#COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR ADELE DOWNS AND PEACH PIE

Because it’s peach season and picnic season and fresh fruit pie season, we’re featuring a recipe from author and former journalist Adele Downs for peach pie. This recipe appears in Bake, Love, Write: 105 Authors Share Dessert Recipes and Advice on Love and Writing. A portion of the profit from the sale of the book goes to NoKidHungry.org. Learn more about Adele and her books at her website.  

Retro Homemade Peach Pie

Use ripe organic peaches, real butter, and as many other organic ingredients as possible for the best-tasting, old-fashioned double-crust pie you’ve ever eaten. Serves 8.

15 ounce package pastry for a 9” double-crust pie.

1 egg, beaten

5 cups peaches, peeled and sliced

2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice

1/4 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup corn starch

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter (don’t use margarine)

vanilla ice cream (optional)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. (For best results, preheat the oven with a pizza stone inside and bake the pie on top of the pizza stone. If a pizza stone isn’t available, use center oven rack.)

Line 9” pie plate with one of the pie crusts. Brush with beaten egg to keep the crust firm.

Place sliced peaches, vanilla extract, and lemon juice in a large bowl. Toss gently to coat peaches.

In separate bowl, mix flour, cornstarch, sugars, cinnamon, ginger, and salt. Transfer the mixture to the bowl of peaches and toss gently. Pour ingredients into the pie crust. Dot with butter.

Cover the pie with the second crust, folding edges under. Flute the edges or use the tines of a fork dipped in egg to seal them. Brush the remaining egg over the top crust. Cut at least four slits in the top crust to release steam while baking.

Bake for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake an additional 30-35 minutes until crust is brown and the juice bubbles through the vents. To prevent the edges from browning too quickly, cover them with strips of aluminum foil about halfway through baking time, or use aluminum pie crust ring. Cool before serving.

Bake, Love, Write: 105 Authors Share Dessert Recipes and Adviceon Love and Writing

edited by Lois Winston

What do most authors have in common, no matter what genre they write? They love desserts. Sweets sustain them through pending deadlines and take the sting out of crushing rejection letters and nasty reviews. They also often celebrate their successes—selling a book, winning a writing award, making a bestseller list, or receiving a fabulous review—with decadent indulgences. And when authors chat with each other, they often talk about their writing and their lives. Recipes. Writing. Relationships. In this cookbook 105 authors not only share their favorite recipes for fabulous cakes, pies, cookies, candy, and more, they also share the best advice they’ve ever received on writing and relationships.

Check out the Bake, Love, Write video author Kaye Spencer created for the cookbook.

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#COOKING WITH CLORIS--RHUBARB SOURDOUGH BREAD PUDDING

Molly MacRae is the author of the award-winning Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries. She was also one of the authors who participated in bestselling Bake, Love,Write: 105 Authors Share Dessert Recipes and Advice on Love and Writing. Today I’m featuring Molly’s Rhubarb Sourdough Bread Pudding from the book. Learn more about Molly and her books at her website.

Rhubarb Sourdough Bread Pudding

12 ounces sourdough bread ripped into 1/2”-1” pieces

1-1/2 cups milk

4 tablespoon butter

5 eggs

1-1/2 cups sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon fresh orange zest

1/4 cup crystallized ginger, chopped

4 cups rhubarb*, chopped

1/2 cup raw or brown sugar

1/4 cup pecans, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

*Only use the fleshy red stems. Some rhubarb is sold with the leaves still on. Rhubarb leaves are poisonous.

Spread bread on a cookie sheet and lightly toast. Place in a greased 3 qt. casserole dish.

Melt butter with milk. Pour over bread in casserole.

Mix together eggs, sugar, salt, and zest. Stir in rhubarb and ginger. Stir rhubarb and egg mixture into bread mixture. Top with sugar and pecans.

Bake for 55-60 minutes until set.

Bake, Love, Write:

105 Authors Share Dessert Recipes and Advice on Love and Writing

What do most authors have in common, no matter what genre they write? They love desserts. Sweets sustain them through pending deadlines and take the sting out of crushing rejection letters and nasty reviews. They also often celebrate their successes—selling a book, winning a writing award, making a bestseller list, or receiving a fabulous review—with decadent indulgences. And when authors chat with each other, they often talk about their writing and their lives. Recipes. Writing. Relationships. In this cookbook 105 authors not only share their favorite recipes for fabulous cakes, pies, cookies, candy, and more, they also share the best advice they’ve ever received on love and writing.

A percentage of the profit from Bake, Love, Write is donated to NoKidHungry.org.

Buy Links

paperback 
Kindle
Nook
Kobo
Google Play 
iTunes 

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR BETH CAUDILL

Although Beth Caudill grew up in West Virginia, she currently resides in North Carolina with her husband, two sons and a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who makes an excellent lap warmer. Blending the analytical and creative sides of her brain, she delights in creating fantasy worlds for others. Catch her online most days, except when NCIS and Once Upon a Time air. Read more about her at her website. 

Creating Something Positive When Your Muse Deserts You

Author Nightmare – The Blank Screen of Doom

Writing a story is always an adventure. No matter how many books you’ve created, the process is full of wonder and frustration. Interesting things happen when the process no longer works.

I needed to take some time off last year after publishing Enchantress’ Destiny, the second novella in my Paranormals of Arilase series.  I was homeschooling both my sons and the oldest, who had started high school, was not adjusting well. We made it through summer, and he started a new private school with small classrooms.

My youngest is still at home and while he started middle school, I do have time to write.  I thought I’d be able to make good progress in the fall. Except my writing went nowhere.  My usual process wasn’t working, I couldn’t get a handle on my characters, and words didn’t magically appear on the page.

I can’t express how frustrating it was for me to know I finally had the time to write, but the stories that had always been in my life weren’t there when I sat down at the computer. I’d get glimpses of scenes while driving or in the shower, but when I was at the computer there was nothing. Just a black well of emptiness.

I needed to try something new. But staring at Character and Plot Worksheets gave me hives. Line upon line of information to fill out.  As a pantster, my muse shuts down every time I look at them.  (You can search on “Character Worksheet” and find tons of examples, anywhere from 3 pages to 20+ pages of information.) 

That’s why I’d developed my digital story bible.  I could fill in a limited amount of information and add to it as I wrote.  But now I needed to do something non-digital.  Something tactile to help my creative muse along.

In college I had to write notes, even when professors provided copies of lectures, in order to remember things. A recent study also discovered that students have a better understanding of material when they hand write their notes versus using a laptop.

I needed to create my own paper version of my digital process. Something fun to design yet still provides the information for my story. An area for brainstorming, characters, plot, world building, and research.  Pages for notes and sections for maps and character sketches.

Here is an example of one of the plot pages from the Mystery Writer’s Mini Story Bible for Bedside and Travel.

When I started, I thought it would be ten to fifteen pages. In reality, I ended up with fifty plus pages to capture everything necessary for one story. 

While I write mostly fantasy, I have friends who create science fiction, historical, and urban fantasy stories. We all need to collect similar information; only specific details may differ. With feedback from my friends Judy Teel and Sky Purington, I put together a collection of six print mini story bibles for writers to store their initial story ideas.

Best of all, I’ve been able to make progress on writing again.  I’m hard at work on the third novella in my Paranormals of Arilase series.

The Mystery Writer’s Mini Story Bible for Bedside and Travel

Imagine. Discover. Write.

The Mystery Writer’s Mini Story Bible for Bedside and Travel is your first stop along the path to writing. You set the pace for exploring the imaginary worlds and conflicts within your stories.

Each book section includes an area for you to brainstorm words associated with your idea, detail pages for up to five characters including picture and attire frames, diagram and notes for cataloging your plot points including the murder layout, space to sketch settings and scenes, lines for recording your research and more.

Keep your story details in one convenient journal that easily travels or resides next to your bed. Ideas come at all hours of the day, don’t lose your thoughts because you couldn’t find paper.

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HOLIDAY GIFTS FOR KIDS, COOKS, AND WRITERS

It’s that time of year again. Today is Black Friday, the official start of the holiday shopping season. Have you been staring at your gift list, wracking your brains, trying to figure out what to give your nieces and nephews? Your sisters-in-law? Your son-in-law’s mother? The coworker whose name you drew in the Secret Santa gift exchange?

Think books! Here are a few suggestions that I can pretty much guarantee won’t be duplicated by someone else, and even better, you don't have to buck the Black Friday crowds. Pour yourself another cup of coffee and shop right from the comfort of your computer:

If you’ve got 6-10 year olds on your list, consider The Magic Paintbrush:

When nine-year-old Jack and his seven-year-old sister Zoe are snowed in for days with nothing to do, their complaints land them in every guy’s worst nightmare—the kingdom of Vermilion, a land where everything is totally pink! At first Jack is mistaken for a spy from the neighboring kingdom of Cobalt, but Zoe convinces Queen Fuchsia that they’re from New Jersey and arrived by magic.

Queen Fuchsia needs a king, but all the available princes in Vermilion are either too short, too fat, too old, or too stupid. Jack and Zoe suggest she looks for a king in Cobalt, but Vermilion and Cobalt have been at war since long before anyone can remember. Jack and Zoe decide Vermilion and Cobalt need a Kitchen Table Mediation to settle their differences. So they set out on an adventure to bring peace to the warring kingdoms—and maybe along the way they just might find a king for the queen.

Without being preachy, TheMagic Paintbrush addresses the issue of differences, in this case, a kingdom that is all pink at war with a kingdom that is all blue for longer than anyone can remember—so long that no one even knows what started the feud. It takes two children from another land to point out to the rulers of both kingdoms the benefits to getting along and how we're really all the same inside.

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Who doesn’t love desserts? In Bake, Love, Write, an Amazon bestselling cookbook, 105 bestselling and award-winning authors present dessert recipes along with advice on love and writing:

What do most authors have in common, no matter what genre they write? They love desserts. Sweets sustain them through pending deadlines and take the sting out of crushing rejection letters and nasty reviews. They also often celebrate their successes—selling a book, winning a writing award, making a bestseller list, or receiving a fabulous review—with decadent indulgences. And when authors chat with each other, they often talk about their writing and their lives. Recipes. Writing. Relationships. In this cookbook 105 authors not only share their favorite recipes for fabulous cakes, pies, cookies, candy, and more, they also share the best advice they’ve ever received on love and writing.

Buy Link 

Need a gift for someone always pressed for time? We’d Rather BeWriting is chockfull of quick and easy dinner recipes and tips for saving time:

Have you ever wished you could find more time to do the things you want to do, rather than just doing the things you have to do? Most authors juggle day jobs and family responsibilities along with their writing. Because they need to find time to write, they look for ways to save time in other aspects of their lives.

Cooking often takes up a huge chunk of time. In this book you'll find easy, nutritious recipes for meat, poultry, pasta, soup, stew, chili, and vegetarian meals. All of the recipes require a minimum of prep time, freeing you up to read, exercise, garden, craft, write, spend more time with family, or whatever. The authors who contributed to this book are a rather creative and resourceful bunch when it comes to carving out time from their busy lives. So in addition to timesaving recipes, within the pages of this book you'll find timesaving and organizational tips for other aspects of your life. And if you happen to be a writer, you'll also find a plethora of great ideas to help you organize your writing life.

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NOTE: A percentage of the profits from both cookbooks will be donated to NoKidHungry.org.

If you’re an author, you might be in need of a gift for your critique buddies or the gift exchange at your local writers group. Top TenReasons Your Novel is Rejected offers advice from a publishing insider:

Over the years Lois Winston has given workshops and talks to several thousand aspiring writers. As a literary agent, she’s listened to hundreds of pitches and read through tens of thousands of query letters and manuscript submissions. Being both a published author and a literary agent gives her a unique perspective on publishing. She knows what it’s like to be the writer whose only desire is to sell a novel, and she knows what it’s like to have to crush someone’s hopes with a rejection letter. It wasn’t until she started sending out those rejection letters that she began to have a better understanding of why so many writers receive them.

What she’s come to realize is that most manuscripts are rejected by agents and editors for one or more of ten basic reasons. Writers have control over some of these reasons but not all of them. This book will discuss these ten reasons and how writers can control more of their destiny by not falling prey to them.

Whether your goal is to be published by a legacy publishing house or you plan to self-publish, this book contains invaluable information about self-editing, grammar, punctuation, point of view, telling vs. showing, passive vs. active writing, dialogue, narrative, voice, style, hooks, query letters, and synopsis writing.

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