Every year I recap the writing triumphs and disappointments of the previous twelve months and every year I feel like it’s never enough. This year especially, while I waited to get my first space opera back from the editor, I didn’t commit to any longer projects, so I’m disappointed in myself for fooling around. But I did manage to jump on almost every guest-posting opportunity I saw, as well as doing a bunch of interviews and assorted networking. Now that I gather all the links together, it looks like I was busier than I thought.

The highlight of the year was the publication of As Above, So Below by Black Bed Sheet Books. It was a thrill to finally see one of my novels in print.

Another highlight was seeing the design for The Dangerous Type. Night Shade Books will be publishing it in July next year, but it’s already available for preorder on Amazon.

I’m really proud of All You Need is Morbid, my morbid travel memoir that was published on Wattpad over the summer. You can read it for free here.

My only short fiction publication this year was “The Dream of Grandfather Carp,” which appears in the Out of the Green anthology.

I’m excited about providing a monthly morbid travel column to Scoutie Girl. I’ve written about the Pharmacy Museum in New Orleans, eating in total darkness in San Francisco, and my adoration of Niagara Falls, among other things. The complete list of topics is here: http://lorenrhoads.com/nonfiction/scoutie-girl-columns/

Readings:
* I read parts of As Above, So Below and The Dangerous Type at World Horror 2014 in Portland in May
* I read from “A Curiosity of Shadows” for the Night of Eternal Damnation at Litcrawl
* The highlight, of course, was giving my speech “Where Have All the Graveyards Gone: the Pioneer Burial Grounds in San Francisco and the Grave Migration to Colma” at Death Salon: San Francisco

Radio:
I only did two radio/podcasts this year:
* Francy & Friends on Blog Talk Radio in January
* Charred Remains on Blog Talk Radio in June

Interviews:
* “This is the Life of a Graveyard Tourist” by Cheryl Eddy appeared on io9
I got interviewed a bunch in 2014:
* on Scoutie Girl by Amanda Rose
* on Goodreads by Natasha Ewendt
* on Smashwords about Sins of the Sirens
* on the Travel Tester blog by Nienke Krook for her Vintage Travel Memories feature
* by Tonia Brown on her Backseat Writer blog

Cemetery Expert:
* “The World’s Most Beautiful Cemeteries” piece initially appeared on Travel & Leisure‘s site, but was picked up by Smithsonian.com and a bunch of other places
* Kristi Palma interviewed me for “A Fun-Filled Day in the Cemetery? Absolutely!” which appeared on Boston.com

Guest Posts:
I did a ton of guest posts this year.
* two pieces appeared on Horror Addicts, about “Character Generation” and the ghosts of the Haunted Mansion Retreat.
* two pieces appeared in the Western Legends blog, both relating to Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel: “Adventures in Cemetery Travel” and “Island of the Dead”
* “Where Horror Lies” appeared in the Halloween Haunts feature on the Horror Writers Association blog
* a piece called “Permanent Florentines,” drawn from Wish You Were Here was published on Wicked World
* “Anatomy Lab” was published twice on Josh Perry’s Gravecast blog
* Ty Schwamberger did a March Plug post on As Above, So Below
* Armand Rosamilia ran a Spotlight on me, related to Authors Supporting Our Troops 2014
* I joined the Meet My Character blog hop, inspired by Laurel Anne Hill’s blog
* And I contributed a Horror Selfie to the HWA’s promotion

Blogging:
In terms of blogging, the Red Room was sold suddenly in June, so I had to take down my blog there. On this Morbid is as Morbid Does blog, I achieved 98 new posts (10 more than last year). I wrote 76 posts on Cemetery Travel this year and doubled my page views from all the previous years combined. And I managed 119 posts on my Cemetery Postcards tumblr, before I got overwhelmed by the research.

Random Things I did this year:
I set up cemetery tours of Rose Hill Cemetery at the Black Diamond Mines State Historic Park, the Mare Island Naval Cemetery, the Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery, and the Union Cemetery of Redwood City for the Atlas Obscura Society. That was amazingly fun. I’m sorry it had to come to an end.

I worked on a book collecting my Writing In Cafes essays on Wattpad. It’s called Writing in Cafes: A How-To Guide for Authors. I hope to get in finished in the new year, but you can read it for free now.

I made book trailers for As Above, So Below and the Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two. Once I settle down, I have footage shot by the brilliant Brian Thomas to edit into an About Me video.  That’s another project for the new year.