It has come to this dear readers. a picture of my diabetic cat, Charlotte. For those of you who have asked, she’s doing wonderfully. (Thank you Rob Daly for the photo, and thank you Dr. Robert Goldman for her good medical care.)
The Writing Life
The Writing Life
Kitchen Tables
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 20 Comments
Two years ago in the middle of January the idea for this blog was hatched at my kitchen table with my daughter Brooke. I had no intentions of writing a blog, I was too busy, didn’t understand the technical side of it, felt I didn’t have enough material, etc. but she talked me into it. …
The Writing Life
The Marketing Mistress
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 5 Comments
Here’s the deal with becoming a published writer: you’re a creative person and you’re a marketing person. I call myself the Marketing Whore on this blog because that’s what it feels like sometimes. (The other morning at breakfast my husband, who is far more genteel than I am, said something about me doing my marketing…
The Writing Life
What Writers Can Learn From Six Year Olds
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 6 Comments
It’s still early morning and as I write this, Emma, age six, is sitting on top of my desk drawing and cutting a pop-up she’s creating of a meadow with cows on it. She has already made French toast for breakfast (see her recipe below) and dressed herself in layers: a pink turtleneck shirt covered…
The Writing Life
Chaos is Material
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 17 Comments
The way we tell our life story is the way we begin to live our life. –Maureen Murdock Always, always we were becoming a story. But I didn’t understand that fusing my life to the narrative, giving myself to the story’s life, would be what would allow me…
The Writing Life
Writers’ Stuff
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 8 Comments
Last spring the L.A. Times Book Review had an article by Dan Crowe about objects, pictures or documents kept by writers in their offices/studies that somehow connected to their writing. Weird stuff! There was a picture of Jonathan Franzen’s office chair which appeared to be held together by duct tape. Ian Rankin has a photograph…
The Writing Life
LA Fires and Various Ironies
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 4 Comments
There’s a certain irony in the piece I was going to post last night. (It follows below.) I wrote it Sunday in Montana and came home yesterday to L.A. and the fires. Coming in around four-thirty in the afternoon we flew over the San Bernardino Mountainsand we could see Lake Arrowhead shining blue and bright…
The Writing Life
4,327 Pounds of Revised Manuscripts
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 26 Comments
I just mailed the first complete draft of the novel-that-I’ve-been-writing-forever to my agent last week (complete in the sense that it now has an ending.) So I’ve spent the entire day cleaning and organizing my office. This is a horrifying experience, but it has to be done because I’ve begun to feel guilty about…
The Writing Life
And Coming to Your Neighborhood Soon
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 1 Comment
I’ll be in the Bay Area (northern California) October 4th – 7th – a free mini-class at East West Bookstore on 10/4 and a sign-up workshop Saturday 10/6 from 10:30-2:30. Book Passage on 10/7 for a sign-up workshop on Writing Your Family History from 11-5 I’m giving a wine and cheese party at Dutton’s Bookstore…
The Writing Life
I’m Turning Into My Father
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 5 Comments
Here’s the thing about being a writer: you can sound off and vent a lot. My father was always sounding off; up into his late eighties he wrote dozens of letters to editors which were published in major newspapers as well as his hometown paper. He wrote about rock stars making a mess of the…
