Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

How's it going, NaNers? If you're doing NaNo, drop me a note, and let me know how it's working for you, or find me on the NaNo site as Rebecca Douglass if you want to buddy up. However much or little you're writing, it's all good--and probably more than you would without NaNo. I'll cheer you on if you are a rebel or a rule-follower. I kind of messed up when I set up my project, and set the goal for the entire 80K that it takes to actually make up a novel in my genre (cozy mystery), so it's a bit of a stretch for me to hit the target every day (to say the least). I didn't really mean to do that, since I have every intention of pushing the writing on through December 3, at least--I'm going to be at the Hypatia-in-the-Woods Holly House artist's residency until then. I figure the residency will be a time when I don't have a lot to do besides write, especially if the weather stinks, so I can catch up while I'm there. Meanwhile, though, the wri

  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 October 5 posting of the IWSG are  Diedre Knight, Douglas Thomas Greening, Nick Wilford , and Diane Burton ! Be sure you drop in on them and see what t

Time for a quick update before Thanksgiving.  As I've noted, I'm being a NaNo rebel this year, not trying to draft a novel, but rather to sort and edit 50,000 words of short fiction into collections. And how's that going? Well, I think. I passed the 40k mark (including whatever else I've written this month, and the final edits on Death By Donut ) late last week, and have three collections ready for final edits and formatting, with stories for a fourth tagged but not yet edited. I have also written a guest post for the WEP--watch for that to come out on Wednesday, I think--and tackled some challenging computer issues (which turned out not to be as bad as expected). Editing mode has been good to me, and as readers saw on Friday, even led to writing a whole new bit of flash fiction just for the heck of it. That being the case, I feel like I do have something to be thankful for this week, in addition to friends and family who are holding me together, largely from afar.  To

  It's the first Wednesday of the month, and that means time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group post. The IWSG is the brainchild of the amazing Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh. Since we are all insecure and can use all the support we can get, huge thanks to Alex and this month's co-hosts, Jemi Fraser, Kim Lajevardi, L.G Keltner, Tyrean Martinson, and Rachna Chhabria! Every month there is an optional question to spark our posts and discussions. This month's question is (stripped of all the explanation you will find here ): Why do you write what you write? Now for my post... I'll get to the question in a minute. First, the big question: to NaNo, or not to NaNo? That's right--November is National Novel Writing Month, and many of us like to use the energy of the event to push our work along. So am I doing it this month?  My answer to that appears to be a great big "sort of." When I first drafted this post on Oct. 30, I was still working on edits

Since I'm off in the Maine woods and more into kayaks and moose right now than I am writing (and this is an automated post because we're out of range of wi-fi), this is meant to be a quick update.  The editing in which I rejoiced last week in my IWSG post is still going on at a pretty good rate. I've hit some of the harder bits, the places where I need to rewrite if not rethink stuff, but I'm still hopeful of finishing by the end of the month. Some of the 47K I've finished with are actually new words, part of the 10K or so I need to reach my target novel length. Finishing the draft and sending it to my beta readers would be good, because I would really like to give the new cozy series that's brewing in my brain a chance to come to life. For now, I'm keeping it under wraps--it's too soon and I don't want to risk an early frost nipping it before it's even begun to grow. But much as I love my Pismawallops PTA crew, I'm excited to invent a whole

... And a Happy Thanksgiving!   With only four days left in the official NaNo month, how's your writing? I've hit the "winner" mark and kept going. I feel like I've been struggling with the book, though I've been able to hit my word goal almost every day. The strange thing is... I've been getting those words in the evening. I have always believed myself to be a morning person, and that I'm usually pretty much incapable of thought by evening. And yet here I've been, day after day frittering away my mornings, and finally sitting down in the evenings and writing like a mad thing. And it works. So am I no longer a morning person? Or has procrastination reached a new peak? As for the outline that was going to make it a breeze, well, I am still more or less on the outline but the writing is coming hard in any case. Stats: Around 57,000 words Attended three write-ins, where the peer pressure really helped Several gallons of coffee.   Don't forget--sig

Battle of the Brains: Planning Vs. Pantsing   Hey, everyone! I'm coming up for air (from the depths of my new MS) and wanted to let you know how it's all going--especially that extensive outline I started with! We're three weeks in, which means most of us are in the doldrums. At least, that's where I am. I've been managing to meet my word counts every day, but I feel like I'm forcing it out. Like I have constipation of the imagination. This, of course, is famously where the outline helps. So is my outline helping? Have I stuck to the plan well enough for it to have any meaning at all at this point? Yes and no, on both counts. I've wandered a bit--things I planned for one point have ended up happening earlier, which leaves me with holes, or a lack of a point for a planned scene. But I do still have a more or less chronological list of the the things that need to happen to get to the solution of the mystery, and I can consult it when I'm flagging. I also h

  I like to do a weekly update during November when I'm doing NaNoWriMo (it's another way to procrastinate, right?), to say how I'm doing and see how those of you who are swotting along with me are coming along. By the way, if you want to be buddies on NaNo, I do it under my own name :) So how's my NaNo going, after 12 days? Stats: 23,922 words as of 7 p.m. last night (really hoping as I write this, at 7 p.m. last night, that I can up that before bed). Consistency: Yup. Every day. Average output: around 2000 words, which is my minimum goal (2K/day gets me an 80K draft in 40 days...) Most words in one day: 2967 Fewest, excluding yesterday because of hopefulness: 1069 Less numerically, I'm in the mid-book doldrums. Like my sleuth, JJ MacGregor, I'm flailing around looking for clues as to where all this is going. So, you ask, what about the extensive notes and outline? Still more or less on, and still helpful, but the holes in it you could drive a train through! Ti

  The first Wednesday of every month is the Insecure Writer's Support Group posting day, where writers can express their 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! Check it out  here  and join if you want support with your writing.  Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.  Remember, the question is optional! November 6 question - What's the strangest thing you've ever googled in researching a story?    The awesome co-hosts for the November 6 posting of the IWSG are Sadira St

Time for another writing update already! I'm happy to say that there has been some action in the last two weeks. That novella I was inspired to write has been drafted and is getting feedback. More on that below. We've gotten home from our travels, and are settled in enough now that a) I can start to see my way through the chaos to a regular schedule (including writer time) and b) I've started up all my workouts again and I am SORE! Which may actually be good for the writer stuff, because once I sit down at the computer I don't want to move. As for NaNo ( National Novel Writing Month , aka November), yes I'll be participating again this year. To see why, I think I'll refer you to last year's post on the topic . I'm ready for a boost, a deadline, and a bit of writer chatter, and maybe even a chance to connect with some local writers. I've got some work to do still on the outline (somewhere in the next day or two while getting Death By Library organized

First things first: today is the official December WEP day. Click on the image to go to the list of fantastic WEP stories from this month, including mine. We all posted up early to make sure there would be time to read the stories before the holidays sweep us all up. Writer’s Update: Well, we survived NaNo, and while it was (and is) hard to maintain the momentum after the end of the month, I did manage to hang on and bring my word count up to just under 70k, with a pretty good draft of the story (not too many missing bits). I’m also considering it a positive thing that, unlike my usual process, I don’t feel the need to dump the story for 6-12 months before I look at it again. I am actually ready to continue chipping away at the big issues and working on getting the draft to the point where I can give it to beta readers, hopefully before summer (northern hemisphere summer). Apropos of that, if you are interested in beta-reading Death By Library  once it’s ready, let me know. It’s book 4

It's November 28. The month is almost over, and I hope all of you have had a good one. If you've been participating in NaNoWriMo, whether as a "traditionalist" who's pounding out 50,000 words (or more), or a "rebel" who's been writing short stories or  revising something or trying to finish a book started years ago, here's to meeting your goals in the next two days! And what about the Ninja Librarian? Well, in once sense, I met the goal: I've written nearly 60,000 words, and have a beginning, middle and end to the novel. But I don't have what I'd call a complete draft, and not just because it's about 20,000 words short of the target length. There are a lot of holes to fill in and red herrings to fry before I can call it a draft. So I've been working since Saturday to identify the missing bits and start filling them in, to give myself a complete draft to work with when I start editing in a few months. So here's what kills m

It's almost the halfway point in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and I'm well past the 25,000-word midpoint of the standard NaNo target. I'm hoping to have 34,000 or even 35,000 by the time you are reading this, and to hit the actual midpoint of my draft by the end of tomorrow (the middle of the month). Death By Library is growing fast, and I'm having fun tormenting JJ, especially with teen drama. I think I hit a good balance between planning and letting things develop as they will, and I'm having fun with my characters. I know I'm writing too much daily detail, but I've made my peace with that: I seem to need to write those details to get to what's important. I just have to be ready to deal with the mess of deleting them when the time comes (I think that also means I should probably aim for closer to 90K words than 80K for a full draft, but I'll just see how the story arcs). November can be a difficult month for the NaNo project (I have wo

(Hey, I might finally have found an alliterative name for my writing posts that actually makes sense!) Before I talk about NaNo ( National Novel Writing Month ), I want to share a blog post I found helpful and inspiring. Aliette de Bodard wrote this as a guest post on Chuck  Wendig's "Terrible Minds" blog: Cannibalizing a Draft . Take a look. Okay, now that we have a link to something to help us when we finish that crappy NaNo draft, are you participating? Tell me why or why not! I'm doing it again this year. I'd like to think that I'm fully capable of preparing and writing a draft in a month or 6 weeks without any outside motivators... but the truth is, that community of writers, the little word-count ticker, and just the idea that there's a deadline does a lot for my ability to prepare well and write hard. It's all about deadlines, I think. I am motivated to work on my outline/writing plan for Death By Library because I know I want to star

It's the first Wednesday of the month, and that means IWSG time! 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! Be sure to drop in on our awesome co-hosts for October: Tonja Drecker, Diane Burton, MJ Fifield, and, well, me!  This month's question: Win or not, do you usually finish your NaNo project? Have any of them gone on to be pub

The end is near! Well, the end of the official NaNo month, anyway. As we move into the final days, how are all of you NaNers doing? Still moaning with Thanksgiving excesses and too busy talking with relations to write, or picking up speed on the final sprint to 50,000 words and 3/4 of a draft? (Sorry to be a spoil sport, but unless you're writing middle grade fiction, 50K isn't a novel). As I expected, I slowed down a lot through the holidays as I was busy with cooking and talking, but I managed to write each day through our visit with relatives. I reduced my target to 1000 words, which is a little less than an hour's work if I've got a good idea where I'm going (that's getting harder--more on that in a moment). Currently my word count stands at 43,000. That's a little ahead of the amount needed to reach 50K by the 30th, at least if I bump my output back up to 2000 words daily. Two things are going to make it harder to pound out the pages the way I'd lik

Something happened to my good intentions about weekly updates, and since my first update on Nov. 5, somehow an extra week slipped past. I'm happy to report, though, that it didn't slip past my writing, and I can report progress good enough to probably carry me through the Thanksgiving weekend with its more limited writing opportunities. I caught up to par on the 14th (so it did take me almost half the month), and have been sailing on ahead since, continuing with 1800-2200 words most days. I will confess that because I am turning a collection of flash fiction into a novel, I am able at times to lift a paragraph or two from the short stories (far less than I expected, though, and each of them needs careful consideration and reworking to fit the novel). I guess that means I can't claim a "legit" victory. News Flash: I'm not interested in playing by a set of arbitrary rules. I'm interested in writing a novel. I think that's the text for the pep talk part o