“One thing about writing is that it takes time.” – M.F.K. Fisher Thank you for all your comments last week. Finding time to write really seemed to hit a nerve. (Click on Comment below and you can read all the infinite variety of scheduling writing time sent in by readers.) I calmed down this week…
The Writing Life
The Writing Life
Feedback Please
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 27 Comments
I’ve got deadlines! Very specific, signed-the-contract deadlines, plus self-imposed deadlines like on my novel and this blog, and it’s Sunday night and I feel like I’m back in school and the test is tomorrow and the term paper is due. I’m sure I’m not the only one out here who feels that life just gets…
The Writing Life
Weaving Wool and Words
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 6 Comments
My friend Norman Frankland in Montana weaves rugs that look like modern art. He raised the sheep that the wool comes from, he spins the carded fleece into yarn and finally on the huge loom that takes up half his studio, he turns sheep wool into art. In this world of hyped and mass marketed…
The Writing Life
A Montana Story
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 4 Comments
You never know where you’re going to find something amazing to write about. I mean so bizarre and with such possibilities of turning into metaphor, that you rack your brain figuring out how your characters (if you’re writing fiction) can run into this themselves, and what will it mean to them. Or what would be…
The Writing Life
Shameless in Santa Monica
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 11 Comments
Warning: this is a self promoting post. It’s about me and my new book, COURAGE & CRAFT, Writing Your Life Into Story, about to be published by John Wiley & Sons next month. This is the part about writing that feels – well, icky. You write a book, and if you’re very lucky (let alone…
The Writing Life
Outsiders
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 7 Comments
Sometimes it’s hard to know where you are until you’ve been somewhere else. I’ve been on a ranch for ten days in Montana and just got back to L.A. I love to be home, but no matter how much I’m telling my students (and you) to wake up and pay attention, take notes etc., the…
The Writing Life
Take Notes
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 6 Comments
Take Notes: It’s Your Life If going to Paris is out of the question, let alone going into a quiet room all by yourself to write, and you’re thinking that you have nothing to write about anyway because you’re stuck at home, and that life is car pools and toddlers dropping trails of Cherrios around…
The Writing Life
Real Life and Writing
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 2 Comments
We’re off to the mountains next weekend – all sixteen members of the immediate family. I’m also working on a novel so I’m doing this juggling act of trying to figure out plot and character issues, while dealing with logistical questions for the weekend: Is there room for six cars to park in front of…
The Writing Life
Quotes of the Week
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 2 Comments
"Most writers are in a state of gloom a good deal of the time; they need perpetual reassurance." John Hall Wheelock "If you were a member of Jesse James’ band and people asked you what you were, you wouldn’t say, ‘Well I’m a desperado.’ You’d say something like ‘I work in banks’ or…
The Writing Life
quote of the week
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 0 Comments
“I took a clean white piece of paper – like a sheet freshly ironed for making love – and rolled it into the carriage. I wrote my name, and immediately the words began to flow, one thing linked to another and another. Characters stepped from the shadows, each with a face, a voice, passions, and…
