Three Disasters Plus an Ending

I just read something that might save my novel:

I like to structure a story as "three disasters plus an ending". Each of the disasters takes a quarter of the book to develop and the ending takes the final quarter. I don't know if this is the ideal structure, it's just my personal taste.

If you believe in the Three-Act structure, then the first disaster corresponds to the end of Act 1. The second disaster is the mid-point of Act 2. The third disaster is the end of Act 2, and forces Act 3 which wraps things up. It is OK to have the first disaster be caused by external circumstances, but I think that the second and third disasters should be caused by the protagonist's attempts to "fix things". Things just get worse and worse.

From Randy Ingermanson's How to Write a Novel: The Snowflake Method

You know how sometimes you know things, but you don't know that you know them until someone says them to you in a new way?

Yeah, that's what I'm feeling right now. My protagonist isn't trying to fix anything. She isn't even trying to DO anything! She's just having stuff happen to her.

No wonder I'm bored! Time to spice things up!