Clara D Munro

Tag: book-review

  • Summer time madness

    Summer time madness

    It’s officially summer in the Shuswap and I have continued to be busy with traveling and recovering from traveling. I went to Alberta for a Summer Druid Camp with the Chinook Grove of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. I had an amazing time and even shared a bit of the novel around the fire.

    With all of traveling and recovery days, I have not been working much on Shadow Fox. However, I have a stay-cation planned for this weekend. I have five days booked off and I plan to take some serious time to work on the 2nd draft of my novel. I am going to swap the hours that I would normally be at my job for working on the novel. Five solid 8 hour days of focused work. I am hoping to get all of my 2nd draft story edits done in that time.

    Once the 2nd draft is done, I can then move onto the 3rd draft with is where I am going to focus on the grammar, spelling, and formatting. I have been doing some passive editing while reviewing the story but I haven’t been making it the focus of the 2nd draft.

    After that, I will upload the draft to a location where I can send out private links for trusted friends to review it and create a way for them to make suggestions for improvement and cuts. Once they have finished, I will then do one final pass before creating some query letters for literary agents. I am also going to move forward with the self publishing process at the same time. No matter what happens, this book will be published for others to read.

    I am not looking for fame here – I just want to share what I have been working so hard on the last 9 months.

    This is the blurb for Shadow Fox:

    Victoria Oak has led an uneventful life of a student studying celtic literature until a trip to Ireland sends her into the ancient world of the Fae. She must find her way back home before she’s swept up into a eons-old war between the Fae. Together with a group of Fae she befriends, Victoria finds out who she really is and what she’s capable of. 

    Aidan Rowanheart has been plotting his revenge on those who killed his mother for over a hundred years. Everything is going according to plan until he picks up a stray human who has accidentally stumbled into his world. After swearing to help Victoria return home, Aidan finds himself torn between getting his revenge and keeping his promise.

  • 60K – Pause to review

    60K – Pause to review

    Half way there!

    I just hit 60K on the novel and now I am pausing to review what I have written so far and figure out the next part of the story.

    What I learned so far:

    1. The novel will not stay on the track I had planned
    2. Character’s keep surprising me with their actions
    3. The past keeps coming back to change the present
    4. The Prince won’t die… yet.
    5. The Fae Father’s aren’t the ass-holes I thought they were
    6. The villain isn’t who I thought it was

    I don’t know if I will be able to make my goal of finishing 120K words by the end of March because I am needing more pause time between writing sprints as parts of the story keep changing as I write them.

    The story has grown from being about two characters to being about 6 main characters and about 12 other cast of supporting characters and villains.

    When someone asks me what’s the novel about I keep answering I don’t know yet because the story keeps changing. I am having lots of fun writing it though.

    The next two weeks I am going to read over what I have so far. I have some changes to terms, place names, and some descriptions that I need to make within the body of work so far. I am going to be creating a time-line to track when events took place. I already have an extensive “wiki” that I have created for just keeping track of the world building and the cast of characters and side characters and their backgrounds. Every character with a name has a story and role in this novel.

    On a more personal note – this website started out as a place just to host my photography but since I started it a year ago it has grown into something more important for me. It is a living resume of my creative works. I upgraded the site so that it will be ad-free for anyone viewing it and I have a custom domain name – my author name – Clara D. Munro. This isn’t about “branding” but just making it easier for anyone to find me and see what I am up to. I don’t post on Meta or X (because they are trash) – I only post on Bluesky and LinkedIn.

    If you want to support my website and help make my published author dreams a reality – I set up a Ko-fi account that you can donate to. So far my only cost has been setting up this website but soon I will need to renew my Adobe Lightroom for my photography so any little bit helps.

    Thanks for reading and keep an eye out for future posts about new videos, writing, and photography!