On the eve of Maggie Raines' fiftieth birthday, her husband announces he has gotten his young receptionist pregnant. Months later, newly-divorced Maggie sees an ad for an 1800s cabin billed as the "perfect writer's retreat." For years she has wondered if she has what it takes to be a fiction writer. Maggie rents the cabin for the week between Christmas and New Year's hoping the old log walls will inspire a story. And they do-just not the story she imagines.