Rebecca’s Reflections
Black Bears and Inspiration
“Have you seen that big ole bear?” Earl’s lip curled in a smirk. It was the second time I’d seen him since arriving at the cabin for my writer’s retreat. Earl lived at the bottom of the mountain in a small wooden structure that at one time might have been tidy but...
Messengers of Imagination
In Japan, many consider birds messengers of the gods. They fly between the world of the living and the heavens, carrying our prayers and dreams on their wings. The entrance to a Shinto shrine is marked by a large gate known as a torii, which literally translates...
Cover Reveal!!
You wrote the book. You found a publisher. (Finally!) And now the book is making its way to market, which means to bookshelves in book stores. To READERS! Others will read what you spent so many years writing. Or will they? What if they...
Beginning at the Beginning
It starts with birds. I wasn’t sure how to begin at first. I sat at the oilcloth-covered table in the cabin, gazing out over the porch, thinking back to Kyoto. I had already decided to set my novel in Kyoto. In order to write about Kyoto, I had to...
Ode to a De-Cluttered Mind
October 2, 2012: Second day of my writer’s retreat. Somedays, even on a writer’s retreat, we cannot write. We have to de-clutter. And for me, returning to this cabin, as noted in my earlier post, carries with it considerable emotional freight. “De-clutter” and...
Writing on the Lam
October 2, 2012 On leave from academic duties, I have traveled to the mountains of Eastern Tennessee to spend a month in the rustic log cabin my father built by hand in the 1970s. Here, in my “writer’s retreat” I have time to myself. I’m supposed to be...