Clara D Munro

Tag: literature

  • 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.

  • In for a penny…

    In for a penny…

    In for a pound as they say. This mid-week blog is here to announce that I am officially working on both Project Fox Hunt and cleaning up Project Oak Grove.

    I have decided to finish Oak Grove but before I can do that, I need to migrate it over to Scrivener and if I am going to do that, I might as well do a read over. I am going to work on it after I have finished my word count for Fox Hunt and lately I have been getting that done quicker leaving me with time in my evenings to work on other things.

    Oak Grove is about a town that has the highest missing persons cases in the country and one day all the missing people suddenly come back. The Sherriff and Deputy work together to find out who these people are and where they have been but none of them can remember. That is except one of them and he’s the long lost missing brother of the Sherriff.

    I wrote the first 50K of this novel in 2017 for NaNoWriMo but because I was so burned out by the end of that process, I never picked it up again. I figure that another 40K words will get me to the ending of the story I had hoped to write but let’s see what the read over and edits reveal about that process.

    I started researching how to contact literary agents and writing query letters and my goal is to get one of these two projects ready by June to start seeking publication. Oak Grove is a stand alone story but Fox Hunt will need at least three books to tell it’s story.

    I am not expecting success in getting published and I will be looking into the world of self publishing too but if I never try, I will fail 100% over what could happen if I try.

  • 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.

  • Making Time

    Making Time

    The last few weeks I have been experimenting with making time by trying out different schedules for myself.

    First, I made sure to carve out dedicated time to just focus on writing. That worked out well and I now have a dedicated time in which I write each day. However, I have found that I can’t do it everyday and so I have altered it to just Sunday-Thursday. This week I reached 40K words on the novel and I am currently reading over the first two acts and adding scenes and editing out stuff that no longer applies.

    I have dedicated time every night to just read. I try to limit it to an hour and a half before bed so that I tire my brain out before falling asleep. I am currently reading Iron Flame and getting excited for Onyx Storm. This is working out for me and I do it every night and not just my dedicated working days of Sunday-Thursday.

    Then I tried making time for ALL of my hobbies. Okay, this did not work out well. I got burned out in just three days. However, I have learned that I have too many hobbies and I will likely be setting some aside for the time being. There are many things that I enjoy doing but I cannot do them all, not all at once. I am going to focus on things like fiber crafts, making and editing videos, and editing and posting photos.

    I have contemplated turning my weekly blog into a weekly vlog. Instead of writing out what I have been working on that week, I just show or talk about. Comment if that’s something you might enjoy watching.

  • Act Two – Complete

    Act Two – Complete

    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:

    Aidan Rowanheart & Victoria Oak

    and enjoy some themed music:

  • Post Holiday Catch Up

    Post Holiday Catch Up

    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:

  • Week 6 – 20K

    Week 6 – 20K

    Last week was a busy one at my job but I managed to get in a few thousand words and I am now up to 20,000 words on Project Fox Hunt. My original goal was to write 90K but looking at the way this story is unfolding I don’t think I can do it any less than 120K words. That means I still have 100K left to go.

    I created a second document just to keep track of notes about characters, the world, history prior to the current story, and random plot points that do not have a place yet (or may never come to need). It also has a list of what is in each world and what is not. I may have to create a bestiary by the end of this.

    I have been writing the rough draft in Google Docs to start with. Once the rough draft is done, I will be moving the scenes into chapters using Scriver before compiling them into PDF that I can send out to beta readers. After that, the plan is to query literary agents but also figure out how to format into an e-reader document if I want to go the route of self-publishing.

    I am using my own reading consumption methods to help me figure out the best angle to approach publishing. I read 75% of my books on my phone or tablets now because they sync progress between them. If I love the book, I get a physical copy for my shelf. I do this because digital is cheaper to start with.

  • Week 5 – late update

    Week 5 – late update

    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.

  • Week Four: Prophecy Time

    Week Four: Prophecy Time

    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.