Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

  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

I think I'm overdue for a writer check-in. I've been visiting a friend in Maine and enjoying fall color, walks in yellow-orange-red forests, and good times with friends. But there has also been some time to write (at least, to write those hasty #writephoto flash pieces!) and to think about writing. "Thinking about writing" sounds like the sort of thing you do when you want to be a writer but don't want to actually do the work, so let me clarify. I'm thinking fairly specifically about a new novel in development (while I wait to see what I'm going to do with the one I worked on for the last year). I am, in fact, plotting my next murder while I walk (in a manner of speaking. No actual people are hurt in this plotting, though inattention to where I'm walking may injure me if I'm not careful). The process of developing a new story is a somewhat long and convoluted one for me. I start with a germ of an idea. In this case, like the last, it was the discov

  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 Tonja Drecker, Victoria Marie Lees, Mary Aalgaard, and Sandra Cox! Be sure you drop in on them and see what they have

A couple of weeks ago I sent my current draft of A Coastal Corpse off to a couple of readers. I didn't feel quite ready to send it to lots of beta readers, but needed some help and/or assurance that I haven't written a complete train wreck. So, the question is, as I wait for feedback, what do I do? I'm kind of flailing around, messing a bit with ideas for the next novel in the series, and another story that might be a long short or even a novel, wholly out of my usual style so I'm not sure if I can do it. I'm also not quite sure it it's historical fiction, fantasy, or SF, so there's that little problem. What do you do when you're at a hiatus in a large project? Take a vacation? Do promotional work (like that's going to happen--I've pretty much proven I'm not going there)? Write short stories?  My instinct is to get to work on shorts and flash fiction, and try to sell some stories. It's getting started that seems hard. Share your strategi

Today I have for you... a few shots of a the giant driving marathon I've been on this past week. I was sad to have to leave my new home almost as soon as the truck was unloaded, but Eldest Son needed help moving home with his newly-minted MA, and we needed to be in CA for my father-in-law's memorial gathering. So since last Saturday I have driven from Seattle to Boulder, CO, and back to California (still have to finish the loop back to Seattle). Along the (2500-mile) way I have managed to get in 2 things I could call a hike and a couple of walks. Here are a few highlights. This was either Montana or Wyoming. A roadside rest stop with full facilities for all users. One walk was at Vedauwoo Climbing Area in Wyoming. I meant to camp there, but the place wasn't open yet for the season. I did camp nearby, and woke to snow and then hail. I 80 was heavily fogged in. This shot is from my breakfast stop, after the fog thinned a bit. Managed to break away from the packing up (haven&#

It's been a while. I've not given up on blogging--not yet. But I have had to let it go while dealing with life. I think I'm back now, though the whole moving thing isn't over. Just one week ago, this happened. Yes, that's a U-Haul, and yes, I did at least some of the loading. I also owe huge thanks to the friends, relations, and neighbors who helped make it happen. The flip side is this:  That's my stuff going into a storage unit. Now I'm neck deep in trying to find my new home, learning the hard lessons about balancing dreams and reality, and still hoping for the perfect--for me--house. However, now that things are settling down to home tours and waiting, I'm at last back at work on the novel! I managed a couple of hours of work on it this morning, and am over 70K on the re-drafting. That is to say, I'm into the home stretch. If I can recover my vision I should be able to finish the draft in the next week and start finding out if I've improved m

  What is the IWSG? Read on! 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!   You ready? Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! March 2 question (always optional!) - Have you ever been conflicted about writing a story or adding a scene to a story? How did you decide to write it or not?   The awesome co-hosts for the March 2 posting of the IWSG are 

    Spring is springing all over the place, and I'm writing my little heart out. I think I have shared already that I decided the only thing to do about my utter mess of a draft of my new novel was... to write it over. I'm now approaching the 20,000-word mark (i.e., about 1/4 of the way), and my initial concerns about this approach are getting nicely put to rest. Of course, I won't really know if it's any less messy until I get to the end and read it over, but I feel  like I know much better where I'm going and why, and I'm picking up the characters that got neglected the first time around.  It's not a terribly fast process--it's going to take the same 6 weeks or so to draft as it did the first time. Honestly, that's about as much as I can handle typing per day, so even though I think it's flowing better (at least at the moment), I can't do much over 2000 words/day. That's due to limitations both physical--I'm trying to avoid a flare-

"Messy" does seem the best way to describe most aspects of my life just now. Personally, I've been very distracted by moving my younger son out into his own new adult life (along with a certain amount of my furniture...) and preparing for my own upcoming move in a couple of months. That's caused a lot of literal mess as I sort and discard, and pull my things off shelves in a hurry when we decided he would take this or that dresser or bookcase. Submissions have been slow, but I do currently have two stories out. It took a lot of looking for find a place to send one of them; if you know of markets for lighthearted fantasy basically for kids/YA (though it's not explicitly non-adult), let me know in the comments! And the novel? When I'm not too distracted by moving, it's actually coming along. I'm nearly done creating the new outline, and will start drafting the new version as soon as that is done--hopefully by the weekend. It's a mess, but one I have

But not zero writing! I have continued to write every day when camped in the front country, and the novel is now nearing 65K. I took a break while backpacking this week, but came up with a vision (I think) for where it goes from here more or less to the end. Since that vision was developed while hiking at over 11,000', I will believe it when it actually works out on paper! For those who are wondering, the new book is a new heroine, new setting, and as yet lacks a title. I'm just calling it Seffi's Book for now. More updates on that when inspiration strikes! We are enjoying three nights of front-country camping, then four more of backpacking, before I head home and try to tie up the loose ends. By the time we end the trip, I expect to be over 70K words and have the end in sight--today is a total rest day, so a good writing day (well, rest, groceries, laundry, and a few other errands, but mostly entertaining ourselves). Here are a few more teaser photos from the cell phone. L

 We are back in civilization for an hour or two to do laundry. It comes to every camper and hiker! So here's my chance to catch up. Yes, as a writer! Since our hikes have started typically by 7:15 or 7:30 a.m., we've been done and in camp by mid-afternoon. That's enough time to do some writing, and so far I have written every day, I think at least 1000 words. The new novel is up to 59,237  words as of this writing, and keeping the daily momentum means it's kind of coming together. I do think there will be a lot of moving scenes around--I'm envisioning a lot of notecards to rearrange on a big wall. Meanwhile, here is proof I've been writing: Outside when conditions allow. When the mosquitoes are too bad, I move into my BiL/SiL's camper Mornings are spent soaking up the soul-healing beauty of the Sierra Nevada. Little Lakes Valley, Rock Creek The beauty of the ancient trees Table Mountain, above Bishop Creek. Treasure Lake, S. Fork Bishop Creek Three happy hik