It’s that time again when the heat, the sunrise (or your cats?) are waking you up anyway, so you might as well write. If you’ve joined us before, a lot of the below will sound familiar, but keep reading if you want to take part. It’s free and open to everyone.
What is the Challenge?
Every weekday morning in July, I’ll be leading a writing session that begins at 7am EST and extends until 8:30am EST. For this particular challenge, I’ll be focusing my writing prompts and inspirations on Marie-Helene Bertino’s novel Beautyland. The novel itself is a beauty, a speculative exploration through one misfit young woman’s point of view about what it means to belong, to be lonely, to love, and to live—with a heart-rending space alien twist. The book is a great study for novelists, short story writers, poets, and memoirists. The prompts will focus on everything from characterization, point of view, and handling time, as well as paring our fingernails (writing beautiful sentences), plus much, much more. The writing prompts will take only five minutes at the beginning of each session, then I’ll send folks off to write. We’ll come back together at 8:20 to talk about how things went. Then I’ll let everyone get back to their lives at 8:30am. The next weekday and the next, we repeat, until the end of July.
How do I get involved?
The challenge is free. You can join for however many days you wish, or however few. You can come late, leave early, and everything in between. I will not be taking attendance! But I would love to see many of your faces. If you’ve already been writing regularly with our morning writing group—the Sevens—, you should have the link. If you’ve lost your link or haven’t joined us for a while, email me at 7amnovelist@substack.com and I will send it to you again. If you’ve never been a part of one of our challenges but want to join now, use that same email to ask to register.
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What should I do after that?
Then, you’ll then want to grab a copy of Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland. Yes, you can take part in the challenge without the book, but I’m hoping writers buy a lot of books or at least borrow a lot of books from their libraries, and this is a good one. If you want to support the 7am Novelist and support indie bookstores, you can find the book here: https://bookshop.org/lists/most-recent-books-by-7am-novelist-panelists
What’s the schedule?
Every week, we’ll focus on a new section of the book. There are five sections, so if you want to keep up with my prompts and don’t want spoilers, you’ll want to read according to this schedule:
July 1-3: Part I
July 6-10: Part II
July 13-17: Part III
July 20-24: Part IV
July 27-31: Part V
During our first session on July 1, I’ll give you more details about how we’ll be working through the book together.
What else should I do?
Just show up when you can. And write! You can also invite others to join us. If they’re interested, they should email me at 7amnovelist@substack.com and I’ll send them the registration link.
How much does it cost?
It’s free! I began the 7am Novelist because I wanted to offer access to craft lessons and writing opportunities to everyone, no matter your experience or financial situation, so I’m trying to stick to that. If you feel flush and want to donate something to support this work, you can do so here: https://ko-fi.com/michelledhoover
That’s it for now. I hope you join us!
Best,
Michelle Hoover
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