What's Next? The March March

Yes, it's a writing challenge... And here's how you can take part.

I’ve gotten a lot of emails, comments, and requests about continuing our crazy first 50-days in some way. Thank you everyone! Here’s what I’m planning to do next with this project.

THE MARCH MARCH

In March, I’ll run another writing challenge, this one for 31 days—for the entire month of March. You can take part live, watch, and/or listen through the following:

• Half-hour Live Zoom Webinars at 7am EST on weekdays. I’ll be registering people starting in February, so look for a SubStack message about that. Your 7am Novelist SubStack subscription ensures that you receive notices about new episodes, community discussions, and events in your email inbox. However, you must register separately to be a part of the live Zoom Webinar. This webinar again will be free. As before, a video/audio recording for each webinar will be available for everyone on our SubStack channel every day for 24 hours. I’ll also email those who registered for the 50-day challenge directly with the registration link. 

• Pre-recorded Zoom Webinars posted by 7am EST on weekend days. Each day’s episode will again be available to everyone on our SubStack channel for 24 hours.

• Podcast versions of all recordings. These will be available on our SubStack page as well as the usual podcast platforms (Apple, Spotify, etc.). You may wish to “follow” the podcast on these platforms if that’s your favorite way to get notifications about new episodes. (And ratings and reviews on those platforms help other writers find us. Very helpful!)

WHAT THE MARCH MARCH EPISODES WILL CONSIST OF

• Spitballing Your Questions: With one or two guest authors, we will “spitball” ideas in answer to your plotting and other writing questions. We hope our ideas will not only be fun and idea-generating, but also helpful to both the individual writer and others who are listening by deepening our answers into broader discussions about craft.

• More Craft Conversations. I’ll again ask one or two writers to join us to discuss a particular craft or process topic that they have a unique take on and/or think vital to their writing. This will be similar to what we did during our 50 days with new topics and an expansion of old ones.

• Author Journey Interviews: Not the usual interview! We’ll dive deep into a particular author’s journey to publication and what followed: What realities did they face? How did they keep going during the tough times? What do they think about the experience now? What advice would they give to other writers facing the same? I’m hoping these interviews offer tips and tricks to keep you going as well as lived experiences to ground you in what to expect. 

WHAT I’D lOVE FROM YOU

• Your Craft Curiosities: If there’s a craft topic you’re particularly interested in us covering and/or one that you would love us to dig deeper on, let me know.

• Your Questions: Do you have a more specific plot, story, craft or process question about your current work-in-progress that would be interesting for other writers to hear about? Send them to me at 7amnovelist@substack.com. Please keep your questions to the point and less than 100 words. I’ll be looking for questions that are broad enough in scope to help others but also specific enough to give us something to work with.  

• Your Photos: Do you have a picture of yourself, your weirdo pet, or any other image that captures the bizarre combination of exhaustion, creativity, hard work, dreaminess, and exhilaration of a 7am Novelist? Send them to 7amnovelist@substack.com and I’ll post them on our Instagram page (for ideas, take a look: https://www.instagram.com/michellehooverauthor/) Let me know if you want me to credit your photo to you or someone else. However, photos I don’t have to credit are a little easier to juggle! (So you don’t need to send me anything award winning or sacred to you.)

• Your Voice and Support. If you think the 7am Novelist would be helpful to other writers, please share what we’re doing with your writing friends, students, and colleagues, in-person or on social media. Ratings and reviews for our podcast are also a great way to help other writers find us.

That’s it! I hope the MARCH MARCH sounds exciting to you! Look for 7am Novelist emails from our SubStack page for more news about our schedule in progress, threads to share your work, ideas, and connect with other writers, and other writing news and activities. Thank you!

Best,

Michelle Hoover

The 7am Novelist