Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Welcome to 2026, and the first IWSG post of the year! What's in your plans? 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 (and come on, we're all insecure in some way)! 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 writers - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting! Be sure to link to the IWSG page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog! Otherwise, when you leave a commen...

My poet friend Deborah Bacharach ( check out her work ) suggested yesterday that writing something, anything, was the way to start the new year. I then bethought me of Crimson's Creative Challenge , which I know about because of another writer friend, Jemima Pett , who regularly posts drabbles inspired by the challenge. Time for me to join and get back to writing flash fiction. For the challenge, Crispina Kemp posts 4 photos each week and you can pick one (or more, presumably) as inspiration for a creative response. This week is challenge #67. Word count is supposed to be capped at 150.  My choice of image: A humpback stone bridge with a kiosk and a lot of mist.   I liked the image, and it resonated with the way my neighborhood was blanketed in thick fog on NYE when I got home from my hike (which had been out of the fog and in the sun, when not under the trees).  This was my neighborhood on New Year's Eve. Visibility half a block. Here's my story, for your amusement this ...

The end of 2025 is here--time for my year-end wrap-up! I'm not talking about the wider world--that's too depressing. I'm talking about my writer self, and my traveler self. As a writer, 2025 was about average for productivity. I edited and published a novel, and I drafted a novel. I joined a couple of organizations and started selling books at local events. I didn't do much with short fiction, despite my best intentions. Novels:   I did pretty well in this area, though as always everything was harder and took longer than expected. I edited and published Book 3 in the Seffi Wardwell mystery series-- Edited Out .  That came out at the end of August, and I started drafting Book 5 (I leapfrog--I'll be editing #4,  Logged Off,  starting about now) in November. That ended up being a hot mess, but I think I have something I can work with when I am ready to start edits. Short stories:   I had big ambitions about sending stuff out over and over until it sold, not to ment...

Thanks to the holidays, my weekend photo post missed the "weekend" target.  I hope you all had a great holiday of whatever sort you enjoy. I had a wonderful time with my kids and the rest of the clan.  This is the final installment in my on-going series of photo posts about my trip to Iceland in September 2025, including a  my 2-week  campervan tour of the Ring Road. If you haven't seen the previous posts and want to read them in order, here are the links to post #1     post #2     post #3     post #4     post # 5   post #6    post #7    post #8 and post #9 .    The last couple of days of my trip were pretty low-key, in part because I was getting tired, in part because I'd done all the big stuff, and in part because the weather went absolutely Icelandic on me on the last day.    Day 12 (Sept. 22): Háifoss and history It rained pretty hard overnight, but the morning wasn't bad, ...

This is part of my on-going series of photo posts about my trip to Iceland in September 2025, including a  my 2-week  campervan tour of the Ring Road. If you haven't seen the previous posts and want to read them in order, here are the links to post #1     post #2     post #3     post #4     post # 5   post #6    post #7 , and post #8 .  Day 11 (Sept. 21): Skogafoss Waterfall hike. Nothing about waking up at Skogafoss was as nice as the campground the previous morning. The bare parking lot, the dingy loos (though they were a lot closer), and the weather were none a match. But the hike! Wow. I might wish I'd done it in bright, sunny weather, but I'm not sure that light would have been as good as what I had. Unlike most other people camped there, I was up at first light, and on the trail as early as possible (7:40 a.m., which isn't bad given we were at the autumn equinox--sunrise at 7:08, if it had been clear enough...