Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Image by KL Kaley   Posting for the weekly #WritePhoto challenge by KL Caley at New2Writing.com.  Read all about it and join in at the WritePhoto site. I'm cheating this time, and reusing a story from 2016. It's kind of a nice Halloweenish tale, and I'm still kind of jet-lagged and couldn't come up with a new one. Besides, I like this tale. 1000 words. The Enchanted Blasted Forest The Enchanted Forest is a punishment post, but never mind what we did to get sent there. They have to man the post, and soldiers don’t last long there, so you don’t have to do much to end up there. About half of those sent never even arrive.   There were six of us, and when the road entered the blasted Forest we divided up the watch. Tomo watched left, Martin right, Jock ahead, Kora behind, Shea overhead, and I was back-up to them all, scanning every direction as thoroughly as I could.   The monsters weren’t bold. If Shea called out “harpy overhead!” we’d all r...

  Check here for the previous posts in this series:  Part 1    Part 2     Part 3    Part 4   Part 5   TMB Day 8: Champex-Lac to Col la Forclaz, via Fenetre d'Arpette This was another day for us to split the party. My companions had done the Fenetre d'Arpette several years before on another trip, and encouraged me to do it but showed no desire to repeat the trip (for reasons that became clear to me). As a result, we split up not long after leaving our hotel in Champex-Lac, though I can't say I was hiking alone. I'm guessing more than half of TMB hikers on that day chose the higher and harder route. Though there were stretches where I enjoyed a little solitude, they never lasted long.   Dawn from the hotel balcony. We headed out at the usual time--about 8 a.m. I walked with my companions to the edge of town, then said goodbye and headed up the mountain alongside a tumbling mountain creek. Can't seem to find a name for the cree...

I think I'm overdue for a writer check-in. I've been visiting a friend in Maine and enjoying fall color, walks in yellow-orange-red forests, and good times with friends. But there has also been some time to write (at least, to write those hasty #writephoto flash pieces!) and to think about writing. "Thinking about writing" sounds like the sort of thing you do when you want to be a writer but don't want to actually do the work, so let me clarify. I'm thinking fairly specifically about a new novel in development (while I wait to see what I'm going to do with the one I worked on for the last year). I am, in fact, plotting my next murder while I walk (in a manner of speaking. No actual people are hurt in this plotting, though inattention to where I'm walking may injure me if I'm not careful). The process of developing a new story is a somewhat long and convoluted one for me. I start with a germ of an idea. In this case, like the last, it was the discov...

It's WritePhoto time! Image by KL Caley I'm writing this for the weekly #WritePhoto challenge by KL Caley at New2Writing.com. Read all about it and join in if you'd like! Mine's a bit creepy, a bit of crime, and a bit of humor. Around 860 words this week. On the Tower Gervais the Gargoyle clung, as he had for over a century, to the side of the crenellated tower of the absurdly fake castle. Not that Gervais knew that. How could he know what was absurd in architecture? He had taken form in a stonemason’s workshop and been carted at once to the Abernathy-Foyle home in the year 1843. It was a big year for fake castles and gargoyles, another fact of which Gervais wasn’t cognizant.   What Gervais did know was everything that was done or said in range of his stone eyes and stone ears, which could see and hear a great deal farther than anyone might have suspected.   In actual fact, of course, no one expected or suspected that Gervais could see or hear anything. Tho...

Read the complete TMB series :  Part 1    Part 2     Part 3    Part 4   Part 5   Part 6 TMB Day 6: Rifugio Bonatti to La Fouly (Italy to Switzerland) Since the Bonatti Refuge was in the mountains, not in town, I was up and outside at the crack of dawn to see what photos might be taken. It wasn't the best early morning I've done, but the mountains were beautiful in the early light. Bonatti hut with Monte Bianco in the distance catching the morning sun. After being up very early for the photos, it seemed an eternity until breakfast at 7 or 7:30. We finally got fed (as noted last week, breakfast was limited in scope but all-you-can-eat so we were able to get enough food to go on with), and headed out. Today's hike was the  longest of the whole trip, and we had a major pass to climb (and descend even farther), so we didn't dilly-dally. The first part of the walk, however, was a fairly easy traverse with fantastic views. Through the ...