Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Photo by KL Caley Posting for the weekly #WritePhoto challenge by KL Caley at New2Writing.com.  Read all about it and join in at the WritePhoto site.      This photo immediately rang some bells deep in my memory about an appropriate story about a tidepool. Unfortunately, it must not have been my story, because I can't find any such thing (but I'm *sure* I wrote such a story. Or maybe I thought about writing one?). Because I'm still deep in NaNoWriMo weeds, I need to run a recycled story anyway. The best I could do was this one, which at least has some sand in it, but sadly has nothing to do with those poor sea critters.  My apologies, KL! The Fourth Awakening My first awakening was simple, and normal. When the sun came up, I opened my eyes, same as any day. Sleeping, then not sleeping, just as usual, and really only about three-quarters awake. That morning, opening my eyes was about the last normal thing that happened. I rolled out of the sack, and ins

When last seen, our report of the summer's adventures had us hiking and lazing in Saas Fee, Switzerland. On July 19, we upped stakes and headed to Mels to be ready to hike on the 20th. There we were joined by Bob and Diane, bringing our party to 5. The night in Mels was far from ideal. The town is attractive enough, but just about everything was closed--happily, the grocery was open, so we were able to buy the needful for a picnic dinner--and it was hot. Really hot, and a little humid, making us all too aware that Europe isn't big on air conditioning.  We had hoped to do some exploring, perhaps visit Sargans Castle--an easy walk from our hotel--but the intense heat and sunshine scotched that idea. We spent the afternoon trying not to move too much as the thermometer climbed into the high 90s (mid-30s C). Inside my room.  The hotel-keeper was really nice, and took away the warm comforters and left us with sheets instead, but it wasn't a night even to use a sheet. My altimete

How's it going, NaNers? If you're doing NaNo, drop me a note, and let me know how it's working for you, or find me on the NaNo site as Rebecca Douglass if you want to buddy up. However much or little you're writing, it's all good--and probably more than you would without NaNo. I'll cheer you on if you are a rebel or a rule-follower. I kind of messed up when I set up my project, and set the goal for the entire 80K that it takes to actually make up a novel in my genre (cozy mystery), so it's a bit of a stretch for me to hit the target every day (to say the least). I didn't really mean to do that, since I have every intention of pushing the writing on through December 3, at least--I'm going to be at the Hypatia-in-the-Woods Holly House artist's residency until then. I figure the residency will be a time when I don't have a lot to do besides write, especially if the weather stinks, so I can catch up while I'm there. Meanwhile, though, the wri

Photo by KL Caley Posting for the weekly #WritePhoto challenge by KL Caley at New2Writing.com.  Read all about it and join in at the WritePhoto site.   This is a sort of continuation of September's story about the tractor in a field, and is a very short 330-odd words, since I'm working hard at hitting my ambitious NaNoWriMo goals and haven't time for additional short stories!   Farmer's Revolt, Part II Matt watched his sister drive the tractor off into the fog. Dad had reamed her out over cutting the hay in sweeping curves instead of neat lines, so she was keeping right to the path. Dad hadn’t taken away the tractor, though. Jane Amelia still got to drive it most of the time, while he, Matt had to drive the hay rake, or, worse, get down and pick rocks from the field, which was today’s job.   How could a field that had been farmed for as long as this one still have rocks poking up all the time? And why couldn’t he drive the trac

I've been running a series of photo posts of my summer's European travels in company with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. Last week I finished the section on hiking the Tour de Mt. Blanc (see series:  Part 1    Part 2     Part 3    Part 4   Part 5   Part 6 ) (or go here to search all my photo posts). Between the TMB and our second long hike of about 2/3 of the Via Alpina , or Swiss Alpine Pass route, we spent 4 nights/3 days in Saas Fee for recovery and further exploration. The trip from Chamonix to Saas Fee was a scenic tour in itself, as we first took the small mountain train up the Chamonix valley (valley of the Arve river) to the border, then transferred to a Swiss train (which switched between regular rail and cog rail depending on the grade) to drop into the Rhone valley at Martigny. Cool mural as we entered the station at Martigny. From there it was another train down the pretty valley, then a bus up into the mountains once more. Saas Fee is one valley over fr