Welcome to the Challenge! And 3 Tips For Getting the Most Out of the Challenge

Hey there, Igniter! Monica Leonelle from theworldneedsyourbook.com, and I am the hostess of this challenge. I would like to say welcome to the challenge. So excited to have you, and I'm really excited to prep with you for the next 30 days. I wanted to, first of all, just welcome you to the challenge, but I also wanted to share with you 3 tips for getting the most out out of the challenge. So tip number 1 is to do what you can this month. There are 30 lessons in 30 days, but let's be real, life gets in the way. It's okay if you don't make it through all of the days. It's okay if you get behind. If you are able to get ahead, I do try to post the videos ahead of time so that you can work several days in advance, and that can be good because Most likely there's going to be a day in the future where you're not able to get to the outlining portion, so keep that in mind. But definitely don't feel guilt or shame if you get behind. Just do what you can. We, throughout the challenge, we revisit a lot of the concepts over and over again, and this is on purpose. This is so that you can take the time to refine your ideas and refine your outline through the challenge. And but because of that, you know, if you miss a couple of days, it's totally fine. Just get right back on the wagon and just start, start where you're at. It doesn't matter how many days you do, so you don't have to do all 30 of them. Really, even if you do just one of the days, it's actually going to help you be more successful at writing your novel and produce a better novel. So really anything that you do is going to improve your success and improve the end result, which is your novel. So don't feel like— like, it really doesn't matter how much of the challenge you complete. Just do what you have time for, do what feels good for you. Tip number 2 is to support yourself. So there are so many different ways that you can support yourself during this month of prepping, but the thing that I think is the most supportive is really to get whatever resources you need to make this a successful month for you. So, you know, obviously you've joined prep, you know, the prepping challenge, and that is going to be very supportive. For you. So make sure that you are on the Teachable site. Make sure that you're on the email list and that you've officially signed up. If you're watching this video from another platform like YouTube or Facebook, make sure that you actually sign up, and the links are in the description below. Um, make sure that you have access to all the different materials because we do send out a lot of good stuff. That will continue to support you through the 30 days. 30 days is a really long time to do something every single day. We send out all sorts of content, so certainly the actual challenge materials, but we also send out links to other, other articles about story structure, you know, all sorts of stuff so that you can be as successful as possible during this month. Um, another area where you may want to support yourself is by getting the supplementary materials. So this challenge is completely free and it can be done without the supplementary materials. But, um, the challenge is based on my book, Novel Writing Prep, uh, which is the first book in the Productive Novelist series. Series. So it is helpful if you also have the book to do the challenge. You don't need it. I will provide all the information for you, and you will be able to do it without the book. But if you, if you want some support around this, definitely feel free to pick up the book. Additionally, I have a companion workbook that goes with this, and for this round of the challenge, I will be giving away that workbook. There be download links in every single lesson, every single day. So make sure you download the workbook pages. Additionally, because I'm going to put this out as a product at the end of this challenge, you'll be able to get it as a workbook later on, you know, starting probably in November. But you're getting the workbook pages for free now. And so those pages are going to go away in the first week of November. So if you want to have those pages, make sure you download them day to day, print them out, and use them. Uh, what else? Oh, so we're— there's also a deck that goes with this challenge, and I will be posting the images for that deck on Instagram this month, so definitely check that out. And I'll talk more about the deck as well. Also will not be available until probably after the challenge, but, um, you know, I'll give you information on how to get that at a future date as well if you want to use that material. In addition to the books that I offer, there's tons of books on story structure, and picking up a few of those would not be the worst idea. So if you have the capacity or if you need support around story structure, make sure you pick up a couple books. I have a section on resources, the books that have helped me most and the books that I love, and you can choose that, or you can go off of other recommendations that you have. The third tip is to have fun. Um, having fun. So for me, unless I am having fun, I'm not really energized to do something for 30 days. That's just me personally. Um, I have tried to make the content as fun as possible. Um, I've also tried to make the workbook as fun as possible. So there's lots of line art that you can color in. There's lots of visual pieces to it. The questions are, you know, bright and colorful, lots of imagery over the course of this month. So definitely, you know, find ways to make it fun for yourself. For most people, that ends up being like index cards, you know, spread out over the floor and like you know, so that you can move stuff around and like kind of reorder your outline, or it's coloring. So like coloring, for me at least, is very meditative. So when I'm trying to figure stuff out, I might be coloring instead. Creating, you know, mind mapping, doing, doing your outline in a more visual format. That can be really helpful. Spreadsheets, another, another option for you. So maybe you really love kind of like that data analysis portion to the outlining, so definitely kind of create your own spreadsheet to go along with this challenge. For some people, it's journaling. So bullet journaling is really popular in the novel writing community. If that feels good to you, then try that. But, you know, I think, I think the point is do whatever you can to make this as fun as possible so that every day feels good to do. And if you do that, then it'll be much easier to stick to the 30 days. I hope this was helpful to you. Thank you so much for joining this challenge and welcome. There's a lot more material on the Teachable site and through the email list. So make sure you sign up. Links in the description. I will see you soon in the first day.