This week I finished act two in my rough draft and I have the set up for act three waiting to go.
I reached 37K words but I need to get to 60K by the end of the month.
I am trying to work a little bit on the project everyday but I am at the point where it’s time for me to sit down and read over the story so far and make notes of where I need to fill in blanks or edit out things that are no longer part of the story.
I have found that with any well laid plans for a story, eventually you get to the point where you have to toss out your plans and start over. I am nearly at the point right now because I am getting close to the end of the plot points so far and now I need to find the scenes that are missing from the set up.
Long story short – I need to find Chekhov’s Gun and make sure I put it into the right place.
In the meantime, meet the two main characters of the project:
These last few weeks have been super busy with visiting family, holidays, and new years celebrating. Work on Project Fox Hunt was put on the back burner for a bit. I am happy to announce that I am back in the writing chair and have some updates to share.
First, I reached the 30K mark which is 25% of the way to my ultimate word count of 120K.
Second, I have completed filling out my story beat sheet. If you don’t know what this is, check out the book: “Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book On Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need” by Jessica Brody. This is an important mile stone for me because I was having trouble linking my events to the ending I am headed towards. With the beat sheet I have a road map that I can follow and keep myself on.
Lastly, I moved all of the scenes I was working on in Google Docs into Scrivener. I was losing track of scenes and their place in the story while working in Google Docs. What I am going to do now is work on scenes in Google Docs and then move them over to Scriver to place them into the story. It might seem like more work but I feel more comfortable composing in Google Docs than I do in Scriver. I like the organization and compiling of Scrivener better than Google Docs.
For my New Years Resolution this year, I am doing a 52 books read by the end of the year. I finished the first book this week and a second one that was much shorter.
And for a last bit of fun, here’s my lastest mermaid video on YouTube:
Last week was not as productive as I would have liked. I didn’t get a lot of words down on paper because my energy levels were super low. Instead I worked on world building and figuring out the time lines. I also started writing different perspectives for different characters. Most of what I wrote to start with was 3rd person limited but from only one point of view. I have more than one main character in this story and so I am opening up the storytelling to include the others.
I hit 17,000 words today which is still a long way off from my goal of 90,000 words. I have no idea how much I will have to recon later as I figure out more and more of the story. I hate to lose any work I have already done but it’s all part of the process.
This week I worked on fixing a few things I previously wrote to add more tension into the start of the story. These were some of the blockers I spoke up last week. Now, I am in the process of writing a prophecy for the main character. I have not tried this before in a story because it takes some amount of poetry to pull off well.
I’d been in D&D games before where the DM was master at adding these sorts of things into their games. It can work to great affect in novels too. I think about each of the Outlander books and how there’s always a moment where the main character meets some kind of a seer (a tea leaf reading, bones, ect.) and without giving too much away, there’s an element of Outlander that I am pulling inspiration from in Project Fox Hunt.
I’ve taken a few days off of writing to allow my mind to consider my options for how to go about writing this and to do a few things that I enjoy such as going to the pool to swim in my tail. I always feel more creative after I go to the pool at the end of my work week. It gives me a chance to get out of my head and into my body.
I made an update to this website to make it easier to navigate and read the blog posts. I think it looks better than before.
I had my first block this week. Something was off about what I was writing so I took an afternoon to try out a new method of unblocking.
What I did was write out on paper these questions:
1. What is not working? 2. Why isn’t it working? 3. What are ways that I can fix it?
I picked up this idea for watching and listening to interviews with Sarah J. Maas. The reason I am trying her way of getting through blocks is because she’s writing books that I enjoy and the kinds of stories I want to complete writing.
I have written 11K words so far and the method of writing it scene by scene instead of chapters is working really well for me.
I have written three novels so far that range in length and they taught me a lot about the process of writing. I have learned what works for me and what doesn’t work.
I have given myself the deadline of March 9, 2025 to get 90K words done. I am hoping to be done long before that but I like that I have given myself the last few months of my 41st year to do it.
This week I tried a new approach to writing a novel. Instead of trying to plot out the whole thing in advance and write chapter by chapter, I decided to aim for writing one scene at a time. I spent some time writing out on little cue cards the scenes I wanted to write this week and then wrote one or more a day. My goal was an average of 1000 words a day and so far I have been able to maintain that.
I do not want to burn myself out so I am taking time to check in with myself to see what I need. I do not want to overdue it like I have in the past. One of the reason I quit the whole NaNoWriMo scene is because at the end of those months I wouldn’t have any energy left to review what I wrote and then the manuscripts would sit dead on my hard drive.
Side note regarding a story uploaded to Wattpad – apparently one of them was too spicy for them to handle so they took it down. Was this censorship? It absolutely was but it’s their platform and they get to choose what content is allowed on there. Ah well, I will just have to consider this constructive criticism and do some re-writes.
I am going to be adding some of my older works to Wattpad. They will be things that I wrote in the past but didn’t feel were good enough to try and pitch to anyone. If you want to follow me on Wattpad – here’s the link:
There’s a lot of spice in my writing because I like spice. I think the genre that I lean towards is “Romantasy” because I read a lot of it and enjoy it. I try to create a sex positive vibe in my writing but try not to glorify it.
I have been in a rut since this summer. I had some time to be a mermaid swimming in the lake but after that was over I fell into limbo and I have been struggling to get out of it. Some of that was tided to some rapid changes in my life.
It all started when I choose to leave a toxic friendship. This person had been in and out of my life for the better part of the last 20 years and they repeatedly hurt me with their actions and words. I decided that enough was enough and stopped all contact. That left me with some grieving to do and some anger to process.
Then came a chaotic time at my job. Things were rapidly changing and even now I do not know where the other shoe will drop or when. The one good thing that came out of that was my job is now much simpler and a lot less stressful. This has given me time to think about the future.
That brings me to right now. I am in the process of laying the foundation for my future and what I want it to be. I am using my current living situation and circumstances to help me get to the place I want to be. In order to help me stay accountable for all this, I am going to start up this blog again. It will not just be my videos and photos anymore – part of my soul will be put on these pages.
I am at the start of something I am going to call “Project Fox Hunt”. This is a novel series that will be the culmination of the last 10 years of creative world building. This is the first year that I am not participating in NaNoWriMo because I don’t find it helpful. I need to create new habits to help me achieve my dream of being a published writer.
Once a week, I’ll post an update about my progress here. I am currently at the start of the rough draft. I am writing in bits and spurts as I carve out time to write in a focused way. When I am not working on that and am in need of a break – I will turn to my hobbies to allow my brain to process the story in the background.
Below is a video for a Night Court playlist to help me set the mood for writing and creating. ACOTAR is one of my all time favorite book series. It was one of the first fantasy series that I read that brought together romance and adventure in a way that I thought was lacking in other books. It also had a complex cast of characters that I fell in love with.
Clara D Munro 