The Cephalopod Coffeehouse and Other News

Welcome to another edition of the Cephalopod Coffeehouse. The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you've finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same.  In this way, we'll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts and our books with other enthusiastic readers. Please join us:

 I have been a shit reader this year. Seriously. For reasons unknown, I just haven’t felt much like reading and when I have, most of the books I picked up did not hold my interest. I have been such a crappy reader, in fact, that I haven’t even read a single book this whole month, which means you get a review of a book I read last month: Hot Flashes and Cold Lemonade by Susan Flett Swiderski.

Generally speaking, I don’t read women’s fiction or stories that take place in the real ordinary world we live in. I tend to like more adventure, intrigue, magic maybe, or a ghost or two in my stories. However, if you like women’s fiction and real-life stories, then this might be the perfect book for you.

This story is based entirely in the real world, Pearl’s world, which is pretty normal and average at first glance. She has an odd relationship with her mother that took me forever to figure out, thinks her dad can do no wrong, and I could totally relate to her blindness when it came to her ‘golden boy’ son. We all want to think the best of our kids, help them out when we can. It took a lot for Pearl to see how he was using her, manipulating her, and I have to admit I wanted a little more come-uppance for him. I loved all Pearl’s quirky friends—especially Candy—and  Pearl's family, and how she assumed a certain something was going on because she couldn’t imagine anything else. I especially loved how Pearl changed, not drastically, but just enough so she could be a better person for herself AND her family.

My only complaint (and I hate to use that word because it’s entirely subjective) is that there was a lot of description. Susan has a great way of describing things, like this: “Leggy petunias still loitered in her garden, slouched beside the chrysanthemums like a gang of long-limbed teenagers with no place to go.” Can’t you just picture that? The problem was that the description slowed down the pacing and it just felt like too much at times. For me.

Aside from that, this book was well-formatted and error free as far as I could tell, and if you like slice-of-life stories, you would probably love this.

In other news: I have been completely wrapped up in my new WIP and writing like a fiend on a mission. I don’t think I’ve felt this excited about writing in a while, and since November I’ve logged nearly 50K words (and I’m not counting the ones I wrote and then cut!), including 11K in notes alone.

I did quite a bit of outlining to start off with, and it took me a LONG time to get the first chapter down. But once I did, the rest has been…dare I say, fairly easy?

What I’ve learned thus far: Although I wrote a chapter by chapter outline for about half the book, I’ve deviated greatly from it. Which reminds me of playing Skyrim and wandering in the wilderness and suddenly seeing some hidden fortress. “What’s that over there?” I think, immediately heading towards it even though I was on a mission/quest. Sometimes these detours prove fruitful. Okay, most of the time in Skyrim, but in the writing world, detours don’t always pan out. Lucky for me, so far most of mine have, which is why I’m having so much fun with this. There are treasure everywhere!

Tarot Cards: I’ve always thought they were interesting; I have a small book about them and my own deck, but I’ve never really played with them. Then I did a little research and discovered the Visconti-Scorfza Tarot Cards, now held in the Beineke Rare Book& Manuscript Library. Having seen them, I can see why I didn't care much for my deck. I want this deck. Please.

Here’s a photo of the Ten of Swords, which played a part in a chapter I recently wrote:

 

Isn’t it effing gorgeous? And all the cards are equally stunning.

Writing is fun again, even addictive. I can’t wait to get at it in the morning and tend to think about my characters and where they are and what they’ll do next while I'm working, driving, or grocery shopping. And I’ll tell you a secret that’s both nice and (for me) a little worrisome: It’s been almost too easy at times, too fun. My muse is definitely with me and I think she likes what I'm doing. Let's hope she sticks around a while because if this trend continues, I might just have a new novel in a couple of months :)

Finally:

This is my boss' tree. Also stunning.

Happy Christmas all!