The First Wedneday of the New Year!

Join Us!

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 this page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog! Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can’t find you to comment back.

The awesome co-hosts for the January 7 posting of the IWSG are Shannon Lawrence, Olga Godim, Jean Davis, and Jacqui Murray!

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!

January 7 question - Is there anything in your writing plans for 2026 that you are going to do that you couldn’t get done in 2025?

Yep! I’ll see a new book published by Evernight Teen. I had hoped it would be released in 2025, but the publisher was busy, so I had to be patient. That’s okay. It’s something to look forward to this year.

Outside of that, I’ll just keep posting a short story on each Wednesday on Substack unless, of course, I can’t come up with something. Then I’ll punt!

Be sure to visit our co-hosts and other members to see what they have planned for this year! 

Happy 2026!

Featuring IWSG Author Rebecca M. Douglass

Please welcome Rebecca M. Douglass, our featured author! Douglass is a long-time member of our Facebook and Insecure Writer’s Support Group sites. She is a prolific writer who has published many novels as well as stories in collections and anthologies.  

She appreciates the IWSG for supporting her so many years and says many members have really helped her along the way.  Her author's website is Rebecca M. Douglass. 

Rebecca M. Douglass

Currently #38 Rebecca M.Douglass - The Ninja Librarian on Our IWSG Sign-in Page

Rebecca’s latest cozy mystery, published on August 25, 2025, is Edited Out, the third book in her Seffi Wardwell Mysteries. Seffi is a retired science teacher who moved to Maine for peace and quiet, but her curiosity drives her to investigate local deaths instead.

Edited Out (Seffi Wardwell #3)
Rebecca M Douglass - Goodreads

Who erased 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 keeping an eye on events in Smelt Point barely leaves time for pastry and gossip at Sweet Dreams, the local bakery and heart of the village.

When the participants at an artistic retreat held at the bed-and-breakfast grow combative, Seffi is there to smooth things over, stiffen the spine of the innkeeper, and keep things going. But when a writer turns up dead, Seffi’s called on to wield a different kind of expertise. Then someone lets slip there was poison in a coffee bought at Sweet Dreams, and it looks like Seffi’s favorite source of treats is in real trouble. Can her knowledge of plants save the inn—and the local bakery—before the killer strikes again and tears the heart out of Smelt Point?

Book #3 Seffi Wardwell Mysteries

Rebecca published the five-book, one-novella Pismawallops PTA Mysteries that feature amateur sleuth JJ MacGregor as she solves murders on fictional Pismawallops Island in Puget Sound. JJ is a PTA mom, and she seizes the initiative when mystery and murder roil her personal life and her community. Readers enjoy the tight plotting, well-defined characters, and humor which runs through her series.

 Book #5 Pismawallops PTA Mysteries

Rebecca has also published the entertaining Ninja Librarian Series set in middle-of-nowhere Skunk Corner. Skunk Corner has a library and a history of running librarians out of town, until Tom, the Ninja Librarian, arrives and shake things up. While the series was written for middle grade readers, readers of all ages enjoy it. 

Book #1 Ninja Librarian Series 

Notably, Rebecca’s short stories appear in two IWSG anthologies,  "A Stitch in Crime" in Tick Tock: A Stitch in Time and "A World of Trouble" in Voyagers: The Third Ghost.

 

Rebecca makes the most of life! She has lived in, worked in, and explored the American west, often returning to hike and backpack in her beloved Sierra Nevada mountains and the desert southwest. She has also enjoyed traveling in Maine. After raising her two sons and working as a librarian for seventeen years, she retired to focus on reading, writing, and travel. 

In September 2025 Rebecca explored Iceland in a campervan before returning home to edit her WIP Painted Over.  You can read about her adventures exploring Iceland with Petey Possum on her website.

Hiking the Desert Southwest

Gullfoss (Golden Waterfall)

One of the Spectacular Places Rebecca Visited in Iceland

© Rebecca M. Douglass

You can buy Rebecca's books in a variety of places listed on her author's website:

https://www.rebecca-douglass.com/p/like-what-you-see-here-enjoy-my-stories.html

If you have enjoyed any of Rebecca's books, we'd love to hear in the comments.

📚    📚    📚    📚   📚 

Questions for Our Members:

You may know that I am one of the IWSG administrators.  One thing I think about a lot is how to make our Facebook site and IWSG website more valuable for members.  

I posted a similar article about Rebecca M. Douglass on our Facebook site earlier this week. Then I thought it would be good to post it here as well for two reasons.  First, because Rebecca is a longtime member whose books I have read and enjoyed, and second because I think it would be awesome to get to know our members better.  

What do you think of featuring members in this way?

What would you like to see on our sites?

I'd appreciate your feedback!

Till next time ~ Fundy Blue

 

What is the Point?

An existential undercurrent has been running through books and magazines

I've been reading lately, even in television shows I've been watching.

This undercurrent is the same question in various forms:

What is the point of...?

Brian Gresko in his article about poet Donika Kelly in the current issue of Poets & Writers wrote, 

"As in many conversations among writers during these dark days, we have shifted from craft to the perplexing question of what, in the face of the world's ongoing and advancing horrors, is the point of writing in general, and writing poetry in particular." ("Singing the Sublime" by Brian Gresko in Poets & Writers Magazine, Nov/Dec 2025)

Rachel Barenblat ~ Flickr ~ License

In the Nature Conservancy Magazine people around the world are asked

what is the point of continuing their environmental work against seemingly overwhelming odds.

In Philosophy Now young people are asked what is the point

of moving forward with their lives when the state of the world and their futures appear bleak.

Even in one of my favorite tv shows, Homestead Rescue, 

Marty Raney ponders why he continues to help homesteaders,

returning to some homesteads a second time, during increasingly difficult weather challenges.

What is the point?

Why persist during a difficult time?

The answers provided in my references all touched

on similar ideas to the answers I've found in my own life.

The point is, I persist because:  

Because giving up is giving in, 

and giving in leads nowhere but down.

Because we can find strength and purpose in helping those in our lives.

Because we can feel joy by being present in the moment.

Strength, purpose, and joy are powerful antidotes to despondency and hopelessness.

One person can't save the world, but one person can make a difference in his small corner.

His tool might be a garbage bag, an excavator, a guitar, a pen, even a simple smile,

but it can make a positive difference.

Ordinary people around the world are not giving up or giving in.

They are finding strength and purpose in helping others and improving their surroundings.

By being present in the moment, a person can reduce anxiety and stress.

There is joy in listening to the laughter of a child, in scratching the ears of a purry kitty, 

in baking a berry pie, in watching a cloud drift by, in painting a starry sky, 

in the hug of a loved one, or in a call from a faraway friend.

My Cousin Claire Serves Her Homemade Pie While Martin Anticipates

Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada

August 3, 2024

Writers and poets persist in a difficult time by creating,

and their creations have the power to lift their readers and themselves up.

Little is more immediate and present than struggling

with the words in sentence or paragraph

to express what is in your heart and mind.

And the universal themes explored by writers and poets in their works

can inform, inspire, and challenge the readers who engage with them.

The point is to write for the sheer joy of creating,

the point is to escape from worry and stress while creating,

and the point to find strength and purpose while touching the hearts and minds of others.

Love, family, friends, and nature fill my soul.

If I were to give up, give in, I would be giving up on the people I love,

especially all the extraordinary young people in my life.

I'd be giving up on their lives and their futures.

Extraordinary

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue. All Rights Reserved

Family ~ Peter, Martin, Sue, Barb, Donnie, Roy, and Bertie (front)

Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada

August 5, 2025

What is the point of your writing?

Why do you persist during a difficult time?

Till next time ~ Fundy Blue