Writer's Update

Business first: My books, and a whole lot more, are available at sale prices during this week, Smashwords' Read an eBook Week sale. Learn more here. 

Aside from such minor accomplishments (signing up is easy, as is promotion, but it still takes an effort for which I'm claiming credit), the big news is: Death By Donut has gone to the proof-reader! That puts me well on track for the new release date, May 16, without undue stress--thank you to all the IWSG commenters who recommended making my life easier! I am scheduling a blog tour through Great Escapes book tours, but will be delighted to offer guest posts, interviews, etc., to anyone who wants to help with the launch.

Just in case anyone has missed the lovely cover!

So what is the writer up to now? Besides taking care of the business end of the coming release, I have resumed playing with the ideas percolating in my brain, which will lead to a new cozy series. There's no title yet, but I can tell you that the heroine is one Seffi Wardwell, and that she has not been a 'sweet young thing' for many decades. Watch this space for more news as the story takes shape!

Friday Flash(back): What's for Dinner?

 

Before I give you a story, I get my little brag. My story for the February WEP was runner-up in the judging. I think people want humor these days! If you missed it, the story is here.

 

I wrote this story in 2014. It's kind of a fun venture into seeing the world in different ways :)  I'm reposting it complete with the photo from the original. This was written to a sort of prompt that challenged the writer to turn something very ordinary into a story.

What’s for Dinner?

Mom’s acting weird.  Well, that’s kind of normal, if you follow me, because she’s always weird, but usually she’s weird like wearing strange clothes and working all night on one of those bizarre sculptures she makes.  I won’t ever tell her this, but I don’t like them.  They have too many jagged edges.  They’ll tear holes in you if you get too close.  I sometimes wonder if she’s out to destroy someone, or if she just sees the world that way, all jagged.  Either way: weird.

But what’s really weird is that she’s started cooking.  No more Swanson’s pot pies, and no more trips through the fast food drive-through window.  So now, I have to eat what she calls “real food,” which is sometimes pretty unreal, if you follow me.

The thing is, her idea of real food can get pretty disturbing.  And that’s why I am sitting at the kitchen table doing my homework, instead of in my room with my music.  I’m keeping an eye on the cooking, between algebra problems.  I’m watching for that moment that says she’s gone over the edge, so I can try to save the rest of us.

She’s put on a big pot of water to boil.  That seems pretty safe, so I turn back to my math book.  6x + 7y=23.  If y=2, what is x?  Okay, algebra’s weird, too.  What do I care what X equals?  I can see at a glance that it’s not going to be a nice round number.  I don’t like decimals.  They’re messy.  And I need some kind of motivation for X, if I’m going to care why it’s multiplying six.

Pasta.  She’s gotten out the spaghetti, which is good, and matches the pot of water.  But a lot depends on what she wants to put atop it.  My palms start to sweat as she begins pulling things off of shelves and muttering.  She’s got an awful pile of weird stuff: ginger and allspice and beans, and for some reason a bottle of pickled pigs feet.  And is that an incantation she’s muttering?  We have never in our lives eaten pickled pigs feet, and I do not intend to begin now.  I forget all about algebra and concentrate on willing the bottle to disappear.

She puts the first cupboard load back on the shelves, and I heave a sigh of relief when the pigs feet disappear.  Then the search starts all over, and I start to sweat again.  What is that green stuff?  And is it supposed to be green, or is that a very bad sign?

Mom does the search three times, and I can’t tell what she’s selected.  By the third shelf of the third cupboard, I’m a nervous wreck, and algebra is a distant memory.  Anyway, I’m pretty sure this is the night she poisons us all, and I can only wonder if it will be on purpose or just because she let her artist’s imagination get loose.  But if I’m poisoned, I don’t have to turn in my homework, so I won’t hurry.

I start to pray.  I’m not religious, but when we studied world religions last fall, my best friend Griffin and I memorized prayers from every one of them, mostly in languages we don’t understand.  We made up a couple of our own, too, in the elf language J. R. R. Tolkien invented for The Lord of the Rings.  I repeat them all now.  Maybe at least one of the gods will appreciate the attention and save me.  And Dad and my sister, though by this time I’m thinking mostly of myself.

Mom plops the big pasta bowl onto the table, interrupting my prayers and scattering my algebra.

 I stare into the bowl, horrified.  It’s green.  Radioactive waste is green, isn’t it?  Or ectoplasm, or space aliens.  And mold.  Mold is green.

“Eat up,” Mom says.  “Come and get it,” she calls to Dad and Lily.

My hands are shaking.  We who are about to die. .  .

“It’s just pesto, for heaven’s sake Joseph!”

I sag in relief.  Pesto’s bad, but it’s better than interplanetary ecto-slime. 

Rats.  I’ll have to finish my homework after all.

###

Empty the box and find a meal hidden therein! It clearly worried my son.

 ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2021

 As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated.

 

IWSG: Reading and Writing Genres

The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer's Support Group day. Members post on our blogs, discussing our doubts and fears, struggles and triumphs. We visit each other and offer a word of encouragement for those who are struggling, or cheer for those with a success to celebrate. 

Today's the day--Let's rock the neurotic writing world!

The awesome co-hosts for the March 3 posting of the IWSG are Sarah - The Faux Fountain Pen Jacqui Murray, Chemist Ken, Victoria Marie Lees, Natalie Aguirre, and JQ Rose!

Each month we have an optional question to start the discussion. The March 3 question is: Everyone has a favorite genre or genres to write. But what about reading preferences? Do you read widely or only within the genre(s) you create stories for? What motivates your reading choice(s)?

Before I get on with answering the question, time to report on progress!

 

Thanks to support from my friends, I expect to finish edits on Death By Donut this week and send the MS to my proof-readers. I'm a little stressed about hitting my deadlines, and I know I've gotten into some bad timing for my release. I won't be able to do all the advance work I should, because I'll be on a raft on the Colorado River (or coming/going from Flagstaff) from late March to late April. Since I'd hoped to have this book out before Xmas, and then in January, or certainly by this month, I'm feeling the pressure not to put it off again. I scheduled the release for about two days after I get home. Now I'm wondering if I should put it off until May. I'm not good at doing what I should before a release, but this might be extreme. Thoughts?

 

Meanwhile, as soon as I get the novel out the door, I hope to get atop my fourth collection of short stories, finish the edits, and create a cover so I can send Clues, Cops, and Corpses out into the world. So I have a lot on my plate for the next month, and I've reduced my writing time to try to help save the world. In other words, I'm volunteering about 3 half-days a week at the local vaccine clinic! It's good for me in many ways, but does make it harder to work on the novel and still go for two-hour hikes and bike rides most days. Maybe it makes it less necessary to work out that much, too.

 

With all this on top of everything else in my life, I have to admit that for now I'm pretty much sticking with re-reads (comfort food), supplemented by a few new audiobooks, mostly non-fiction. Thinking more historically, my reading has long skewed heavily toward cozy mysteries and children's books, which are most of what I've written. Science fiction is creeping back in, and I really enjoy natural history as well. So I do read more widely than I write, though my flash fiction has wandered through most of the genres.

 

How about you? What are you reading?