There’s magic in every community. Every part of our country. We live in a world where we can discover within our own national boundaries wonderous moments of endless variety. Or, if you want to get all Wizard of Oz about it, we don’t have to look any further than our own back yard to find ourselves enchanted with who and what we are as Americans. We’re so very lucky to live where we live, and I’m never more aware of that than when I’m writing a novel set in my world for the last twenty years of North Georgia.
On this day where so much of the east coast is battening down and hoping nature won’t beat the everloving c**p out of them, I’m feeling particularly charmed to have places like Sylvan Falls Mill less than an hour from my landlocked self. Check them out near just past the city of Clayton, technically part of Mountain City, I believe, at the base of Black Rock Mountain (the highest national part in the country).
Water is my muse. I grew up surrounded by ocean, river and marshland. My low country, coastal beginning was alluring, healing, beguiling, and, yes, at times dangerous. And while my heart will always beat fastest with the surf’s roar beyond my windows, it’s near mountain water now that I find myself most peaceful and inspired.
I thrive amidst mostly untouched nature and the unconditional acceptance of mountain places where technology seems so completely unnecessary to your well being you don’t even stop to wonder whether or not wifi is available (which it is, but you won’t care). Places like Sylvan Falls Mill.
Mike and Linda have been our get away for close to a decade, yes. But they and their community have become more than our friends. They’ve become life’s blood cosing through our veins. (more…)
