“Be Not Far From Me”: A Survival Novel That Broke My Book Fast

Mindy McGinnis’s YA survival novel, Be Not Far From Me, centers on the character of Ashley Hawkins, a working-class, high school girl growing up in Tennessee with her single father. While on a camping trip with a group of friends, Ashley wakes in the middle of the night to find her boyfriend, Duke, cheating on

Re-watching CATS (2019), For Ships and Giggles

Over the weekend, I was scanning through my YouTube feed when this video popped up: “CATS Movie… I Have to Explain” from the channel Black Nerd Comedy. It was less a review and more a comical summary/ decent into madness of the 2019 movie Cats. Now I had already seen several scathing reviews of Cats,

The Joys and Pains of Re-Reading My First Novel—Part 2

My task for February was simple. I wanted to re-read The Changelings, the 530-page epic fantasy tome I published back in 2015. But the challenge proved greater than I thought. For most of February, I hemmed and hawed, read a few chapters out of order, got inspired to write the sequel novel, stopped reading… and

The Importance of Making Stuff

A couple days ago, my sister-in-law, Shantel, sent out a group text message. Shantel runs a daycare in her home, but she had the urge to bring her Cricut downstairs and do some crafts. “I just want to make stuff,” she wrote. It was a small thing, but it made me wonder: how often we

The Joys and Pains of Re-Reading My First Novel—Part 1

My task for February is simple. I must re-read The Changelings, the 530-page epic fantasy tome I published back in 2015. I want to publish the sequel book, The Originals, by 2023, and although I have already done a ton of writing for it, putting it together isn’t easy. A refresher course will be helpful

What Makes a Hero? My Archetype Analysis

I originally published this piece on my “News and Reviews” blog in May 2019, shortly after Avengers: Endgame came out. Although comic book movies presented heroes of all shapes and sizes, I had trouble connecting with them, so I decided to create my own definition of a hero, using the few characters I liked. I’m

Why I’m Starting a New Blog

My name is Rebecca Lang, and I am a fantasy author. I’m starting this blog in order express my thoughts on whatever topic happens to stir my passion at the moment. These topics may include book and movie reviews, interesting pieces of information I stumble across, the struggles and lessons of my daily life, and,