Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

  It's the first Wednesday, and time again for the Insecure Writers' Support Group post. Join and share! 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 ...

Thanks to Great Escapes Virtual Tours for the chance to read and review Campfires and Corpses .   Campfires & Corpses: A Maine Campground Cozy Mystery by Nikki Weber About Campfires & Corpses Campfires & Corpses: A Maine Campground Cozy Mystery Cozy Mystery/ Cozy Animal Mystery 1st in Series Setting – Maine Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published (February 24, 2025) Paperback ‏ : ‎ 282 pages ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8311619622 Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0DS6KRK16 When the campground becomes the scene of the crime, will Noelle’s peaceful summer go up in flames? Down on her luck event planner Noelle Cooper is returning to rural Maine to do the one thing she swore she would never do: run her family’s campground. But it’s only for the summer, and the timing couldn’t be better–she’s lost her job and has nowhere to live. She hopes that a change of scenery will be the thing she needs to regroup and reinvent herself. But Noelle’s plans go up in smoke on h...

Back in April I took a little trip to Utah and visited some cools spots in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument--some old friends, some brand new. A highlight was a 2-night backpack trip into Coyote Gulch, in part because I'd intended to do this in 2023, but was stymied when I broke my foot. It was good to finally get there. As usual, I have too many photos I want to share, and will have to break this into two posts! Day 1 There are at least 3 ways into lower Coyote Gulch (that don't involve boats). Two of them involve a 4WD road (probably mostly passable to sedans) and some moderately unnerving scrambles. We chose the 3rd way, which means a longer hike (and an excuse to stay out 2 nights instead of the one most people gave the area). We dropped in via Hurricane Wash, an easy hike in in the morning's coolness, a bit longer on the way out in the heat. We in fact started about 9:20, by the time we finished fussing with gear. We weren't too worried about...

Book 3 of the Seffi Wardwell mysteries really is coming soon... depending on how you define "soon." I'm plugging away at the edits, and my cover artist has finished the semester and is at work on the cover (Right, Maggie?). I can't believe how long this is all taking. When will I learn that the revision stage is hard, and always takes longer than it should? And why?  Because I avoid it, and because it really does take a long time to work through the whole book so many times. Anyway, here is the blurb, and as soon as I have a cover I will set up pre-orders and give myself a hard and fast launch date! Feel free to offer suggestions on the blurb--nothing is set in stone yet! Who rubbed out the writer?   Winter in Maine is long, dark, and cold, and California transplant Seffi Wardwell is combating the winter blues with a full calendar. Tending the plants at the local bed-and-breakfast, writing reports for the library, and generally keeping an eye on...

This was my take on an exercise I had my students do a couple of weeks ago, where we were to write a story from one point of view, then rewrite from another. I've tweaked it some, but it remains what it was from the start, i.e., an exercise. But it's kind of fun so I thought I'd share it anyway.  I'll get back to pretty pictures next week.   At the Track 1. The jockey’s story   Albert crouched on the back of Silver Streak, absurdly small atop the tall racehorse, muscles tensed and ready for the sound of the gun. Take it easy. Don’t let the horse feel any unease. Tension was okay, if it was the good kind, to give horse and rider a sharp edge. He found the perfect position, the riding crop poised, as if Silver would need any urging when the gun sounded and the gates opened. That horse knew how to run. Silver Streak loved to race.   Bang! The muscles of the powerful animal bunched under Albert. They burst through the gate like one creature, in ...

Because I absolutely loved  The Secret of Honeycake (review in link) by Kimberly Newton Fusco, I nabbed Beholding Bee as an audiobook for my recent trip to Utah. I'm reviewing it for t he fantastic Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays blog hop hosted by Greg Pattridge of Always in the Middle . Check out Greg's blog for a list of additional reviews of middle grade books .    Title: Beholding Bee Author: Kimberly Newton Fusco. Read by Ariadne Meyers Publication Info: Listening Library, 2013. 8 hours. Original hardcover by Knopf Books, 2013, 336 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Blurb (via Goodreads): Bee is an orphan who lives with a carnival and sleeps in the back of a tractor trailer. Every day she endures taunts for the birthmark on her face—though her beloved Pauline, the only person who has ever cared for her, tells her it is a precious diamond. When Pauline is sent to work for another carnival, Bee is lost. Then a scruffy dog shows up, as unwanted as she, an...

Today's photos are from a relatively easy hike (just over 5 miles RT, but with some fun stuff involving the willows in the creek bed) back in April. Still roaming about the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and this trailhead lies some 44 miles from the pavement off the Hole-in-the-Rock road. The road is passable to a passenger car at least in good weather, but there are times when you need to calculate the best route among the rocks. For the record, all photos were shot on my phone, as my poor, much-abused Sony RX100 finally succumbed to the grit of many backpacking trips. I kicked against carrying the much larger and heavier SonyRX10, but realized after this hike that I needed to bite the bullet and do so. Like most hikes in this area, we started high, on the rim of the canyon/wash/gulch, and dropped  down to the good stuff. That means always bearing in mind that the end of the hike is uphill and often in the heat of the day. At this point we've already dropped a w...