Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Why, yes, I do believe I am making progress!  The cover art is progressing nicely--I'm hoping to be able to reveal that soon. Meanwhile, I have (with much help from my friends--special thanks to fellow writers  Ronel  Janse van Vuuren and Lisa Frieden ) finalized the back-cover blurb! I'll share that below. If you don't like seeing how sausage is made, skip the next paragraph!   In other news, I've drafted a whole new ending for  Logged Off,  which I think works better and makes more sense than the original version. Of course, I still have to beat it into shape, then go back and make sure everything in earlier parts of the book fits the new ending.    In spite of this, and my travel plans for August, September, and October, I am on track to release the book in November. I've also polished up a few short stories to send out in search of a home. In other writerly news, I've been going to lots of street fairs and hawking my books with the Author Eve...

It's the first Wednesday of the month again already, and time for my IWSG post! I'm excited to be a co-host again this month!   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 lin...

It's the first Wednesday of the month (how has another month gone by already?), and time for the IWSG posting! 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! ...

  What I have today might be a question. Maybe it's just an observation. Maybe it's a deep-seated flaw in how I work. Here's the thing: everything I read, and indeed my own logic, tells me to do big-picture edits without messing with the prose. But here's my reality: I can't. If I see how to improve a sentence or spot confusion about who's speaking, I have to (at the very least) mark it for fixing. If I have a sudden realization of how to reword something, I have to do it now, because that insight may never come my way again (even if I leave a bookmark). Is this a problem? The reality is that most of my original prose stays in the finished book, albeit rather polished up. But it's there. So very little of that work is wasted.  But wait--isn't it distracting me from the more important (at the moment) task of fixing the story arc? Well, probably? That actually isn't a helpful observation, since I don't seem able to restrain myself. And maybe there...

I thought I'd start this post with a gratuitous sunrise photo, to sort of suggest a new year and new beginnings and all that. Maybe something that might let you believe I'm going to get myself sorted out and start blogging on something like a schedule again. That's my hope, atually. I am writing, though I've already distracted myself for a week with a trip south to remind myself what daylight is, followed by a week of being sick. Now I'm working hard on a short story that's kind of grown into almost a novella, so it might need to either get longer or shorter, but I'm not sure which. And I've started, in a tentative and timid way, the revision process for Seffi Wardwell #4,  Logged Off.  I need to get serious about that. As for the blog, which is where I was really heading, I'm going to continue with my Friday/Saturday posts of either photos or flash fiction, and will do my best to resume Monday book reviews, with at least some of them being middle gr...

As you can see from the counter on the side-bar, I've hit the 80K mark on  Painted Over,  and from the outside it might look like I'm done. In fact, though I reached the end, thanks to some big changes that happened in the middle (major deviations from my plan!), I have to go back and change some things to make the ending work. I want to do some of that now, while it's fresh in my mind, so I'll be working on it the next couple of days, re-writing some parts and leaving lots of notes to myself in others.  This draft has been a bear, and I feel a  like I've been wrestling a bear! I can't lie: I'll be glad to put it aside until sometime next year. In the meantime, I have short stories that have been waiting patiently for attention, and can start after the holidays with the edits on Seffi Wardwell #4,  Logged Off  (or maybe  Logged Off at the Library,  but I'm leaning to the short and crisp for my titles just now. Feel free to offer opinions). Just on...

It's the last first Wednesday of the month for 2025 (cue "how did we get here so fast?" comments), and time for the 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! 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 lea...

Really? I'm writing? Well, okay, at this point that's stretching it. But I'm staying home for a while and back at my computer. More specifically, I am plotting and planning and getting ready to start drafting a new novel. I even have a tentative title:  Painted Over . I kind of liked  Portrait of the Artist as a Young Corpse,  but that's a bit long and maybe a bit geeky.  I'm still at the stage where I'm having fun tossing around big ideas and coming up with characters, writing their stories, and wondering what new personal challenges Seffi should face. It's starting to come together in my head, so I can reasonably hope to start the first draft within the next couple of weeks. I'm looking at bringing back some peripheral characters from both  Edited Out  (#3 in series, released Aug. 25) and #4 , Logged Off   (possibly  Logged Off at the Library , but I'm leaning toward the shorter title. Feel free to offer your opinions on all this in th...

I was chatting with a couple of young women the other day, and used the words "writing" and "work" in the same sentence. That got a reaction from one (another word geek) as she said something like, "but writing's fun!" Thus this brief meditation on how fun writing is and sometimes isn't. Because while I can't think of anything I'd rather do, work-wise, there are times in the process when writing is, in fact, a great deal like work. I've been editing  Edited Out for what feels like ages, which might explain why just now I'm not thinking writing is the most fun work ever. Having spent two whole days just contemplating my shortcomings with regards to comma usage, I find myself wondering if I even know English well enough to write (note: it is my native language and really, I do. But commas!). I figure it takes me about 6 weeks to draft a novel, and 6 months to revise it. Then I am astonished, every single time, to realize it takes anot...

It's the first Wednesday of the month, and I'm excited that it's not only IWSG day, but I get to be a co-host! 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 writers - 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 h...