Clara D Munro

Tag: writerlife

  • 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.

  • Week Three – Road Block

    Week Three – Road Block

    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.

  • Week One – The wins and losses

    Week One – The wins and losses

    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.

  • Quick Update – Adding my work to Wattpad

    Quick Update – Adding my work to Wattpad


    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:

    https://www.wattpad.com/user/CDMunro

    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.

  • Time for a change

    Time for a change

    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.