C.D. Hersh's Blog, page 73
December 31, 2020
Friday Features Wishing a Happy New Year
Wishing All
A Very Happy New Year
December 29, 2020
Wednesday Special Spotlight recipe for Mock Champagne
Shines On our
Mock Champagne Recipe
Mock Champagne Cranberry Sangria by the glass
(original recipe by C.D. Hersh)
For each 8-ounce champagne glass you will need:
1/4 cup brewed Hibiscus Watermelon tea (we use Republic of Tea brand)
1/8 cup brewed Chamomile honey and vanilla tea (we use Twinings brand)
Sparking apple cider
1 rounded TBS jellied cranberry sauce (smooth or whole berry)
Fresh fruits (grapes, whole cranberries, pineapple chunks, peeled sliced star fruit, or peeled kiwi—or fruits of your choice)
Short skewer or sizzle stick
Directions:
Thread fruits on a skewer or swizzle stick and set aside.
Place teas and cranberry sauce in the glass. Mix until sauce dissolves. Fill glass with sparkling apple cider. Enjoy!
In an 8-ounce champagne flute, place ¼ cup white grape juice and 1/8 cup Chamomile tea. Fill glass with regular or diet ginger ale. To give the drink a holiday flare, add a slice of star fruit and a couple of whole, fresh cranberries to the glass before adding the liquids.
Enjoy as much of this refreshing drink as you want for the holidays!
December 28, 2020
Tell Again Tuesday Distance from you writing
A blog series where we shamelessly share posts from others that we have enjoyed.
The Importance of being able to find your way back to your writing
By Lucy Mitchell
After reading as much as I can about the literary journeys of different authors, I have come to the conclusion that writing success comes to those who have…mastered the art of finding their way back to their projects.
We leave our stories behind for a variety of reasons:
We need to distance ourselves from them at . . .
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December 24, 2020
Friday Feature Christmas Card
We are sharing a
Christmas card for all our followers
Drawn by Catherine (the C of C.D. Hersh)
original copyrighted art
For permission to reuse, please contact C.D. Hersh
Catherine created this card in a time past when we painted Christmas scenes on windows for various stores in our area. We painted on the inside of the store windows so that the weather would not wash the pictures off prematurely. This also necessitated painting the picture backward.
She created this piece of window art at church to coordinate with a cantata the choir was performing then later turned the drawing into a Christmas card. Fortunately, this window was meant to be viewed from inside and she didn’t have to write the partial verse “For God so loved the world…” backwards on the glass like she did when we decorated store Christmas windows with the holiday greetings Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. While she can write backwards, it’s not as neat as writing the normal way.
A bit of trivia here on our window and card art. We used tempera paint on most of the big windows because of the expense of acrylics for large areas. They are messy to clean up, but lots of fun to create. The card artwork however was done with colored pencils.
We hope you’re enjoying your Christmas day!
December 22, 2020
Wednesday Special Spotlight Creating Picture Stories readers love
Shines On
The craft of creating a book that has Kodak moments.
photo by C.D. Hersh © 2011
One Christmas season our family visited Krohn Conservatory Trains ,Trestles and Traditions holiday display. It’s amazing what a dedicated group of crafters can do with a bit of glue, flowers, and materials like twigs, moss, and bark that most people would haul to the compost pile. Using these natural materials, crafters created vignettes of Cincinnati landmarks Mt. Adams Incline, Union Terminal, the Conservatory, and international landmarks representing the Eiffel Tower, a European castle, and a Chinese pagoda, all ringed with tracks carrying trains and streetcars through the displays. It took patience and skill to create a little world that that made our family spend half of their visit to the Conservatory in the exhibit taking scads of photos, creating Kodak moments that would take us back to the enchanting display whenever we wanted. We were so captivated that we didn’t want to leave the area.
Reading a good book is a lot like our experience at Krohn Conservatory. When we find a story that transports us, we don’t want the story to end, and we want to revisit that world time and time again. Pearl S. Buck, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are a few of the writers who provided classic Kodak story moments for us. Debbie Macomber’s town of Cedar Cove has enchanted her readers. Readers love Jan Karon’s character Father Tim from the town of Mitford. And who can forget the world of Harry Potter? J.K Rowling’s stories and characters spurred young readers to devour her books, waiting anxiously for each new book to appear. Plus a whole series of movies and new stars.
As writers we strive to create characters readers will love and locations that readers want to revisit long after the book is closed. Why? Because our job is to write and write well, and because stories that remain in the hearts and memories of our readers are the books that become bestsellers and classics. Who doesn’t want that?
So how can you create stories that will leave your readers wanting more and retuning to your books time and time again? Here are some things we think are key to writing stories readers will love.
Get your readers to use their senses. What sounds more interesting? Susan bent toward the rose and inhaled its sweet scent, or Susan bent toward the rose. The peppery scent, with a hint of musk, tickled her nose. If you say the vase of flowers is “lovely” do you know what it looks like? Or does the phrase, Yellow roses, fading to peach at the tips, spilled from the cut-crystal vase, give you a clearer picture?
Show don’t tell. A good sentence shows the reader what is happening, revealing emotions and actions without telling the reader what is happening. Jane was angry is telling. A vein pulsed in Jane’s temple and her mouth straightened into a thin, drawn line shows what the anger is doing to Jane. The reader instinctively knows Jane is angry because you have shown her emotions, not told them.
Write in active, not passive, voice. The words was, to be, had and words ending in ing are all tip offs to passive writing. Johnny was walking down the street can easily be changed to Johnny walked down the street. Change Shelia had been dusting the hall before breakfast to Sheila dusted the hall before breakfast. Scour your work for passive verbs and eliminate them whenever possible.
Avoid stereotypical characters. Show more than one side of your characters. Heroes and heroines have flaws, fatal flaws that can get in the way of their goals, get them deeper in trouble, and keep them from being goody-two-shoes. After all, no human is perfect. Even villains love someone and could be self-sacrificing for that special person. If you have a stereotypical character, try turning him or her around in some way to make them less of a stereotype. Pirates are criminals you wouldn’t want to meet on the high seas, but in spite of his criminal background, you just can’t help rooting for Captain Jack Sparrow. Why do viewers love him? Because he’s a bit of a bumbler and so darned cute. A stereotype turned on its ear.
Pay attention to setting. The best writers know their worlds inside out and convey them flawlessly to the reader. Pearl S. Buck brought the foreign world of China to life for a Midwestern teenager. Romance author Jean Johnson created a magical world in her Sons of Destiny series that caused us to collect her entire series. Children (and adults) love the world of Harry Potter because it is magical and different. Popular Amish romances bring the intriguing world of a reclusive religious sect to life for readers. Setting can also be important enough in some stories to be considered a character, so pay attention to the rules of your worlds. There is always a reader who will notice if you break them and they will be disappointed because you didn’t pay attention to details.
Look at the books you have on your “Keep” shelves. How do these five elements play out in them? Now look at your own writing. Are you weak in any of these areas? If so, get out the editing pen and start correcting. With a little work you, too, can create Kodak stories readers will love.
Happy Writing,
C.D. Hersh
December 21, 2020
Tell Again Tuesday time for Letters to Santa
A blog series where we shamelessly share posts from others that we have enjoyed.
Dear Santa
By Gwen Overland
I can remember as a kid being excited about making out my Christmas list. I usually didn’t want a lot of things. Merely one big present would light up my world. I’ll never forget the year I got my . . .
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December 17, 2020
Friday Feature bouquets for the season
Guest talks about
Christmas Bouquets
by
Emma Lane
I love to create festive bouquets for any season, but my personal favorite is Christmas. The holiday colors are vibrant and a joy to bring together in stunning arrangements. So let’s talk a little about how you can create masterpieces for your home and as hostess gifts. The work isn’t hard. It simply takes a little patience.
It looks easy, but the greenery for bouquets is more complicated than you might think. I’m fortunate because there is a veritable forest in my front and back yards. I deliberately refrain from trimming the evergreen shrubs out front until the holidays. That gives me a very fresh start to my bouquet which is difficult to match with store bought greenery. If you have any type shrub in your yard it will work. If not then you are forced to purchase them. I strongly recommend you visit your local nursery for the foliage you want.
There’s a combination of old-fashioned yew shrub because it holds the needles for a good while. I add cuttings from a blue spruce just because I love the tinted color. Then my secret choice for Christmas is clippings from a juniper shrub for its heady, wintry seasonal fragrance. I once made a bouquet using only juniper but quickly learned why that wasn’t a good idea. They dry out rapidly and lose the rich green color most desired. So, tuck them in to smell good but toward the back. There are plenty of other types of evergreen shrubs for possible Christmas decorations. By all means, bring them inside and test their worthiness.
Next are the luscious red berries. They grow on a native shrub named winterberry (ilex, a member of the holly berry family) in slightly swampy terrain. No, don’t go wild crafting unless you wear high waterproof boots! Fortunately, our brilliant horticulturists have propagated this shrub for home gardeners. Consider planting them in your yard. You must have a male and female to get berries and it takes patience. They are not fast growers, but well worth the effort. Plant toward the back of the garden. The bush itself is not all that attractive until the Fall berries appear. Then you begin a vigil to pick them before the flocks of robins descend during migration. Cedar Waxwings love them too, but they are so beautiful I give in just for the pleasure of watching. Winterberries are frequently found for sale at late Farmers’ Markets and in craft and florist shops. They will dry out but seldom fall off unless bumped or roughly handled.
You all know about poinsettia, the official Christmas potted flower. It’s the brackets that have the color. The flower itself is the small yellow center bloom. I personally find them boring, but one day an idea came to me. I cut them as if for a cut flower bouquet. Here are a few photos to better explain.
Once I bought a pink one and lightly sprayed it a tinted blue, as a blue bouquet was what the customer needed, pairing it with sprayed-gold milk weed pods.
The last one is a pale pink mixed with dried dock and milk weed pods, the red berries tucked in here and there with a brass colored vase. I’m particularly fond of this one. Christmas bouquets need not always be red to be lovely.
I wish you all a beautiful healthy and happy holiday season!
Emma
Enjoy the holiday season with one or both of Emma Lane’s sweet Regency Romances collections. Here is a brief intro for you.
Families can be troublesome, but a next door neighbor can sometimes be even worse. Caroline is
a strong-willed young lady and refuses to be bullied by a handsome duke. Four sweet Regency romances to get you in the mood for the season.
Winter storms swirling snow and unexpected guests on the eve of Christmas, the pungent fragrance of fresh pine boughs, springs of mistletoe hung with red ribbons, and a stolen kiss underneath the kissing ball comprise scenes of Christmas in the country. Ice skating anyone? Have a cup of wassail and toast your toes in front of a warm fire while you enjoy four short stories of sweet Regency Christmas
romances.
Emma Lane is a gifted author who writes cozy mysteries as Janis Lane, Regency as Emma, and spice as Sunny Lane.
She lives in Western New York where winter is snowy, spring arrives with rave reviews, summer days are long and velvet, and fall leaves are riotous in color. At long last she enjoys the perfect bow window for her desk where she is treated to a year-round panoramic view of nature. Her computer opens up a fourth fascinating window to the world. Her patient husband is always available to help with a plot twist and encourage Emma to never quit. Her day job is working with flowers at Herbtique and Plant Nursery, the nursery she and her son own.
Look for information about writing and plants on Emma’s new website. Leave a comment or a gardening question and put a smile on Emma’s face.
Stay connected to Emma on Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to check out the things that make Emma smile on Pinterest.
December 15, 2020
Wednesday Special Spotlight a meal for Christmas
Shines On
A meal recipe from Sloane Taylor who shares a way to get ahead with meal planning.
After we entertain Christmas Eve, we tear through the house cleaning up before the kids and grands come for brunch Christmas Day. This meal is wonderful because so much can be prepared well in advance and stored in the fridge until it’s time to cook.
MENU
Breakfast Soufflé
Hash Browns
Fresh Fruit Salad
Mini Croissants
Christmas Cookies & Leftover Desserts
Mimosas
Breakfast Soufflé
1 lb. (½kg) ham, bacon, or breakfast sausage
9 eggs, lightly beaten
3 cups (750ml) milk
1 tsp. (5ml) dry mustard
Diced green, red, and/or yellow pepper to taste
½ lb. (57g) sharp cheddar cheese, grated
½ lb. (57g) Swiss or Gruyere cheese, or a combination of the two, grated
Diced onion to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 – 1 in. (2.54cm) slices Vienna or French bread, cubed
Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).
Dice ham or bacon. If you use ham, set aside in the bowl you use for the eggs. Fry bacon to the crispness you prefer. Drain on paper towels. If you use breakfast sausage, fry meat until no longer pink. Be sure to break up any clumps. Drain meat in a colander while you continue to prepare the soufflé.
Add all ingredients, except the bread, to eggs. Stir well. Gently stir in bread.
Pour mixture into an ungreased 9 x 13-inch (33 x 22cm) glass baking dish. Bake 1 hour or until a knife inserted in the center has no egg clinging to it.
This dish can be assembled one or two days ahead of time. On serving day allow the soufflé to sit on your counter 1 – 2 hours before you bake it.
Leftovers are excellent from the microwave.
Hash Browns
If you need to increase the hash browns recipe for a larger group of people, it’s best to sparingly add more garlic powder. As is this recipe serves 6. Leftovers reheat beautifully.
3 russet potatoes (about 1½ pounds), peeled
1½ tsp. (7.5ml) garlic powder, not salt
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
¼ cup (60ml) extra virgin olive oil
Shred potatoes on the large holes of a box grater or use the coarse grater disk on a food processor. Transfer them to a bowl of cold water. Allow them to soak for 2 minutes. Drain in a colander and then rinse under cold water. You do this to remove the starch that makes hash browns gummy.
Transfer shreds to a kitchen towel. Gather together ends of towel and twist over sink, squeezing firmly to wring out as much liquid as possible. This step creates crisp hash browns. Transfer potatoes to a medium bowl and toss with garlic powder and pepper. Be sure to evenly distribute the seasonings.
Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add potatoes, press down to form a thin layer and cook for a minute or two. Stir and then press down again. Cook until a dark golden crust forms, about 5 minutes.
Turn potatoes in sections. This is easier than trying to turn the food as a whole. Continue to fry until hash browns are crisp and browned all over, 5 minutes or so. Transfer to paper towels to absorb excess oil.
Fresh Fruit Salad
1 banana, peeled
1 pear, cored
1 tbsp. (15ml) lemon juice
¼ pineapple, peeled, cored, and diced
1 kiwi, peeled and sliced
10 seedless red grapes, halved
10 blueberries
10 raspberries, optional
Slice banana into bitesize pieces. Scoop into a medium-sized bowl. Dice pear and add to bowl. Sprinkle lemon juice over fruit to stop it from turning brown and mix well.
Gently fold in remaining fruit.
Spoon into a glass bowl, cover with cling wrap, and chill until time to serve. Leftovers are still good the next day.
Mimosas
1 bottle sparking white wine or champagne, cold
1 carton orange juice, cold
Tall slender glasses
Fill glasses half full with wine. Tip the glass slightly as you pour to retain the fizz. Top off with orange juice. Don’t stir. That will destroy the bubbles.
May you enjoy all the days of your life filled with good friends, laughter, and seated around a well-laden table!
Sloane
Sloane Taylor is an Award-Winning romance author with a passion that consumes her day and night. She is an avid cook and posts new recipes on her blog every Wednesday. The recipes are user friendly, meaning easy.
Learn more about Taylor’s cookbooks, Date Night Dinners and Recipes to Create Holidays Extraordinaire on Amazon.
Excerpts from her romance books and free reads can be found on her website, blog, and her Amazon Author Page. Connect with Taylor on Facebook and Twitter.
December 14, 2020
Tell Again Tuesday #writer pets needed
A blog series where we shamelessly share posts from others that we have enjoyed.
A JOB DESCRIPTION FOR THE WRITER’S PET
By Lucy Mitchell
Sometimes, the best part about writing is that my dog is always snoring nearby, offering sleepy moral support as I sit at my desk, agonizing over my latest fictional romance.
Lots of well known writers have had pet sidekicks; Charles Dickens’ cherished animal companion was a raven named Grip, Edgar Allan Poe was a cat-person and his pet feline was named Catterina, John Steinbeck had a dog named Charley and Virginia Woolf had a dog who was called Pinka.
So, I have been thinking about what sort of qualities are . . .
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December 10, 2020
Fridays Feature Preparing for Christmas is like writing a book
We think writing and Christmas have a lot in common.
Preparing for Christmas is like writing a book—not that anyone gets much writing done in the weeks before the holiday. The concept, however, is the same; start early and stay on target.
For an easy Christmas holiday:
Shop all year long, especially on vacation where you can get one-of-a-kind items, and avoid the mall rush.
Plan in advance. Knowing your menu weeks in advance and looking for recipes you can prepare ahead, freeze, or have on hand reduces stress in the kitchen and lets you enjoy the holiday too. Don’t want to cook ahead? Then remodel the kitchen (not before the holidays, of course) and get that second oven you’ve been wanting so all those green bean casseroles will fit in. Better yet, let someone else host.
Get familiar with your Christmas dishes. Start using your Christmas dishes at the beginning of December so you don’t have to get them out of storage at the last minute. That 24 piece place setting of hollies and Christmas trees needs to be used more than once at Christmas dinner!
Get next year’s Christmas cards as soon as they go on sale. After all, you have a pretty good idea how many you will need for next year, and they never go out of style.
Begin next year’s Christmas letter now. Start in January and keep a running tally of the important things you want to include. If you bind the letters in a notebook you have a ready-made life journal. One stone, two birds.
Make a goal list. Shopping done before Christmas, house cleaned thoroughly by the first weekend in December, trim the tree the day after Thanksgiving (since you don’t have to shop on Black Friday), Christmas cookies baked by the second weekend (or cheat and just buy them), the guest room readied right before your guests arrive, and so on. Tweak the list to fit your needs.
For easy book writing:
Write all year long, every day. Then when you take all that time off in December to get ready for the holidays, you won’t feel so guilty.
Plan your book in advance. Some seat-of-the-pants writers claim too much planning takes the fun out of writing. We’ve done it both ways, and have found thorough planning and plotting keeps us out of those pesky writer’s blocks. You just have to be willing to let your characters speak to you even if they don’t want to go where you’ve planned.
Get familiar with your book and characters. Let the novel and your characters live with you daily. When you are thinking about the book all the time, the words come easily to the page and your characters’ voices sound more real.
Get your ideas as soon as they come to you. Carry a notebook, or use your phone, to jot down everything that comes to mind about your current WIP or ideas for new books. Even if you don’t use the ideas now, they may work, with some tweaking, for something in the future. Writers are always writing and we need to capture those ideas when they come.
Begin your next book now. Writers who don’t think about future projects while they are still working on the current one run the risk of writer’s block for their next book. A running log of ideas, thoughts, characters, or anything related to the next books will make coming up with the stories easier. We brainstorm when we drive places, capturing all our ideas, good or bad, in a composition notebook. In a single composition book we have at least 10 new ideas waiting to be developed. Will we write them all? Maybe not, but we have ready-made journal filled with possibilities.
Make a goal list. Set writing goals for yourself. Whether it’s 100 words a day, or 20 pages a day doesn’t matter. It’s the goal that counts. Tweak your goal list to fit your needs and you’ll be surprised how quickly those 100 words will turn into pages, and pages into chapters, and chapters into a book.
So this holiday season, when you are laying your gifts beside the nativity, under your Christmas tree, give a gift to yourself. Promise to start writing early in the New Year and stay on target. Who knows, with perseverance and a little luck, you could be tucking your brand new book under next year’s tree as a gift to someone else.
Happy Writing and Merry Christmas!
C.D. Hersh
