Ever wonder about all the planning that goes into making this author career work?
Hello planner and reader friends. Today I’m moving out of my dark, moody Malden Filofax and into something a bit brighter for February. It’s my birthday month! So I’m pulling all the pink-toned, frosting colors from my shelf. I’ve also completely overhauled my planner for the year…I explain how and why in this video. I hope you enjoy watching some chill, cozy planning vibes.
I’m not going to sit here and rehash all the present horror. You either think current events are a complete nightmare, or you don’t.
This post isn’t about THAT. And when I say THAT, I mean the ever-growing divide of reality itself. It’s impossible to miss and presently everywhere. So, if you’re looking for more of THAT, just scroll on. You’re sure to fall right back into it.
I’m presently trying, desperately, to find a few hours to remove myself from it. Not because I don’t care…but because I care so much my entire brain gets hijacked. Sometimes for hours, I’ve even lost whole days, to the worry, the doom, the horror. The newsarticles, the posts…the comments, these days they shroud every aspect of life at times.
I want to be aware. I want to be a responsible citizen. I want to know what is happening in this country and the world.
I also want to work. Create. Love and be loved. I want, desperately, to be present in this life as much as possible before it’s over.
I don’t want to put my head in the sand, yet every time I pull it out, there is rage, chaos, and destruction on every horizon. And while I know there is true horror, real-time reporting on unspeakable atrocities, cruelty, and the disintegration of life as we once knew it. I also know that some of it is the fear-and-rage bait specifically designed to keep us in perpetual fear and rage. Utterly overwhelmed.
We are so much easier to manipulate and control when we are disconnected and dysregulated.
So, where and how to draw the line? How does anyone stay informed, responsible, engaged in our world and all that is happening while also staying sane enough to show up to work? Take care of your kids? Love who and what you are capable of loving in this day and age?
I’m open to your suggestions. Is anything working for you? Particularly if you’re a fiction writer or a creative in another space. What strategies do you have to keep your creative spark and energy alive right now when it’s so easy for it to feel meaningless under the glare of our real world catostrophes?
Because the only thing I have right now is a set of personal rules.
Until my writing for the day has been accomplished:
Repeat every day until I die or the world stops burning…whichever happens first.
But again…I’m open to better suggestions.
Well, it’s time to officially announce it. I’ve received messages from many of you asking about the preorder for my next book, Her Name Was Lola. Instead of continuing to field questions privately, I just need to lay the whole ugly truth out there.
The book isn’t ready.
It should be finished. It should be edited. It should be uploaded, laid out, and ready to ship in just over a week.
It’s not.
It’s not even close.
The truth is, I’m still working on the first draft—I was just this morning typing away on it. But it’s nowhere near ready for publishing.
It was right before Christmas when I finally…FINALLY, admitted to myself that there was no amount of pushing, all-nighters, or epic 5000-word-a-day writing sessions that were going to save me. There was still too much work, too much tweaking, too much layering—too much EVERYTHING that still needed to happen for this book.
And that pre-order deadline just kept creeping closer and closer and freaking me out more and more. As soon as January hit, I said, “All right, that’s enough. Time to face facts, Rebecca.”
And with that, I cancelled the orders that had already been placed.
It’s a risk, absolutely. There’s no guarantee all those readers will be understanding… no telling if they’ll come back and still buy the book when it is available. And I’m sorry about that. Truely. It kills me to disappoint someone who has shown faith in my work.
But at the end of the day, I want to give those readers a book that will absolutely knock their socks off. Keep them up at night. Stop them from being able to put that book down until they finally, finally find out what is happening and why.
And honestly…Her Name Was Lola isn’t that book yet.
But it will be.
So readers, thank you for your patience. And forgiveness. I promise it will be worth the wait in the end.
Hello writers and readers. Today I’m sharing a bit of behind the scenes with a day-in-the-life vlog over on my YouTube channel,
I usually talk about writing, planning, and definitely planning to write over there, so if you’re into that sort of thing, please check it out. I have several ideas for the new videos I’ll be recording through the end of 2025. Including my 2026 plans, goals, and the tools (meaning PLANNERS) I’ll be using next year to help get me there. I’d love to see you there.
I’m still working on my new book, Her Name Was Lola, and yes, I’m starting to stress out about my January 27th preorder date. It seems like the days are just slipping by so fast, and I still have SO MUCH WORK ahead of me to get this book in shape and ready for publication. Additionally, I’ve decided I want to make some more tweaks and minor changes to the cover design, so I’ll be trying to get that done and uploaded to retail sites sometime this week.
But I’m telling myself not to worry and that I ALWAYS freak out a little during this phase. I have big, big word count plans and goals for this coming week and the time to commit to them. So as long as I get myself to my desk and avoid all those tempting distractions, I should be back on track by this coming weekend.
As I write this, I’m currently sitting at 67,000 words in Her Name Was Lola, and I’d like to add AT LEAST another 10K by Saturday. So please, send all your positive, get to work, and focus energy my way.
God knows I need it.
First off, a little housekeeping. If you’re one of my regular newsletter subscribers, you’ll notice the change in format here. That’s because last week I received an email from Kit, the platform I used for my newsletter, informing me that their pricing would be going up. It was going to start costing me nearly 900.00 US dollars a year to keep my small list going.
Which is really just not in the ol writing budget right now. So I exported my subscribers, cancelled with Kit, and moved my list over to my WordPress site. Having said that, if you do not wish to stay on my subscriber list, there should be an unsubscribe button at the end of this letter. I’ll be sad to see you go, but I also completely understand…we’re all pretty bombarded these days, and the last thing I ever want to do is annoy a potential reader!
Now onto more fun topics. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but I feel like my writing mojo has returned. I’ve been getting new scenes written, and Her Name Was Lola is shaping up. This one publishes January 27th, 2026, and you can preorder your copy here. I’ve been thinking about releasing a few sneak peeks in the coming weeks, so stay tuned if you’d like to get a better sense of this new book.
After my typical mid-book writing slump, where I doubt not only myself, this current book, and everything I’ve ever written going back to the second grade, I can honestly say that I’m feeling the excitement for the story again. Just yesterday, I wrote a scene I wasn’t expecting! One of my main characters did something out of the blue, and yet was so on track for him–disturbing and darkly delightful to my psych/writer brain. I loved it. This is why I like to have only a loose plot in hand while I’m writing. It gives me the opportunity to follow unexplored territory…just so long as I don’t leave the mountain entirely and get lost in an unrelated desert!
One thing that may be helping with my current productivity is that I’ve completely rearranged my office space (again). I always struggle with this room because there are two French doors you can see in the photo below, and also a door that is positioned behind the camera. It has made positioning my giant desk a struggle…until now! I recently stumbled across this lovely YouTube channel by Jon Hutman, who is a Hollywood production designer. I was basically binge-watching all his current content when I got to the one where he breaks down the set design for Under the Tuscan Sun (who doesn’t love that fricken movie?!) Anyway, in that video, he explains the setup for the main character’s office in the villa. The room is small, and the large desk is at an angle facing the window…light bulb!! So I thought I’d give the unconventional positioning a try in my unconventionally laid-out office, and I’m actually thrilled with how the space flows now. There is plenty of room for both my writing desk and my filming table, plus the dogs’ giant papasan chair! Everyone is happy.
I just started reading The Unraveling of Julia by Lisa Scottoline. This one released in July of this year and has been sitting on my list waiting for me to have a minute’s rest from all the life chaos that has been swirling around me these past few months. Everything about this description is right up my alley.
From the publisher:
Lately, Julia Pritzker is beginning to think she’s cursed. She’s lost her adoptive parents, then her husband is murdered. When she realizes that her horoscope essentially foretold his death, she begins to spiral. She fears her fate is written in the stars, not held in her own hands.
Then a letter arrives out of the blue, informing her that she has inherited a Tuscan villa and vineyard—but her benefactor is a total stranger named Emilia Rossi. Julia has no information about her biological family, so she wonders if Rossi could be a blood relative. Bewildered, she heads to Tuscany for answers.
There, Julia is horrified to discover that Rossi was a paranoid recluse who believed herself to be a descendant of Duchess Caterina Sforza, a legendary Renaissance ruler. Stunned by her uncanny resemblance to Rossi, and even to Caterina, Julia is further unnerved when she unearths eerie parallels between them, including an obsession with astrology.
Before long, Julia suspects she’s being followed, and strange things begin to happen. Not even a chance meeting with a handsome Florentine can ease her troubled mind. When events turn deadly, Julia’s harrowing struggle becomes a search for her identity, a race to save her sanity, and ultimately, a question of her very survival.
And as luck would have it, I have plenty of time today to dive into this book because I managed to pull a back muscle yesterday afternoon while doing kettlebell swings in my basement. So it’s just me, my book, and my heating pad, lying on the couch all day with the three dogs and two cats. No, I wasn’t paying very good attention to my form–so that’s why I hurt myself.
Anything to have a whole afternoon lying prone with a good book, I suppose.
Aside from all that, I have a new planner video up on YouTube, if you’re into that sort of thing. I discuss my transition from using A5 rings to a bullet journal and share my current setup in an Archer and Olive dot-grid notebook.
Until next time, all my best.
I’m sitting here in my hotel room in Grand Rapids, MI, having just finished writing over 1000 words for the day. And my God, does it feel great. After getting off to a great start this year, it’s been sort of a huge struggle to get much writing done this year. Starting around February, I found it challenging to sit down, focus, or care even a little bit about writing my book.
Because who could care about writing fiction when it feels like the whole world as we know it is collapsing before our eyes?
I know I’m not alone. Many writers have struggled to find their way to the page amid the rapid-fire of horror headlines and the fears that life as we have always known it is on the way out the door.
And honestly, none of that has changed.
I don’t feel optimistic about our future. And I have no idea what new atrocity will befall this country and the rest of the world tomorrow.
But at some point, I had to reconcile myself with the obvious fact that there are things I can do, and things I can not do. There are aspects of my life that I can control. And, clearly, things that are nowhere near my control.
So here is where I’m at. I can show up. I can vote. I can have real conversations with the people I love about the ideals I feel are essential for this country to hang on to.
But, I can’t force people to believe empathy for others is a good and essential thing. I also can’t convince them (because Lord knows it seems like everyone with good sense and REAL data has been trying…for years) of any other reasonable, obvious, or right assertion about the current state of this nation and where it is heading.
I can’t control it. I can’t stop it, either. Not when there are simply so, so, so many others who appear to think what is happening is good, and right, and finally getting its due.
It doesn’t make any sense to me. It also makes me sad, depressed, and very scared for the future of our nation…for the entire world, really.
But sometime in the last few weeks, I realized that all that feeling scared and sad still doesn’t stop the atrocities from continuing to happen. So, if all these big feelings have no effect on the current affairs, why am I allowing these feelings to stop me from sitting down and doing what I do best?
Writing this damn book.
Which isn’t to say I don’t care. If I could wave a magic wand, 2016 would have given us our very first female president. Barring that, 2024 would have. But this is the world I live in. It is apparently filled to the fucking brim with people I never care to know, which likely works out just fine for them. I doubt they would find anything in me to identify with.
But playing small and depressed is not the answer.
So if, like me, you’ve been struggling to find any hope at all lately, I encourage you to sit down, find the time, and reconnect with the small centers of yourself and your world that you love.
This will pass.
But also…VOTE.
I have done hardly any writing over the last month. Despite waking up every day and thinking, I really should get some writing done today nearly every day in July was spent nowhere near my current manuscript.
I guess there’s just something about these summer months. After a childhood of growing up in American public schools and then working in those schools for most of my adult life, both my brain and my body seem trained to reject almost any challenging cognitive tasks. And that’s not to say that I didn’t work a lot, because I actually accomplished a lot last month. When it comes to getting a contractor set up to make improvements to the house and getting my own physical and mental well-being back on track… I made a ton of progress.
Not to mention, I flew more trips last month and spent more hours pouring Coke in the aisle at 36,000 feet than I have in any month prior.
There just wasn’t a lot of sitting still long enough to get writing done.
One of the biggest reasons might be that, for the first time in a long time, I was finally honest with myself last month about changes that I would need to make to alter my current health trajectory. I’ve mostly accepted the fact that I turned 50 this year and that there’s going to be no going back from that number, but along with that acceptance came taking a fairly clear-eyed view of where I stand with regard to nutrition and exercise in particular.
In short, I had developed a litany of aches and pains and general malaise, and those inconveniences had escalated to the point where I could no longer push them aside or ignore them. And since I was unwilling to accept my doctor’s decree that it was simply “a normal part of aging. “I decided it was time to make some real changes and hope that, perhaps, my doctor was wrong.
So I also will chalk up my weeks and weeks of absolutely no productive writing getting done to the fact that I was completely overhauling my typical diet and hauling myself to the gym on a more regularish basis.
I’m not gonna lie, it has been incredibly hard to give up bread, pasta, package food, and added sugars. For weeks, it felt like my brain could hardly handle a cohesive grocery list, never mind the creative gymnastics of writing a novel.
So I gave myself a break as I muscled through my sugar detox. All I had was the hope that within a few weeks I would turn the corner, my brain and body would finally give up the ghost of sugar, and I could move into the fall with a healthier body, healthier habits, and a renewed sense of focus and drive that wasn’t propped up on the hourly by a handful of Spicy Cheez-Its.
So it’s been about four weeks now, and I can honestly say, hand to heart, that I’m so relieved I made the switch. I’ve noticed so many changes. I sleep better, my digestion feels both calm and normal, and for the first time in years, I can get up out of bed in the morning without walking like 120 year-old woman with a broken back and two hobbled feet.
While my doctor never mentioned it, I’m fairly certain I had problems with inflammation driven largely by the way I had been eating for years.
Now, please don’t think I’m over here feeling completely fixed. I am certainly no poster child for consistently making healthy choices. But, I will say I am more excited about moving into the rest of my 50s with both a better plan and a running start on the sustainable habits aligned with my intention to try and enjoy these next life chapters as much as possible.
Hello, dear readers. I’m so happy to share that The Last Nanny’s audiobook is now out and available at retailers everywhere! We tweaked the cover for the audio just a bit (because why not?), and I absolutely loved how it turned out.
So atmospheric, and it completely fits the whole mood of this book.
We were lucky enough to get the very talented Libby McKnight to voice the narration again (she was also the narrator for two of my other books, Once Upon a Lie and The Secret Next Door.
You can check out a sample on both Spotify and Audible. I’ve linked one here as well.
Other retailers include: Libro FM, Kobo, Apple, and Barnes & Noble.
I’m also trying something fun to build both awareness for this new release and my YouTube channel. I’m releasing three chapters a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The first two chapters are already up, so if you’d like to listen to the book for free, subscribe to my channel and follow along for the next several weeks!
And finally, I want to make you aware that the ebook for The Last Nanny will be going on sale for 1.99 starting June 21st! So if you’ve been hoping to get my latest book at a screaming deal, you can grab a copy for super cheap at every ebook retailer starting this weekend!
Hello friends! I’m so thrilled to share that the hardcover editions of The Last Nanny are now for sale everywhere books are sold!! I’m thrilled with how they turned out–gorgeous–and I can’t wait for you to get your hands on a copy. Check out my fun IG unboxing reel below.
Wrongfully accused, Libby Luck has just been fired from a well-paying nanny position she needs to support her terminally ill father. Desperate to get back on her feet quickly, she takes a new position with a family in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire.
Nervous she’s made a rash decision, Libby’s fears are put aside when she sees the lavish home she’ll be living in. Her new employers, a professor of literature and a documentary filmmaker, have two sons, Garrett and Daniel. It’s clear from the start that Garrett doesn’t want Libby there, but she needs this job and is determined to win him over.
She’d been told the last nanny quit unexpectedly, but something isn’t adding up. When a stranger keeps following her around town and cryptic text messages appear on her phone, Libby decides to dig deeper. She soon has more suspicions than answers and fears that everything is not what it seems. Her life is becoming dangerously entwined with her new family, and she’ll need to figure out the truth before she ends up just like the last nanny.
Gone.
So, one of the things I’ve been meaning to do, and putting off, is getting the hardback edition of The Last Nanny created and out the door.
Since I use Vellum to format the interior of my books, and Vellum is the easiest thing EVER, this was not the issue.
I design and create my own book covers in both Canva and Photoshop. And while I enjoy the creative and challenging aspects that come with this job, it takes me much longer than it would a professional designer. For example, it took me the entire day yesterday to get the hardback cover layout completed in Photoshop. I’m guessing this is something a professional designer would have knocked out in under an hour (the art and text elements are super simple and were already created).
And while I sometimes think about going back to hiring a designer, and maybe one day I will, right now I’m at a place where the cost savings (300-2000 dollars) is enough to keep this task in-house. Plus, I like that I can play around with how I want the cover to look as much as I want without having to go back and forth and/or suck up another person’s valuable time.
All that is to say…I FINISHED THE HARDBACK COVER LAYOUT! It’s all uploaded to my physical book creator and distributor, Ingram Spark, and should be on shelves and available within the next couple of weeks.
So if you’ve been waiting to grab your hardcover copy…soon, my friend. So soon.
