What You See Depends On What You’re Looking For

Photo by Neil Bates

At least once a year, I go to Maui by myself for an annual writer’s retreat. My accommodations are modest and secluded. I began this tradition about the time I started writing my first novel in 2013. I’d been writing nonfiction and poetry for more than forty years, but quickly learned that the art of novel writing rested in my ability to carve out a chunk of time to write, mainly because I realized that I…