Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Well, I've been blasting along on the new novel, but life got in the way, first with Thanksgiving and then with a fast trip to California and back! I did a little work every day, but do tend to drop everything when I have the chance to spend time with my kids, and long driving days don't leave me a lot of time for writing. I'm terribly prone to motion sickness, so couldn't even work while my daughter was driving. I'd hoped by this point to be sliding into the final quarter of the book, but thanks to life, I'm still wallowing in the weeds in the middle. One thing about driving, you do have time to think, and I came up with a couple of obstacles to throw in Seffi's way, but we'll have to see what comes of it all. I'm still trying to get straight in my head just how we'll reach the solution at the end, but I'm making progress again.  Meanwhile, my books are on sale starting tomorrow through the end of the year. First in series are free, most are...

It's the first Wednesday of the Month, and that means time for our Insecure Writers Support Group posts! I'm having to make a fast trip to California this week, so I may be slow responding, but I will get to you if you leave a comment!   Purpose:   To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Posting:   The first Wednesday of every month is officially   Insecure Writer’s Support Group   day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!   Don't forget you can ...

Happy Thanksgiving to all my US readers! Here's a turkey for your Thanksgiving dinner. I've now been drafting like crazy for two weeks, and have broken 30,000 words--more than 1/3 of the way through the book. I have a corpse, a bunch of suspects, and a lot of notes about the things I've forgotten to include or to follow up on. With the holiday this week it'll be hard to keep up my writing goals, as I'll be prioritizing time with the visiting kids, but if I manage to stay more or less on track I'll be close to halfway by the end of the week. The biggest holdup is that I haven't outlined much beyond where I am now, so there may be delays while I figure out how to get where I need to go. Or I may just keep writing, knowing where I need to end up, and hope for the best. The end result seems to be similar either way: a big mess that takes a lot of rewriting to make come out right. In the meantime, I'll have eaten my fill of turkey and pie, and that's wort...

I set this post up a few days ago as a sort of deadline. I've been struggling with creating an outline for the next book, distracted by a few things--you know, catastrophic politics, finding a home for my daughter and her friends (an on-going process that will no doubt involve flying to the Bay Area on short notice), and getting Washed Up With the Tide launched. But here it is: I have begun drafting Logged Off at the Library (working title. May shorten to just Logged Off. Thoughts?). I had hoped to be ready about a week ago, but the story details just wouldn't coalesce in my brain. I finally reached a tipping point about Monday and started producing a helpful outline! In order to do this, I've put all short story work on hold, but the result is that I have begun writing (rather late yesterday)! Word count as of 11/12: 1092. Watch the space on the left side of the page just below my photo for daily word count updates (this isn't a very elegant solution but I will try to...

I've been pretty quiet for quite a while, and it's time I got back on the blogging schedule! I've been enjoying some great trips--I even got to see Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS from a perch in the Grand Canyon! And followed it up with several days in the Bay Area with my kids, engaging in some house-hunting on their behalf, which is both fun and stressful as all get out. As a result, very little writing has happened (again). I did work a little on the poor sad short story that keeps getting shunted aside in favor of another hike, and of course, the new book has a cover, is formatted, and--ta-da! -- has a release date! So here it is:  It's available November 18, just in time to give copies as Christmas presents! So that's pretty cool. I still have some tinkering to do with the formatting but it is substantially finished--and I'm really excited, both for the release and to be working on the next book! Edited Out has been patiently waiting its turn for revisions, and Bo...

  It's the first Wednesday of the month, and time for another IWSG post.   Purpose:   To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Posting:   The first Wednesday of every month is officially   Insecure Writer’s Support Group   day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!   Don't forget you can post your link on the IWSG Facebook page !   Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG   The aweso...

  It's the first Wednesday of the month, and time for another IWSG post, with a discussion of writing rules.   Purpose:   To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Posting:   The first Wednesday of every month is officially   Insecure Writer’s Support Group   day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!   Don't forget you can post your link on the IWSG Facebook page !   Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG an...

It's the first Wednesday of the month, and time for another IWSG post. This month I'm excited to be one of the co-hosts!   Purpose:   To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Posting:   The first Wednesday of every month is officially   Insecure Writer’s Support Group   day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!   Don't forget you can post your link on the IWSG Facebook page !   Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @The...

 It's the first Wednesday of the month, and time for another IWSG post!   Purpose:   To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Posting:   The first Wednesday of every month is officially   Insecure Writer’s Support Group   day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!   Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.   The awesome co-hosts for the June 5 posting of the IWSG are Liza at Middle Passages, Sha...

It has been a while since I had much of a writer update. If you notice I've been a bit thin on the book reviews as well, the two are related. There's been a lot of travel since the first of the year, even for me! The inevitable side-effect is less writing, and a bit of a struggle to get back in the groove now that I'm home for a bit. Here's the current status: Washed Up With the Tide (Seffi Wardwell #2): I'm in the early stages of what I hope will be the final edit (to be followed by polishing and proof-reading). I've been dealing with some plot issues but think I might have a grip on it now. I also met last week with my cover artist and hope to have a cover soon, after which I'll set a publication date and open the book for pre-orders. Short stories: After a long hiatus when I wasn't getting around to finding new places to submit (and the rejections of the last items out), I now have two stories out on submission. Working on the novel makes it hard for...

Possibly the fact that my Wednesday post is only being written and posted after Wednesday is well along tells you everything you need to know about the state of the writer just now! I have been home from my travels for just over a week, and am *finally* getting things sorted out enough to start turning my brain to writing, though not with the focus I'd like. I chose not to do any writing work while on my Africa trip, beyond keeping my journal. Only at the very end did I succumb to the itch to write and began drafting a bit of flash fiction (not finished, which also says a lot about my state of mind--how hard is it to at least draft a story of under 1000 words?). And on the trip home (during a16 1/2-hour leg of the roughly 41 hours door to door) I finally opened the emails from my beta readers and began thinking about what they said. Flying over places we never expected to go. It was no part of our intention to have *quite* such a long trip home, but the strikes at Lufthansa sent us...

Yes, my friends, it's that time again! Revisions! Notes and outlines and corrections and lions and tigers and bears, oh my!  Whenever and wherever I have the chance to work on it. Okay, those are old photos, but you get the idea.  Today's discussion: where am I in the process, and how is it going?  Way back last fall, just before I began drafting Seffi Wardwell #3 ( Edited Out ), I took a squint at #2. My initial reaction was that I'd done an amazing job with the first draft (not something I usually think). My second reaction was that if I thought it was all in such good shape, I needed a second opinion. I don't usually care to have anyone read a story until I've revised it a couple of times, but I needed advice, so Ellen Jacobson kindly agreed to read the MS of Washed Up With the Tide .   Thanks to Ellen's insightful comments, I am now in the process of my usual level of revision and re-vision. Between her comments and my own realizations as I began reading aga...

NaNoWriMo--National Novel Writing Month--is officially over, even for my extended goal, and I'm ready to reflect on the experience and the process. Goals: I set my goal to hit the 80,000-word norm for my novels by December 10.  The result: Edited Out turned out to be more like 74K, and even shorter in the quick-and-dirty draft that left out some things. I went back and added some missing scenes, then was left with the choice of "failing" or cheating. Reader, I cheated. I finished out the last few days with whatever other writing I had on hand to do, to make it up to 80K. Result: I have a very rough and rocky draft of the novel, some personal stuff that needed writing, and partial draft of a short story that may be the germ of the next Seffi Wardwell mystery. Win-win? Maybe. I also have a bit of burnout. Writing daily, and often writing a LOT each day, left me with a story I'm not sure how to continue and a desire not to look at any of it for a while. On the other han...