character, Story, & Other Arcs (w Patricia Park, Imposter Syndrome & Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim & Jennifer De Leon, Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From)

November 12: Fun & Games & The Midpoint (w Sara Shukla, Pink Whales & Annie Hartnett, Unlikely Animals)

November 13: The Clock (w Steve Yarbrough, Stay Gone Days & Sabina Murray, The Human Zoo)

November 14: Obstacles, the Crucible & Other Tension Tricks (w Desmond Hall, Your Corner Dark & Erica Ferencik, Girl in Ice)

WEEK 7: FINDING THE ENDING & FINISHING THE DRAFT (NOVEMBER 15-21)

November 15: The Dark Night of the Soul, The Crisis & Climax (w Julie Carrick Dalton, The Last Beekeeper & Tara Masih, My Real Name is Hanna)

November 16: Jim Shepard’s Rate of Revelation (w Jim Shepard, Phase Six)

November 17: Denouement, Complexified Equilibrium, & The 5-Point Finale (w Rishi Reddi, Passage West)

November 18: What is an Ending? (w the Novel Incubator Retreat all-stars)

November 19: When & How to Get Feedback & the Implied Author (w the Novel Incubator Retreat all-stars)

November 20: Keeping the Faith (w the Novel Incubator Retreat all-stars)

November 21: Keeping the Faith (w Meta Wagner, What’s Your Creative Type: Harness the Power of Your Artistic Personality)

EPISODE 50!

November 22: How do I know I’m done? (w Kasey LeBlanc, Flyboy & Shalene Gupta, The Power of Trust)