When last I updated this blog, I was very tired. Publishing Company was an enormous undertaking, which left me mentally drained and, honestly, a little bit depressed. I knew I needed to recover, but recovery took me longer than anticipated. I stopped blogging. I began to reflect on what I had achieved and where I could improve. 

Every December I reflect on the past year and set goals for the new year. In December of 2019, I had one major goal for 2020, and that was to publish Company. I had done as much. But, looking at my current slate of writing projects, I did not anticipate publishing a new book in 2021.

The next book I want to release is The Originals, the sequel to my epic fantasy novel, The Changelings, but I do not think I will be able to finish it sooner than 2023. (Hopefully early 2023.) Much as I wish I could finish sooner, I care very much about the quality of my work and want to make sure that the story is as strong as it can be. 

I've decided that what I want most for 2021 is to be able to communicate better with my audience, the readers and fans of my book. For me this means being more thoughtful and deliberate about the content I provide, with a greater focus on stories and more updates as to the status of my books. But since communication is a two-way street, I also want to be better at listening to you, and provide more ways to make your voice heard.

What will this actually look like? Well, over the next year, I hope to restructure my website to make it simpler and cleaner, with a greater focus on content connected to the books I've written or am currently writing. This means bonus features like deleted scenes or character profiles or behind-the-scenes look at my world. It also means more sneak peaks of my newest works. (My book and movie reviews will go into a separate, personal blog.) I'd also like to create a newsletter in order to inform people of any new features I've added to my website, along with quick reviews, poems, and other goodies.

I'm going to spend January and February planning and organizing, but I hope that by February, you'll be able to see the fruits of my efforts for yourself.

Finally, I just want to leave you with some of my thoughts on changes happening in the world. In 2020, change was forced on us, but in 2021, we can choose the changes for ourselves. And that's very empowering. 

Any thoughts about my planned changes or changes in general? Please leave me a comment or send me an email, and I will try to get back to you in a timely manner. 

​

Hello, friends.
 
I’m so pleased and proud to announce that my third novel, Company, will be published on September 5, 2020, available as an e-book on Amazon. Priced at $4.99, it’s less than a specialty coffee at Starbucks and will stay with you longer. A physical print version of the book will be coming out in October this year. If you don't mind, I’d like to tell you a little about what Company is and why I’m so proud of it.
 
Company tells the tale of an unlikely friendship between an amnesiac ghost and an abandoned imaginary friend. As a ghost, Curtis is trapped in Thornfield Manor, a beautiful, but isolated house in the California mountains. Bored and alone, his memories are slowly falling away, including the memory of his death. One day, a stranger arrives at Thornfield Manor. After her parents died, Charlotte created an imaginary friend and “sister” named Jenny to deal with her depression. But after Jenny develops a mind of her own, Charlotte is desperate to get rid of her. Charlotte dumps Jenny at Thornfield Manor. As the only two beings who can see and interact with each other, Curtis and Jenny strike up a quick friendship. Jenny is determined to solve the mystery of Curtis’s death and help him cross over. But Curtis worries: if he does cross over, what will become of Jenny?
 
I’m proud of Company, because I put my heart and soul into writing this beautiful and thought-provoking story. It has a little bit of mystery, a little bit of romance, and a little bit of philosophy. It’s an emotional book, and some scenes will leave you feeling choked up, but it has a sweet ending that I hope will make you smile. Company is the kind of book I’d imagine someone reading on a vacation in the mountains, sitting outside a log cabin in the cool of the morning, with a hot mug of coffee or tea or hot cocoa.

​Believe it or not, I came up with the idea for a ghost and an imaginary friend back in 2012. At that time, I wasn’t sure if the idea was strong enough to be sustained for a whole novel. So, in 2013, I decided to write it for National Novel Writing Month, an event that challenges you to write 200 pages in 30 days. To my surprise, I completed an entire rough draft of Company in a month. But I got stalled on revision for many years. Then in 2018, a tumultuous and uncertain year for me, I looked at Company again and found new inspiration. For the next two years, I began revising it whole-heartedly, using all my skill as a writer to hone and polish my vision. I hope that when you read it, you’ll get swept up in the characters, the friendship they form, and the journey they make together.
 
Unlike most novels I’ve written in, Company takes place in the real world (California) and in modern times (2019), so it is more accessible to people who are less inclined toward traditional fantasy. It is best for teens and adults; younger children probably won’t be interested in it. Company has a few curse words and deals with death, and for those reasons, I’d put it at a PG-13 rating.
 
If you decide that you want to buy Company, it is available for pre-order right now--just click on the button below to reserve your copy. If you need more information, I have the first chapter available on my blog. Over the next few weeks, I hope to add a more sample chapters and bonus features that share my experience writing this novel. If, however, you decide this is not the book for you, that’s okay, too. I appreciate you listening to me with an open mind.

​I know from experience that certain books can hit you in a way that stays with you for the way of your life. It’s my hope that, for some readers out there, Company may be that book. However, finding those readers is still a struggle for me. As an independent author, I don’t have a big marketing team, so I need all the help I can get in order to spread the word. If you think of anyone who might like this story, please send them this link. Or, if you have a social media account (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), please post there. Thank you again. I appreciate your love and support.
 
Sincerely, Rebecca Lang

​June has been a crazy month, so crazy, I’m not sure where to begin. Do I with the happenings of the outside world? How I learned via texts about looting in Best Buy near my parents’ house, then heard about George Floyd and a state curfew and defund the police and protests? Or maybe I should talk about America opening for business before spikes in the Coronavirus reached an all-time high? Disneyland was going to re-open in July; now it’s not. New movies were weeks away; they got delayed. Turmoil erupted just as I was making my mind up to re-enter the world.
 
Re-entering the world meant going to Panera to do my writing. There was a restaurant not five minutes from my apartment. I drove there and ordered coffee--small hazelnut, with cream and sweetener--and chose one of the tables bearing the green circle of availability. I’d sit with my homemade mask still on my face, not drinking my coffee (lest I need to run to the bathroom), with my computer, my composition book, and my cheap ball point pen ready to go.
 
I had determined, early on, that the month of June felt like a test. It felt like a test on a national level, but for me, personally, I knew I needed to make substantial progress on Company or I was not going to get it published. It was time to buckle down and write.
 
Unfortunately, I had a problem. My roommate’s puppy, Atlas, kept demanding my attention. He whined and barked and jumped up on the kitchen stove, all to get my attention. My roommate was struggling with a host of health issues and couldn’t bring the dog in her room. My bedroom is the living room, so there was no barrier to keep the dog’s yip from drilling into my ears. Even sitting in the patio, I could hear him.
 
I give the dog a lot of attention. I walk him for 45 minutes in the morning and the evening. But I needed time in the morning to write. Specifically, I needed the hours between 9:00 and 11:00 in the morning, my most creative time. These hours were the keystone to my productivity. I could work around the dog’s schedule the rest of the day, but I needed these two hours unbroken.
 
It got so bad that I decided to risk going out into the world again, just to get time to write. I spoke to my roommate and my roommate’s mother to make sure they were comfortable with me breaking quarantine. My roommate’s mother also volunteered to look after the dog in the morning. I was worried about finances, the cost of going out every day, but I learned Panera had a coffee subscription. For $8.99 a month, I could get unlimited coffee. I could afford that. It seemed like all the pieces were falling into place.

Writing, when you think about it, is an unglamorous and solitary act. You spend several hours in one place, by yourself, stuck inside your own head, confronting your own emotions. So if you think that quarantine is ideally suited for a writer… it is. Now that we’re about two months in, I feel comfortable sharing what I’ve been up to as COVID-19 rages on.
 
Phase 1: Stress and Anxiety
 
Somewhere in the middle of March, the world as we knew it shut down. It was on a Thursday, when Tom Hanks tested positive for the Coronavirus, Disneyland shut down, and the stock market plunged. At that point, I realized something very serious was going on. That weekend, I went to Panera to eat a bagel and journal about my anxieties. It would be the last time I sat down at a restaurant for many months to come.
 
My life was already in upheaval. I had moved into a new apartment at the end of February, with my friend Rita. She suffers from chronic pain and a host of other conditions, none of which were helped when she fell down the stairs and got a concussion 4 days after I moved in. With her being incapacitated, it fell to me to take care of her new Belgian sheep dog, Atlas. I had barely gotten the apartment equipped and was beginning to contemplate looking for a job, when quarantine hit.
 
I’m used to my life being a mess. I was not used to the world being a mess along side me. The anxieties built and built within me. For a writer, this can be a good thing. The higher my emotions, the easier it is to write. In this case, though, I was supposed to be focused on completing Company, my novel about a ghost and an imaginary friend, and I couldn’t focus. I journaled a bit, watched a little T.V., and played around with some other story ideas.
 
This phase lasted for about a week.

 
Last weekend, I was feeling anxious and no wonder. Between everything from schools to Disneyland being shut down, the stock market crashing, and grocery stores with whole sections gutted, it felt like the end of the world. I didn't know what to do, so I started re-watching my favorite Star Wars movie. I remembered how much I loved epic fantasy. Earlier, I'd dealt with the stress of moving by getting lost in a fantasy romance book. I was reminded just why I fell in love with fantasy. For me at least, there is something about fantasy that gives me hope when times are tough.

I don't think I'm alone in feeling anxious, and I wanted to do something to help. Since fantasy stories help me cope with stress and since it seems like many people have a lot of free time on their hands, I thought I'd offer the three fantasy books I wrote for free on Amazon. You can download them without leaving the house, kill a day or two reading, and hopefully emerge refreshed. I know in the grand scheme of things it may not be much, but I want to help people feel better during these troubled times. 

My books will be free for five days, from Thursday, March 19 to Monday, March 23, 2020, which is the maximum amount of time that Amazon will allow me. So if you think you might at all be interested in these books, get them quickly. At $0, what do you have to lose. Get one or all three. And if you think anyone else might be interested, please share this link with them.

If reading's not your thing, what does help to ease your anxiety in times of stress? Are there any fantasy books, free or not, you recommend reading? Let me know in the comments. And please, take care of yourself, both physically and mentally. Stay safe.

​Hello. I’m Rebecca Lang, and I’m a small, independent writer and publisher. I write fantasy stories, because I love writing and because I hope that my stories have something meaningful to say. Being a small independent author gives me the artistic freedom to deliver the best product I can, but the downside is that I don’t have the resources or marketing skills of a big publishing company. So I’m looking for readers who are interested in helping me out by becoming a Beta Reader for my latest novel, Company.

​Company is a novel about a ghost named Curtis who has been trapped alone for years in a secluded home in the mountains, with pieces of his memory slowly falling away. When he meets an abandoned imaginary friend named Jenny, the two strike a friendship that will help Curtis solve the mystery of how he died.

​I typically write fantasy novels, and Company certainly has fantasy/ paranormal elements to it. However, it is probably the most realistic novel I’ve ever written and most of it takes place in modern day California. Company is best suited for older teens and adults. If it were a movie, I think it would be rated PG-13, mostly for cursing. But themes of death and mental illness may be a little intense for kids.
 
I wrote the complete rough draft of Company in a month in 2012 and put it aside for six years, unsure of what to do with it. In 2018, during a period of personal transformation, I brushed off the manuscript and began to work on it again. For me, it’s a different type of story than the ones I’m used to writing, and I’m not sure how my audience will react. That’s where Beta readers come in.
​

​A Beta Reader is an ordinary person who reads an unpublished work and gives feedback. No special skills required! In my case, I want to get feedback on what sort of audience Company would appeal to so that I can develop a plan to market my book. I’d like Beta readers to let me know what did or did not interest them, so I can get an idea of who my book is for. Of course, if any of my Beta readers would like to check for spelling and grammar, I’d be happy about that, too.
 
If you want to want to be a Beta reader, please contact me. I’ll email you a pdf file with the first ten chapters of my novel. Please read through it, fill out the survey, and email it back by May 30, 2020. As a thank you, I will put your name in the acknowledgement section of my book.
 
If 10 chapters is too much of a commitment, I’ve posted the first chapter of Company on my website, along with a survey and comment form. If you could fill one or both of those forms out and submit it to me, that would be tremendously helpful.
​

If you are at all interested and even thinking about becoming a Beta reader, the best way to contact me is by sending me an email at Reddragonfly1285@yahoo.com or by filling out the Contact box below. Of course, friends and family can feel free to message me on Facebook or send me a text. 

Thanks again for your interest and for all your support. You are awesome! Have a great day.

​Hi everyone. I’m trying out a new section of my blog called “Writing Stories,” where I let you in on how my writing process works. I have no idea if this will be of interest to anybody, but I thought I’d try it out.

I grew up hearing that would-be writers are undisciplined. They moan about Writer’s Block, chase inspiration like butterflies, and never get work done on time. I didn’t want to be like that. For many years, I tried to be disciplined. I set goals, broke my goals into measurable tasks, and tried to accomplish my tasks by a reasonable deadline.

Results have been mixed.

On the one hand, I can now sit down and write almost anywhere with little to no angst. I write every day, and when I need to, I can write for hours. I have a clear idea of how long it takes me to accomplish a goal and how that goal needs to be broken down into other stages.

On the other hand, I’ve learned, rather painfully, that trying to force out chapters sometimes means I miss out on genuine moments of inspiration. While trying to accomplish a single concrete task, I often lose sight of the bigger picture. Constantly doing work leaves me no time to think, learn, and reflect.

​So this past year, instead of planning my tasks months in advance, I decided to wing it. I was going to listen, day by day, to my own feelings and write whatever appealed to me the most. This meant giving up some of my control over the writing process, but it also meant I wasn’t beating my brain against a computer screen (metaphorically). I’ve enjoyed the process of giving up control, and I feel like the quality of my work has risen as a result.

This brings me to Nanowrimo.

Early in April, I signed up for the Local Author's Showcase, at the Cumberland Library in Fayetteville, NC. When it came time to go, I was nervous. I've only done a few of these events, after all, and I'm not exactly a social butterfly. (More like an introverted dragonfly.) But I told myself I was just going to show up, have fun, network, learn, and not put too much pressure on myself.

On Saturday, June 15, I attended the Local Author's Showcase, with a bagful of my books to sell, a box of business cards, and some freshly-made, framed signs. I was surprised (and a little intimidated) by the number of authors who set up booths in the room and how professional they were. Some had screens and toys and merchandise for sale. But I took a deep breath and got set up. Someone came up to talk to me. I started to feel better.
 
All in all, it was a fun day. People were friendly and open. I got hear author's stories and share my own story. I even made a few sales. It was a good reminder, for me, of the power of putting yourself out there. 

These are some of the local authors I had the pleasure of meeting as I made my way around the room:

• Elaine J. Martin, "There Comes a Light" (Memoir)
• Sarah G. Rothman, "Suicidal Samurai" (Historical Mystery)
• R.J. Minnick, "Where the Bodies Lie Buried" (Romantic Mystery)
• Trinity Bursey, "The Little Piano" (Picture Book)
• Nicole Smith, "Passion Fruit" (Christian Spiritual)
• Tiera Edwards, "Chapter 32: Shattered Silence" (Memoir)
• Alison Paul Klakowicz, "Mommy's Big, Red, Monster Truck" (Picture Book)
• Jack Welsh, "Check Canopy" (Memoir)
• Donald Kemp, "Rendering" (Action)
• Annette Gaddy Harper, "Days of Faithfulness" (Christian)

One of the authors, Alison Paul Klakowicz (whose book I bought, by the way), wrote a tremendous article in the Hodge Podge Podcast and Blog with pictures of everyone and their books. If 
you want to get a feel for the event, I suggest you check it out.

I'm very nearly halfway done with Camp NaNoWriMo, and it's been tough going.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), that crazy challenge of writing 50,000 words/ 200 pages in 30 days, typically occurs in November. However, there are also more casual "camps" that happen every April and July. My goal for Camp NaNoWriMo this April is to write 6 chapters in The Originals, the sequel to my epic fantasy novel, The Changelings. Although my word count is up to snuff (21,000), I've only finished one chapter, with another chapter only half written at best. What I have written, I find useful, and ideas are pouring out. Whether or not my goal is achieved, I'm slowly but surely making progress. 

When I get stuck or tired, I find that taking walks is a good way to stretch and get the creative juices flowing. Nothing like looking at nature to gather inspiration. Below is a short video I made of me walking the dogs and appreciating the little things around me.

April is National Poetry Writing Month, or NaPoWriMo for short. Now, I'm not a natural poet, but I do tinker with poems every now and then. Poetry helps hone my description and teaches rhythm and sound. It's a chance to play with language. The challenge of the above website is to write a poem a day, with a prompt and a poem to provide inspiration. Despite also doing Camp NaNoWriMo (which is a whole different can of worms), I've been keeping up with my poems. I even decided to do make some haiku riddle poems just for fun. Please enjoy.

Click below to read the answers.