I have blog block. I think I’ve written every single thing I know or ever questioned or thought or didn’t know about writing. There are years and years of posts on this blog of me going on and on about writing and also about houses and my dog and the departed cats and God knows…
She writes about it. And that’s what this post is about today. The election. I swear the top my head is about to blow off. I know I’m not alone in this, and so many great journalists and commentators have been tackling the election mess I didn’t think I needed to add my two…
Don’t ever read My Life in France (Julia Child’s story of learning to cook in Paris) when you’ve casually invited over 25 people to come watch the 4th of July fireworks from your deck in Lake Arrowhead and you intend to cook a lasagna dish for them that you’ve never made before. A vegetarian…
“WritingTime” has reappeared thanks to my friend and computer guru Rob Daly. Ten years of posts as well as my entire website vanished over a month ago. Something to do with malware or some form of virus, but all has been restored to cyberspace health and it’s good to be back. Many more posts to…
The hardest post of all to write. R. died on February 10th, 2015. Many of you already knew this. I wrote his obituary which was in the L.A. Times on 2/19 and 2/21, and in the N.Y.T. the following Sunday. The best lines came from our friend Tom who wrote to me that R. was…
Dear WritingTime Readers, My new blog is launched this week. Here’s the link: www.TheIntimidatedCook.com If you know me you might be thinking that cooking is a hilarious subject for me to write about since I am not a cook, know nothing about it, and up until now did just about anything to stay out of the…
The mess in my office always feels like a metaphor. As I write my office gets more chaotic, then when I finish a draft I organize the mess and start all over again. Actually I’m still in the middle of two drafts, one for an essay and another for a novel, but my new blog…
Life has gotten in the way of this blog and my writing. A family illness, and then – astonishingly and horribly – two violent deaths this week of people I know. One, the suicide of a much beloved and respected teacher in the Writers’ Program, Les Plesko. Some of you may have taken his classes…
Sometimes ideas just smoke, and sometimes they burst into flame. Either way you have to pay attention to them. I’ve had an idea smoking for the past year and recently I caught fire with it. I sent the title to my agent today who is less than impressed. She even described herself as a wet…
Thanks to Laura Hoopes for asking such interesting questions in her interview about A Year of Writing Dangerously. Here's the link to her blog, West Coast Writers and our interview: http://westcoastwriters.blogspot.com/2012/09/barbara-abercrombie-interview-on-year.html And the introduction to her blog: West Coast Writers (by Laura Hoopes) Writing, authors, interviews, writing tips, and writing prompts from the West Coast…
