Clara D Munro

Tag: creative-writing

  • 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!

  • Weekly Blog – 50 K words!

    Weekly Blog – 50 K words!

    Happy Imbolc Season everyone! I for one am ready to celebrate Winter being over in another six weeks. We got a fresh dump of snow this weekend which was a bit of a bummer because I missed mermaid swimming because of it. However, since we have had so little snow, I am kind of glad we got some before Winter ended.

    I reached the bench mark of 50K words on Project: Fox Hunt today! This is normally the point during a NaNoWriMo I am starting to feel burned out but because I am taking the process slower this time, I am not burning out. In the past when I had gotten to 50K I would be so tired that I wouldn’t want to keep writing. I am so glad I tried a new approach to writing this time. There’s been a lot of benefits to slowing it down and taking more breaks between writing days. The important thing is that I still have ideas forming and the story and characters are evolving. The worldbuilding keeps growing and getting more fine tuned as I write. I keep thinking about the story even when I am not actively writing it.

    I have edited four chapters in Project: Oak Grove and migrated them from Google Drive to Scrivener. I am happy to say that I don’t hate what I wrote seven years ago. I have already started to change things in it and adjust the wording. I have ideas about where to put in new scenes and what needs to be expanded on. That project is 50K already and I want to up it to 90K before I start the process of polishing up the draft in order to get it ready to query Literary Agents.

    My reading goal for 2025 is 52 new books read in a year and is currently sitting at 4 books read. I finished all of the The Empyrean books so far – Onyx Storm’s ending was crushingly sad. I am taking a break from fiction with a non-fiction pagan spiritual book. I have many of those partially read that I will be finishing this year as part of my personal challenge.

    I have gotten to the point with reading where I can’t sit through TV shows or movies right now because they are not as fulfilling as reading novels. I’ve cancelled all my streaming subs as a result – no sense on wasting money on it while I am not using it. Between books, audiobooks, podcasts, YouTube channels, and games I haven’t finished, I have more than enough stories to enjoy without needing to park my ass in front of a TV these days.

    Speaking of games, I picked up my 3DS and starting playing Pokemon Diamond from the start. I haven’t touched the device much since 2019 and even though the 3DS Nintendo Shop and WiFi network is no longer in existence, I have a number of games installed on it that I never finished playing to enjoy.

  • Small Wins -45K words

    Small Wins -45K words

    This last week was a bit hard because I ended up sick for a few days and then had a sore neck for a few more. I ended up only getting a few thousand words done but I am nearly ready to start working on the second half of the novel.

    I have found that I need to take two days off from writing a week in order to keep from burning out. Writing a novel is a marathon and not a sprint and making sure to rest and keep pace are important.

    I am glad that I am writing while the days are cold and dark because it keeps me motivated during this hard time of the year. I have set my goal of finishing the rough draft for the start of Spring – that way I can use the growing daylight energy to fuel the part of the job I have never done before – editing and getting the first draft ready to be talked about.

    I don’t even have a hook statement yet because I keep learning new things about my characters and adding new plot elements in as I write. It’s been a lot of fun just working on it and seeing where it goes.

    All the while, I have been keeping up with my reading goal of 52 books in a year. I am currently reading Onyx Storm and loving it. I am trying not to look at any spoilers online but I suspect the ending is another cliff hanger.

    My own story is building out to be more of a trilogy of stories – each one following a different set of characters on a different part of the over arching story line.

    I am more motivated than ever to finish the whole process of writing than I have ever been before. As my job because more and more unnecessary and my work load becomes less and less, the need to find something that calls to me becomes more and more important. I have even contemplated dropping my hours at my job in order to allow me more time to concentrate on writing but I also know that I need to pay my bills. However, having such limited time to write helps to make it important that I do not allow distractions to occur when I need to write.

    It a balancing act and one that I am doing my very best not to fail.