Ask the Author: Elyse Draper
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Elyse Draper
"The Colors of an Unkindness"
She’s blind. The hallucinations are a symptom. The ravens are something else.
Newly blind and freshly divorced, a woman retreats to her late mother’s remote cabin in small-town Colorado. Her doctors have warned her about Charles Bonnet Syndrome, a condition that makes the blind see things that aren’t there. So when she starts seeing ravens circling the cabin, shadows that move with purpose, and glimpses of a world her mother once ruled, she tells herself none of it is real. But the ravens are growing restless, and they want her to lead them. As they draw her toward a string of murders, she turns to her estranged sister, the county sheriff, who knows far more about the cabin than she’s willing to say.
She’s blind. The hallucinations are a symptom. The ravens are something else.
Newly blind and freshly divorced, a woman retreats to her late mother’s remote cabin in small-town Colorado. Her doctors have warned her about Charles Bonnet Syndrome, a condition that makes the blind see things that aren’t there. So when she starts seeing ravens circling the cabin, shadows that move with purpose, and glimpses of a world her mother once ruled, she tells herself none of it is real. But the ravens are growing restless, and they want her to lead them. As they draw her toward a string of murders, she turns to her estranged sister, the county sheriff, who knows far more about the cabin than she’s willing to say.
Elyse Draper
Over the years, I've found that my writer’s block isn’t a physical wall; it's a lack of focus. I use two tricks that bring me back to my primary project.
1. I have a journal, “The Gravity of Orphaned Thoughts,” where I spew the random thoughts that are dividing my focus. Most of the thoughts are garbage, but there are always a few gems. The practice doesn’t just help me over writer’s block; it usually gives me a few prompts to work from and quotes that regularly end up in my books.
2. Each book has a music playlist that influences my mood and focuses my thoughts. The Freewill Trilogy has a shifting first-person POV; to switch between my characters’ personalities, I made a character playlist for each speaker’s voice and tone.
1. I have a journal, “The Gravity of Orphaned Thoughts,” where I spew the random thoughts that are dividing my focus. Most of the thoughts are garbage, but there are always a few gems. The practice doesn’t just help me over writer’s block; it usually gives me a few prompts to work from and quotes that regularly end up in my books.
2. Each book has a music playlist that influences my mood and focuses my thoughts. The Freewill Trilogy has a shifting first-person POV; to switch between my characters’ personalities, I made a character playlist for each speaker’s voice and tone.
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