Clarissa Draper's Blog

My hero taught me to read. I don't mean literally.

Perhaps I should say, my hero taught me to love reading and in turn, love writing. Who is my hero?

My sister.

She loves to read. She'll read anything she can get her hands on, especially mysteries written by Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, and Dick Francis. Anyway, that love created a love of reading in me. On so many occasions she would push a book at me and insist I read it because she knew I would love it. And she was always right. Eventually it led to a longing to writing, which in turn changed my life. Writing keeps me sane.

So, I would like to thank my sister because she is my hero.

Click the photo above to take you to other Who's Your Hero entries.

Who is your hero, writing or not?

I love cookbooks. Or rather I should say, I love collecting cookbooks. I have a large collection that I rarely use. Instead, I tend to make meals I'm familiar with: Chili, Fried Chicken, and some Mexican Recipes.

So I considered carefully before adding The Breakfast Collection to my collection. Would I use it? Would the recipes be too complicated and I never open it more than once or twice? Then I considered, breakfast is the most important meal of the day and I DID want to know how to make more substantial meals.


I love apples a lot and especially bakes so the first recipe I tried was:

Apple Pancakes

The most time consuming part was cutting up the apple. I melted a little extra butter in the pan and used the rest in the recipe. Also, I don't drink normal milk so I substituted non-sweetened vanilla almond milk. I didn't notice a taste difference.

It cooked up nicely and I put some cooked peaches with brown sugar, nutmeg and cinamon on top.

How did I like them?

One word:

DELICIOUS!
Would I make them again: Yes! Pick up your copy of the cookbook today or win it!

One commenter on this post will win a FREE digital copy of this cookbook. To enter, just leave a comment. If you want to leave a comment but don't want to enter, add "I hate food" to your comment. The winner will be announced on October 31st on Holly's blog.





The Breakfast Collection
Start your morning with perfectly fluffy scrambled eggs and spiced pear muffins or banana pancakes with toffee sauce. This book has recipes for eggs, oatmeal, cream of wheat, grits, pancakes, crepes, French toast, waffles, muffins, scones, fruit dishes, hot drinks, and cold breakfast beverages.Cost: $10.00 print | $2.00 ebookIf you buy the print version of the book from Amazon, you get the digital version free.Where to get it:
Amazon (print) [http://www.amazon.com/The-Breakfast-Collection-Holly-Sinclair/dp/1475120400/]Kindle [http://www.amazon.com/The-Breakfast-Collection-ebook/dp/B007UI9B78/]Smashwords [https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/291250]ibooks [https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-breakfast-collection/id617224365?mt=11]Barnes & Nobles [http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-breakfast-collection-holly-sinclair/1110373674?ean=2940044360198]

Holly Sinclair, who goes by Southpaw on the Interwebs, finds cooking cathartic. The recipes she's created and collected grew into cookbooks. Holly's trying her hand at fiction and food seems to creep into most of her books.Holly Sinclair Cookbooks, the website [http://www.iamhrsinclair.com/cookbooks/]HR Sinclair, the blog [http://www.iamhrsinclair.com/]
Join Holly on the rest of her Blog Tour [http://www.iamhrsinclair.com/cookbooks/foodie-blog-tour-2014/], each stop features a different cookbook and a chance for a free ebook!
You can join in the fun by signing up for the End of Tour Foodie Blog Hop!
Talk about a fond food memory, describe your disasters in the kitchen, post your favorite recipe or pictures of food, or do anything food related. Sign up here. [http://www.iamhrsinclair.com/cookbooks/foodie-blog-tour-2014/]
Note: I was provided an electronic copy of the book for review.

I decided to take part in the Survive and Thrive Bloghop put on by Stephen Tremp, Michael Di Gesu, Diane Wolfe, and Alex Cavanaugh. 

While researching a character in one of my books, I discovered a disease called JANZ syndrome, otherwise known as Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy (JME), a fairly common form of idiopathic generalized epilepsy, representing 5-10% of all epilepsies. 

What are the symptoms of Janz? 

(1) myoclonic jerks on awakening usually of the limbs like arms or legs, this will cause some sufferers to knock over things like juice or coffee. 
(2) GTCS generalized tonic-clonic seizures, occurring usually after a series of myoclonic jerks. Also called grand mal seizures. 
(3) typical absences seizures.

What to do if someone is having a seizure:
move them away from anything that could cause injury, such as a busy road or hot cookercushion their head if they're on the groundloosen any tight clothing around their neck, such as a collar or tie, to aid breathingwhen their convulsions stop, turn them so that they're lying on their sidestay with them and talk to them calmly until they have recoverednote the time the seizure starts and finishesDO NOT put anything in their mouth, including your fingers. They may bite their tongue, but this will heal. Putting an object in their mouth could cause more damage.

If you want to see a video from a Janz sufferer, please watch the video below:

If you want to donate to the Epilepsy Foundation, click the link below:


Sources: NHS Epilepsy Information
Epilepsy Foundation

It's so easy to fall in love with your characters.

You're forced to study their lives. To understand why they like what they like, love what they love, hate what they hate. Spend enough time with them and you will fall in love, even the minor characters.

Why is that a bad thing?

Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it can give your story depth and intrigue.

But sometimes it can cause problems.

How?

(a) it can change your plot, sometimes for the worst - especially if you've written half the book and weren't planning the novel to go a certain way
(b) minor characters can changed to major characters - especially in a love story, the character you meant one character to love might not be the one they end up with

Have you ever fallen in love with a character so much that you changed the plot or made the minor character a major character?
Do you think your characters should be able to change the plot?

Photo credit: minifig / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

Today I'm visiting an awesome website where I talk about how I deal with stress, self-doubt and snacking. 
Come Visit!

I don't really like to participate in blogfests but I really wanted to share a musical artists that I like:


Bo Bruce
About the artist:

Appeared on The Voice UK (Series One) and came in second.Her voice reminds me of The Cranberries.She's titled: Lady Catherine Anna Brudenell-BruceHer webpage: Bo Bruce 




Check out the other participants in the blogfest:

Alex J. Cavanaugh's Blogfest Page

Type a sentence or two based on the photo above and you could win one copy (of five) of my latest mystery novel! What could be easier than that? Go to Carol Kilgore's webpage and check out her contest.

Click here:  http://www.carolkilgore.net/contest/


Also, Mason Canyon did an awesome review of my book. You can see the review here.

Writers are always looking for ways to keep motivated. I find smaller word count goals are effective.

I used to have my session target set at 1000 but watching the bar go from red to yellow to green was so slow and depressing. Especially at the beginning of each session.

So, I did an experiment, I set the word count to 100. It took me 4 minutes to complete, and I type painfully slow. Sometimes I would be writing an exciting paragraph or two and the word count would be at 210 before I noticed.  If you do the math, 1000 words can be written in less than an hour.

How do you keep motivated when it comes to word count?

Two articles in the Guardian this week about voices and creativity, and the recent death of Robin Williams, made me think of the worlds inside my head. (If you want, you can read the articles yourself, here and here.) 

The first article discussed the voices Virginia Woolf heard and how it made her feel:

"I feel I have gone too far this time to come back again. It is just as it was the first time, I am always hearing voices, and I know I shant get over it now … I have fought against it, but I can't any longer, Virginia."

That was something she wrote to her sister just before she killed herself. She would write a novel to quell the voices and as soon as she was finished, a new set a voices came. She couldn't deal with it anymore. 

The woman was a literary genius but the voices made her insane.

The second article talked about the characters and voices heard by the great Charles Dickens. For him, the characters were so real, it was as if he was just overhearing what the characters were saying and writing it down.

Dickens wrote to his friend John Forster: "when I sit down to my book, some beneficent power shows it all to me, and tempts me to be interested, and I don't invent it – really do not – but see it, and write it down".

Dickens took those voices, accepted them and created like mad. His novels are proof that the characters inside the writer's head are sometimes so real we just stand back, watch and record.

Not every writer deals with the characters or voices in the same way. Perhaps some writers don't hear the characters speak to them at all. But, it should make us think. 

How do the voices come to you? Do they sometimes make you insane or foster your creativity?


Sources: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/21/hilary-mantel-virginia-woolf-inner-voices?CMP=twt_gu

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/22/charles-dickens-hearing-voices-created-his-novels?CMP=twt_gu

Photo credit: pvillarrubia / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

(1) Introduce your murderer as soon as possible but not at the same point in every novel. I love TV shows like Castle or Elementary but seriously, you make it so easy to know who the killer is. A) It's the guest star paid the most money or B) it's the person interviewed and dismissed early on.  Lee Lofland, who reviews the TV show Castle on his blog, and he says he can always guess the killer because it's the character they bring in early, ask a few questions, and dismiss.  Don't make the same mistake when writing your mystery novel. While it's important to introduce your murderer relatively early in the story, it shouldn't be obvious.

(2) Don't make your characters do stupid things. Turn on the bloody lights and leave the house! Why are you going into the basement in a nightdress with only a poker?

(3) Seriously, have your character tell someone where they're going. How much time would it take to send a tweet or text message? How often do you hear a detective say: "There's something important I have to do or check out." And then, what a shock, they're alone and in trouble.

(4) Just tell them on the phone already. Ever seen this: The detective receives a phone call from someone who says that they have an important clue but can't divulge it over the phone. Come over at once. So the detective arrives only to find the caller dead on the floor. I know it prolongs the suspense and the length of the novel but why can't you just tell them on the phone. 

What are your peeves when it comes to detective/mystery/thriller novels?

Photo: komehachi888 /Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)