I’ve been in consumer hell all week trying to buy a new computer. This has resulted in calling Dell numerous times and threatening to buy a Mac. I noticed in their email messages to me I’m now referred to as “customer with issues”. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to think about…
The Writing Life
The Writing Life
Habits and Horses
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 11 Comments
Habit is everything. For writing, exercise, for any kind of discipline. I’ve been on vacation – sort of. A plunge into the domestic side of life. All the boxes from Colorado (see “Stuff” below) arrived in Montana and I became enthralled with rearranging furniture, linen closets, unpacking china, reorganizing the garage, even ironing for God’s…
The Writing Life
Stuff
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 5 Comments
This past week I’ve been in Colorado packing (as in moving boxes). I got really into stuff. What’s needed, what’s not. What you wrap up and send on to the next house. What you give away. What you throw away. There was a yellow teapot – the only object my husband owned from his paternal…
The Writing Life
Lilacs in Montana
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 4 Comments
I am writing this from a mile high in a small Montana town…(If these words have a familiar ring it’s because Verlyn Klinkenborg started his column Sunday 5/20/07on the op-ed page of the New York Times with the same line, except he was in Wyoming, not Montana.) The first thing I noticed when we landed…
The Writing Life
My Book is in Memphis, Tennessee
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 10 Comments
For the past two weeks I’ve been in revision hell, with a brief stop in author heaven. My book, Courage & Craft: Writing Your Life Into Story (previously published at a much too high text book price,) will be published in the fall by New World Library (at a reasonable price) Two weeks ago my…
The Writing Life
Before and After
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 22 Comments
February 10th: I’m writing this in a hospital room in San Bernardino, California with my husband, the patient, sitting up in a chair wrapped in blue blankets, alive and on his way to recovery. This – my husband breathing, his heart beating, sitting up in a chair – is a miracle. He almost died ten…
The Writing Life
Leaving Agoraphobia at Home
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 11 Comments
Like a lot of writers, I verge on agoraphobia; I really, really like staying at home. Yet every time I do get dragged away from my house and computer and cats I have a wonderful time. Last week for instance: My husband and I went to New York for four days of museums, Broadway, opera,…
The Writing Life
New Year’s Day: Editorial Essays in The New York Times
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 5 Comments
The focus of family, presents, parties, cooking, and obsessing over how many people I could fit into the house, at the table, etc. shifted yesterday morning. It was New Year’s Day and for the first time in two weeks I sat down to read the New York Times cover to cover. “The Hope of a…
The Writing Life
Why We Write (Or: All About My Horse)
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 6 Comments
I’m in Montana because I had to visit my horse. His name is Robin and he’s retired from the Forest Service, twenty-three years old with a white tear drop mark above his nose. There’s snow on the ground up here and the collie and the barn cats (who think they’re dogs) follow us when we…
The Writing Life
Writing Time: Where To Find It
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 6 Comments
I just got a contract for the new edition of my book, Courage & Craft (which will be published next fall by New World Library, and this time around it will not have sticker shock.) The revised manuscript is due on January 15th. Now I don’t mean to get away from the craft of writing…
