Hey guys! I’ve been gone a long time. Honestly, it’s a little nuts how quickly a year goes by. I contemplated shutting down Cece’s Voyage because, let’s be honest, I wasn’t posting consistently and I didn’t really know what to say anymore. Part of the problem was pure exhaustion, but more than that was not wanting to encroach on other people’s privacy while debriefing the parts that affected my life. So, instead of blogging, I focused on editing my book and starting the rest of the series.
As a novelist, I am writing under the name Chante Clay. In 2018, I decided to try my hand at writing fantasy. I love the genre and thought it would be fun to create my own shifters and witches. After several rounds of edits since 2023, Fate’s Calling, book one, is finally moving to the proofreading stage! While the Sunridge Pride series is paranormal romance, I also write fiction, romance, poetry, and I recently started a SubStack page. Fate’s Calling is my first completed manuscript, and I am self-publishing.
I created a little Q&A with myself to help my readers get to know me better.
What do you do when you are not writing?
I work at a university in an administrative office as well as teach a college orientation course. When I’m not working, I’m home with my family or out with friends.
Are you already working on another book?
Yes! So far, there are four more books in the Sunridge Pride series: three full lengths and a novella. Book two is almost done, and three and four have a hefty number of pages. I also have a fiction series that started out as short stories that I wrote when I was 16. And I have outlines for two other projects.
How can readers connect with you?
Right now, just through Substack or my blog. I’m working on social media soon.
What was the last book you read?
I am a huge fan of audiobooks. This summer, I have been re-listening to some of my favorite audiobooks, but I finished Kennedy Ryan’s Can’t Get Enough, Six-Figure Side Hustle by Rachel Rodgers, and I’m currently reading Stiletto Sisterhood by Fallon Demornay.
What was the first thing you ever wrote?
Before I could write, I’d tell my family stories I made up. But the first thing I ever wrote creatively was a poem. I think it was second grade. We were reading poems by black poets, and I fell in love with Maya Angelou’s work. After that, I was obsessed with writing poetry. I carried a notebook with me everywhere. Unfortunately, I have not written a poem in a very long time.
What kind of approach do you take to writing (write all at once, edit as you go, etc)?
My English professors would be appalled by my writing process. It is quite chaotic. I just saw a snippet of Rebecca Yarros saying that she saw the last page of Onyx Storm in her head while she was writing Fourth Wing and she waited until she wrote Onyx Storm to get it out. That could never be me. I do not have that much restraint, and I’d be terrified that it would not be as good if I delayed that long, which explains why I’m writing three books simultaneously.
I cannot outline or write in chronological order if my life depended on it. I think I heard the style is called a pantser, as in write by the seat of your pants. Basically, I get an idea, see a scene in my head, and write. There’s a general flow and beginning, middle, end in my head, but I usually have to do a ton of editing because I might have written chapter 40 before I wrote chapter 12, and I need to make sure the timeline is correct and I didn’t spill information in 12 that I shouldn’t have. Hopefully, as this series develops, I’ll find a better way to organize my thoughts, but right now, it is what it is.
As far as editing goes, I try to edit in chunks, at least at a high level.
Do you think about your audience or write primarily for yourself?
To be honest, I didn’t consider publishing beyond the blog until recently, so I have yet to write with an audience in mind. I write with a concept in mind, a lesson. For example, a novel I’ve been working on called Confessions of a Damaged Heart is about learning to dismantle the stories from your upbringing so that you can heal your inner wounds and learn to love yourself. The main character realizes that her tendency to self-sacrifice for loved ones yet hyper-protect herself with strangers is a maladaptive defense mechanism that has made her extremely unlucky in love. Fate’s Calling is all about building a community. The hope is that my future audience will connect with those themes and love my characters as much as I do.
Do you have any advice to share with aspiring authors?
Just write. The story is in you because it needs to be told. As for the rest, there are a million-and-one resources to help you figure out how to build an audience, create a platform, find cover designers, organize your business, etc. The thing I am currently telling myself, so I don’t get overwhelmed, is to look at the business like an adventure and the writing as a calling. The story needs to be told one way or another. You owe it to yourself and the characters. However, the business of getting that story to eyes that aren’t yours is a fun little experiment.
Keep up the great work sis!