Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

This is my "Writer's Wednesday" post, coming a day late to give the final wrap-up on NaNoWriMo. If you've been a "Nanner" this month, please chime in and let me know how it went for you. I set my goal absurdly high at the beginning of the month, matching the reality of an 80K-word standard for novels in my genre. I talked about the project way back in the last IWSG post on Nov. 2.  Tonight I reached the end of my day's writing energy, and then some, at 72,032 words. That's the most I've even done in a month, and I have some thoughts about that, and about life and its relationship to writing. First, I figured out tonight how to adjust my personal goal, so I dropped it down to 70k for a "win." That doesn't actually change the fact that I'm going to spend the next two days in my artist's retreat trying to finish the book. So here are five things I learned this month: 1. Go ahead and set your goals high. Whatever "high&quo

The rush and fun of Thanksgiving with my family is over, and I am back at my retreat. I've fallen pretty far behind my NaNo writing goals, and will be skipping the WritePhoto prompt this week, and may in fact not do any posts before Friday, when I do hope to get back to my photo travel posts!  I hope you all had a great holiday, and don't tie yourself in knots preparing for the next one!  

To all  my US friends, have a happy Thanksgiving. I hope you are celebrating with someone you love, be they friend or family, or family of your heart. Because of the holiday, and because I'm celebrating with my family, including out-of-towners, my Friday Photo post will come... sometime other than Friday. Find the little things, and let yourself be grateful for them when you can't find anything big to celebrate. Deeply grateful for the multiplicity of chocolate desserts to be had.

Visitor – Image by KL Caley   Participating in the weekly #WritePhoto challenge at KL Caley's New2Writing website. I am excited and honored to be in residence at Holly House/Hypatia-in-the-Woods for a couple of weeks, decompressing and focusing on my writing. That helped give me the idea for this very short story. Very short in part because I'm still trying to get that novel drafted, and have fallen a bit behind the last few days.  Here you are, in just over 300 words. The Visitor The squirrel came to visit on the first day of Cora’s solo meditation retreat. Squirrels, she realized, were always around. She didn’t pay it much attention the first time it came and sat on the fence, watching her doing her yoga. But the big-tailed rodent continued to visit every afternoon, so that she quickly came to look for it when she was on the deck.   By the end of the first week she was calling it “The Visitor,” and making entries in her jo

In Part 1 of this account , we outlined the project and covered our first two days, hiking from Mels to Elm (and taking transport to Braunwald). One nice feature of this hike, like many in Switzerland, is that you can often shorten or ease hikes by using buses, trains, and lifts to cut out extra mileage or hills (up or down) that are just too long, steep, and/or tedious, and we did so whenever possible. Thus our third morning found us enjoying the stunning views from out hotel in Braunwald, and preparing for a much easier day. VA Day 3: Braunwald to Klausenpass First light touches the Todli. As usual, I awoke early to catch the best light. Happily, I had to move no further than my balcony to take the photos. Panorama from my balcony, looking down the valley below Linthal, as well as across to the Todli and at the nearer Ortstock. A hearty breakfast sent us off in a good mood, and since we'd dealt with the climbing yesterday (mostly on the funicular), we had a pleasant walk with onl

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