Loren Rhoads's Blog, page 67

Not a replacement for Harry Potter

Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos by R.L. LaFevers

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this book. The idea of a girl who works secretly in her parents’ museum, undoing the curses on the objects as they come in, could not be more compelling. Unfortunately, neither Theodosia, her parents, the curators, nor her brother and the friendly pickpocket are at all sympathetic characters. Theodosia is the worst: after she botches a curse removal (the only one I saw her do, after all her grand brave talk about her own skills), she manages to get her cat possessed by demons or evil spirits or something. And then she leaves it alone in the museum full of cursed objects to go on her Christmas holiday — without even leaving it a bowl of milk. When she eventually gets back to the museum after her holiday, she goes off on an adventure, chasing one thug after another across the wrong side of London. The cat — that Theodosia cursed — is completely forgotten.

I didn’t care about the mystery Theo was trying to solve. I didn’t believe there was a mystery, just a neglected 11-year-old girl trying to make adventure for herself. But she broke something precious and can’t be bothered to put it right for days at a time. I gave up waiting for her to realize what was important by page 130.

It’s too bad. I would love to read about a heroine to rival Harry Potter, as the Booklist blurb promised. If Harry had been this heartless, he wouldn’t have been riveting either.

View all my reviews

Cemetery Christmas Cards

Christmas card from the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery.

Are you as swept up in the holidays as I am? I’m focusing on holiday cards from cemeteries on my tumblr this week. Here’s the link: Here’s the link: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/morbidloren

Some Love from American Cemetery

This came in yesterday’s mail:

You can find out more information about American Cemetery magazine here.

The Darker Side of Blogging: A Spooky Roundup, Part Two

Reblogged from WordPress.com News:

We started getting into the Halloween spirit yesterday, with Halloween craft and costume blogs and a look at some of the real-life witches on WordPress.com.

Today we continue the Halloween Spooktacular with some less Halloween-y but no less creepy content: horror film buffs, zombie aficionados, and cemetery guides, oh my!

Frightening film and fiction

If you prefer that ghouls stay safely in movies and books, there are plenty of WordPress.com authors ready to guide you to the scariest of scary movies, like the team of eleven bloggers behind 

Read more… 813 more words

I should have reblogged this sooner, but it got lost in the Nanowrimo blitz. They said very nice things about my Cemetery Travel blog, along with introducing me to a bunch of other spooky blogs.

Roadmap to Action

Two years ago, when I finally got serious about taking control of my writing career, I was searching for a way to keep track of all the must-dos floating around in my head.  At that point, I had journal pages full of what I’d done that worked for me, but no way to pull all that information together in a way that could inspire me as I moved forward.

I heard Laura Simms speak at a blogging meet-up in Berkeley.  One of the things that really inspired me was her system of planners called Roadmap to Action.  It’s a flexible downloadable series of worksheets that allow you to dump everything out of your head, sort through and prioritize it, and find a clear plan of what you need to do and what you need to do NOW.

It is the best $27 I’ve ever spent.

I revisit the planner every six months or so, redoing the exercises and figuring out where I am now and where I want to go next.  Because I’ve downloaded it, I can just reprint the pages I need to.  It’s fascinating to compare them, year by year, in my binder.

If you are a writer — or any sort of creative person — who doesn’t have a boss prioritizing your work/life and sending you from project to project, you should check out the Roadmap to Action.  It’s very pastel and the language is sometimes precious, but it’s easy enough to look past that and focus on YOU and what you NEED TO DO.

Here’s the link: http://createasfolk.com/roadmap/

Disclosure: I am not a rep for Create as Folk and get no kickback for recommending this.  I simply adore it.  Let me know how it works for you.

Recovered from Nanowrimo yet?

It’s been a week since I finished pulling together 50,000 words on the Historic Cemeteries of the San Francisco Bay Area.  That’s a good chunk of the book, but it’s not all of it.  I figure I’ve got 30 more cemeteries to research and write about.

So rather than feeling triumphant at the end of the month, I’ve just felt wrung out.  I haven’t done any writing at all this week.  I’ve barely even blogged.  Instead, I’ve been clearing out the email backlog that’s gotten stacked up, cleaning my house, and getting ready for the holidays.

That’s all vital, important stuff, but it feels like I’ve been ditching what is really crucial:  finishing the first draft of the book.  If I just churned out another 1200 words a day until New Year’s, I could get it done… but after the blogging marathon of October and keeping pace with Nanowrimo, my brain doesn’t feel like it’s firing on all cylinders.  I need some downtime to recharge.

I wonder if everyone feels that way at the end of Nanowrimo:  Are you triumphant or discouraged?

To be honest, no matter how much work I do, it never feels like enough.  Last year when I finished the 50,000 words of No More Heroes, I was thrilled to know I could write a new novel in a month — and disappointed because it was still 20,000 words and a subplot short of being a finished novel.

After a period of recovery, I felt thrilled to have gotten so much work done. Unfortunately, one year later, I still haven’t sat down to write the second draft.

It may not matter.  A publisher is interested in the Human Rights books, which includes another, earlier Nanowrimo project called The Dangerous Type, my first draft of No More Heroes, and the outline of a third book in the series I think will be called Survivor’s Guilt.  I can’t announce anything yet, since we’re still in the contracting phase, but I am really excited about the possibilities in front of me.

The takeaway, as always, is that important thing is to DO THE WORK.  When an editor asked if I had something, I could say yes. There’s nothing to encourage a person to FINISH something like a publisher’s deadline.

How was the week after Nanowrimo for you?

Dead people on air

I’m going to be on the radio this afternoon starting at noon!

The summary from the Lilycat show:

“This Sunday, we will have on the wonderful writer Loren Rhoads, author of Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel and many other wonderful things, as well as the publisher of Morbid Curiosity magazine. So we will talk about all things morbid but beautiful! Plus, in the second half, a call-in from the beautiful priestess Francesca Gentille about the upcoming Pagan & commercial holidays and how to bring magic and joy into them. And I will play music that goes along with all that.”

Call in with questions: 415-829-2980

Sunday – Lilycat on Stuff – 1 A studio @ 12-2 p.m.

http://FCCFREERADIO.com/

Hit the listen live button on top of the page

OR

There are podcasts at: http://fccfreeradio.com/shows/lilycat/live/lilycat_show.mp3

http://fccfreeradio.com/archive/

and

http://www.lilycat.com/radioshows.html

Obscura Society SF Salon: Vice, Crime and Vigilantes in the City by the Bay

The former site of the Peoples Temple, San Francisco

I’m taking part in my first Obscura Salon tonight as we talk about San Francisco’s criminal history.  I’ll be talking about the city’s connection to the Manson Family, the Zodiac, and the Peoples Temple.

Other speakers will discuss the Vigilance Committee, opium and tongs in Chinatown, and the dirty laundry of Alcatraz.

Obscura Society SF Salon: Vice, Crime & Vigilantes in the City by the Bay.

National Novel Writing Month

Nanowrimo Merit Badges, the best donor gift ever!

This is yet another NaNoWriMo.  I try to participate every year, but I generally cheat spectacularly in order to make my word count.  Does that make you think less of me?

See, I decided early on that since I know I can write a novel, writing a novel isn’t the most useful challenge for me.  Getting 50,000 useful words pulled together in a month:  that’s a challenge worth pursuing.

The key there is useful.  I’m not going to pad my word counts out with shopping lists.  I’m not going to use multiple versions of a scene that I write over and over as I try to get it right.  I’m not going to include character worksheets or outlines.  All I’m going to have at the end of the month is 50,000 words of earnest, usable first draft.

Last year was the first time in 10 attempts that I wrote the first draft a new novel from start to finish.  I was reasonably confident I could do it because a) the book was a sequel b) it drew heavily on short stories that I’d already written and c) I had a killer first scene in mind.  It was more than usually satisfying to “win” Nanowrimo last year, since I was using it for the purpose for which it was intended.

This year, though, I’m back to my old pattern.  I’m using the Novel Writing Month to write the first draft of a nonfiction book I’ve wanted to write since 2001: my book about the Pioneer Cemeteries of the San Francisco Bay Area.  I’ve researched most of the cemeteries.  I’ve visited many — though not yet all — of them.  The book has been waiting for me to clear the decks, settle down, and get to work.

Thirteen days in, I’ve got about 22,000 words.  That’s 24 cemeteries described so far.  I think the book is going to include 50.  That’s not all the cemeteries in the area by any means, but it’s enough to make a good strong book.

I may not finish the book this month.  I’ve worked through most of the “easy” cemeteries so far and now I’m getting down to the ones that need more research.  That’s going to slow me down, not to mention having my daughter home for two days of teacher conferences, the Thanksgiving holiday, and all those weekends…

All that doesn’t really matter.  Nanowrimo is not about finishing, for me.  It’s about having something to show for the month, something that didn’t exist before.  In this case, it’s something that I’ve wanted to see for a very, very long time.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s the best thing about being a writer:  being able to read the books that exist nowhere else but in my head.  I’m really excited to read this one, once it’s finished.

Death Salon LA... and beyond!

Reblogged from Death Salon:

I think it's safe to say that Death Salon LA was a great success. It certainly exceeded this organizer's expectations. We started off early this year with just a corpse and a dream -- to bring The Order of the Good Death members and other likeminded folk together to share ideas and get to know each other. Now I find that my mind is still reeling over the level of talent and artistry we had all in one place, the amount of amazing information conveyed in creative ways, and the potential collaborations that now loom on the horizon.

Read more… 890 more words

Death Salon will come to San Francisco in October 2014 for a 1-day forum = I could not be more excited!