Many runners might tell this tale: after the outnumbered Greeks beat the Persians at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE, Pheidippides sped from the battlefield to Athens with news of the victory. He died from exhaustion after running over 40 km just...
What, you're asking, is a Reading List Marathon? And I don't blame you. It is a mouthful. And that blurbnotblurb definitely didn't make it clear. No worries -- explanation forthcoming.
The race follows this track:
I. Genres are set in predetermined pairs.
II. For a two week period, competitors write a prompted short for the given pair in the genre of one using the title from a reading list of the other. The next two weeks they flip. And the next two weeks gets a new pair. Then they flip, and so on. Simple.
You can find the contest-sponsor profile in the dedication on this chapter, and the actual rules and regs here if you want to join in (c'mon, you know you do):
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So here's my plan. I'll update my prompts chapter every two weeks with the current prompt and add a new chapter for my current entry. And I'll be dedicating the entries to the author of the original stories (the stories are unrelated beyond sharing a title, but I feel like it's always a good thing to share the love and credit the inspiration).
And here's my hope. I took on this project to really work my writing muscles and try something outside my comfort zones. Given that I'm fairly new to writing and realistic fiction is pretty much my game, there's a good bit of uncharted territory ahead for me. Feedback is really important for helping me understand genre writing -- how to do it, and how not to do it. Critique is invaluable to this process.
Alrighty then. Let the challenge begin!
Ready... Set... Go!
Okay, yeah, maybe that's cheesy -- but I like cheese. And whadya know, "Philadephia" is Greek ;-)
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Photo cred: Canva [the Caryatids of the Erechtheion, 421-406 BCE, Athens, Greece]
