Photo Friday: Reflections

What better theme for the first photo post of the year than reflections! I'm not going to reflect on 2020--that hot mess of a year is just too hard to look at. Nope, I'm going for literal reflections, of beautiful trees in beautiful water. I hope my photos give you a little space of calm in this crazy time.

All of these photos were taken at the One-Mile pool in Bidwell Park, Chico, CA.

Love how those trees make a perfect X--or a perfect diamond.

This one may take some study--it's the reflection of the bridge rail where the water goes over the sluice gate.

All images and text ©Rebecca M. Douglass, unless otherwise indicated.
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

Hairspray, or, Why Haven’t We Been Going to the Theater?

So last week we were passing through Ashland, OR, and stopped over for the night with friends (because it's a long way from Seattle to home). We were just going to stay the night and move on, but they suggested we stay an extra night and see if we could get last-minute rush tickets for one of the plays. If you aren't familiar with it, Ashland is the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which puts on about 8 or 10 different plays every summer. Several of the plays are by Shakespeare, but the rest are a mix, some well-known, others written or adapted for the festival. On Tuesday, the one with tickets available was Hairspray.

I can't say I knew much about the show, but our friends assured us it was fantastic--and it was. Which is what led to the question in my title: why haven't we been going to the theater?

Well, okay, there are some good reasons. Theater in San Francisco was ruinously expensive, plus you have to deal with the hassle of getting downtown to see it (and back in the middle of the night). We were busy, and tired, and for years the cost and hassle of getting a babysitter just made it too hard. It's been 6 or 8 years since a sitter was needed, but we got out of the habit.

And now I want back in. It'll maybe have to be community theater, college shows, etc., but all the better: those are affordable. I just want the magic of the dark theater and the lit stage taking me away to another world.

Everything on offer in Ashland this summer.

Yes, the fat girl can dance. So can a number of actors with physical handicaps who were part of the cast and performed well.

Photo Friday: Serenity

In honor of Veteran's Day and in hopes of helping us heal from a pretty divisive election, today instead of flash fiction, I'm having Photo Friday, and sharing pictures of calm waters, reflections, and the beautiful things light can do.
Enjoy.

Flagstaff Lake, Maine, at sunrise.

Moon and grass reflected in Flagstaff Lake, ME

Sunset serenity. Flagstaff Lake, ME

 Big Five Lakes, Sequoia National Park

Vanishing Storm Clouds, Big Five Lakes, Sequoia National Park

Misty Evening. Columbine Lake, Sequoia National Park

Tarn reflections, Kings Canyon National Park

Lupine after the storm. Kings Canyon NP

After the storm. Kings Canyon NP

Sunset. Columbine Lake, Sequoia NP

And finally, take a good look at the sunset and sleep well.

Sequoia NP

Happy New Year!

Okay, the obligatory salutation out of the way, let's move on to the obligatory reflections and resolutions, as they relate to me the writer, not me the person (I'll keep the rest of my imperfections private, thanks all the same!)

Reflections on 2013
I'd have to say that 2013 was a learning year.  Much like 2012, as I think on it.  I published my first book in Feb. of 2012, and was sure that I'd be bringing out the second by February of 2013.  So the first lesson was that everything takes longer than you think.  Covers, editing, whatever.  I also had vowed to do a much better job of preparing the way for Return to Skunk Corners (which in fact finally came out in August) with advance publicity.  The hitch is, it's one thing to say that, another to do it effectively.  Let's just say I need practice.  I'll be getting it.

From a writing perspective, however, 2013 was great.  I finished Return to Skunk Corners, drafted Halitor the Hero (due out around the time school lets out, or maybe when it starts up again), and revived and re-edited my first mystery, Death By Ice Cream, which has a tentative launch date of April 1 (a good day for a humorous cozy mystery, I think).  Then I really hit my stride, jumped into National Novel Writing month with not quite enough preparation, and emerged in early December with a 72,000 word very very rough draft of the second mystery in the series, Death By Trombone.  As I am finishing the edits on DBIC and letting DBT stew for a few weeks or months before revisions begin, I'm thinking more about the next Ninja Librarian book, and starting to pencil notes.


So I would say that as a writer, I had a very good year, learned a lot, and made an important shift into making writing my day job.  As a publisher and publicist, however, I came up short.  At this point, there are two ways to go with that: I can either try to shift into the traditional publishing market. . . or I can start educating myself, crack my shell, and learn to do better at the business end.  Since I'd need to learn most of that either way, at this point my plan is to stick with being an author-publisher and just try to be a better one.

Resolutions:
Okay, if you just read the section above, you know where this will go. I think I can break it down into two resolutions:
1.  Be a writer: write/edit every day
2.  Learn to market.

I will just toss in that I've made one new step toward #2 already.  I have signed up to take a table in the Children's pavilion at the Tucson Festival of Books on March 15 in Tucson (duh!), Arizona.  I'll share more information when I know exactly where to find me, and hope maybe some of you can stop by and say hello!  This is a big step for me, and I admit it wouldn't have happened if I didn't have a good friend in Tucson who's been nagging me for several years to come and enjoy the festival.  Thanks, Laura!

I could break the second resolution down into steps, and of course will have to do so in order to achieve it.  I know what some of those steps are; others I will have to learn about first.  So steps come later.

I think I'll throw in one more, which is in a sense part of #2 but deserves its own line:
3.  I will submit short stories to paying markets.  No commitment about how many or how much pay, but I will work on building my portfolio by at least trying to do something besides give away my short works.

Notice that one thing I'm not doing is setting a goal or target for sales.  I just don't want to go there.  Either I'll set an absurdly low target that I know I can achieve but which means little ("two more sales than this year!"), or I'll set myself up for failure.  If I succeed even a little with #2 above, I'll improve sales.  And I'll thank you, my loyal readers, for the success.

A to Z Reflections

Joy.  Triumph.  Success. (This is not me)

Wow.  I jumped into the A to Z Challenge at the last minute and without a lot of thought, mostly just worried about whether I could manage a daily post (I did, but it wasn't always easy!).  I had no idea how much I would get out of it.

As a writer I got:
--Clarity about what I'm doing with my blog, and why.
--proof that I can write daily, and not in any trivial amounts.
--practice meeting deadlines.
--ideas (like schedules) to make it easier.
--new blogs and connections for more inspiration and instruction.

As a blogger/marketer:
--huge increase in daily traffic to my blog, though I don't expect it to remain so high.
--increased my followers from 21 to 51 (thank you to all of you who joined!  I know many did it just because that's what one does during the A to Z; I hope you will all find something worth sticking around for).
--learned how to use the scheduling feature so my blog can keep going when I'm away, and so it can go live at the same time each day.
--discovered several blogs that will help me with what I struggle with the most--marketing.

Sometimes it's more like this--needing something to hold me up at the end of a 100-mile ride. (This is me)

What does all this mean for my blog and my readers?  Well, I have a design in mind now.
--I will continue with Mystery Mondays, as much as I can.  I'll be reviewing at least two mysteries each month.  On Mondays when I don't have a mystery to review, I'll be writing about writing.  Or backpacking.  Or both.
--KidLit Wednesdays.  Three times a month, with the other Wed. being for the Progressive Book Club.  Again, I can't promise I'll always have a review on schedule, so I might write about something else some of those days.
--Flash Fiction Fridays.  Yup, I'm sticking with that one.  I like it, and it's good exercise.  So you can look forward to weekly bits of fiction from me.  Really going to try to make this one happen.
--And I'll be writing ahead so that the blog still happens (if maybe a bit less often) when I'm out on the trail this summer.

And what does it mean for me as a writer?  Somewhere in this month I think I really turned a corner in how seriously I take my work.  I think that's the result both of having deadlines (real jobs include schedules and deadlines), and of having more followers.  I've noted before that having an audience gives writing a reality it gets no other way.

Finally, A to Z left me with a moral dilemma.  Part of what the Challenge is about is finding and following new blogs.  And we all love new followers; I'm grateful for each and every one I have.  Yet. . . there seems to be an unspoken rule about following and following back, and I'm having trouble with that.  My rule from the beginning was to follow blogs I want to read on a regular basis.  Now, I see people who are following a couple hundred blogs.  Maybe that's okay.  You follow them, you skim the topics when they post, and go to the ones you want to read.  I'm kind of doing that already.  But one thing I refuse to do, is to follow a blog that is on a topic that doesn't interest me, not even if the writer is kind enough to follow mine.  Nothing personal, just that there are a lot of things out there worth blogging about that I'm not into.  Makeup, motorcycles, restaurant reviews. . . so if I didn't follow you back, it's not that I thought your blog was bad.  It just didn't ring my bell, and I'm trying to keep my feeds reasonable.  Am I doing that right?

 And maybe it's really more like this, at the end of A to Z or the end of the trail--we have to figure out how it all fits back into our lives (or our cars).  Looks like more than could ever go in, but we find a place for everything, and it works.

Please click on over to the next post to see more reflections--I didn't fit them all in one.