Here’s another approach from another billionaire Brit: I just heard Paul McCartney interviewed by Nic Harcourt on KCRW and he said he writes songs only when he’s in the mood. He said he sits down and looks into this black hole in space and “I wonder if there’s a song in there.” Then he tries…
Writing Advice
Writing Advice
Putting Your Life On The Page: 6 Questions To Ask Yourself For Memoirs And Essays
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 2 Comments
. 1. What is the story? You know that when you write fiction you need to have a plot, a story that keeps the reader turning pages to find out what happens next. And you need the same thing in writing a memoir or essay; you need to shape a plot out of what really…
Writing Advice
The Talent of the Room
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 2 Comments
A sharp eyed reader of the last post, Dave O., thought the quote from Ron Carlson about learning to stay in the room sounded familiar. And he’s right. Michael Ventura wrote a take-no-prisoner essay on the same subject for the L.A. Weekly in 1992 entitled “The Talent of the Room”. In the beginning of the…
Writing Advice
The Door Into Your Story
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 7 Comments
Here’s something I’ve been noticing lately with my students: a lot of really good writers are getting lost in their own narrative. In other words, they’re telling their story – and beautifully! But they’re telling it, not showing it (that old cliché of show don’t tell). We, the readers, are removed emotionally from the story…
Writing Advice
What Does It Take To Be A Writer?
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 7 Comments
This is a letter I just got from a reader and since it might address some of your own concerns I thought I’d use it as a post and include my answers (in bold type). My thanks to Debra Moini for letting me post it. Hi Barbara, Here is my writer’s dilemma: I thrive in…
Writing Advice
Laura’s Icon
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 6 Comments
A while ago I was really stuck in my writing and sent my painter friend Laura in Arizona (photo is of her latest show) a whiney e-mail about how I would never finish this book I was writing and oh-woe-is-me etc. She wrote back about an icon she was working on, a metaphor for what…
Writing Advice
An Appointment With Yourself
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 10 Comments
My husband is on a fast road to recovery from his heart surgery (no longer requiring three meals a day delivered on trays upstairs and me hovering over him). So this past week I’ve rearranged my office book cases into categories. I’ve made the notes for a speech to give at an Author’s Luncheon in…
Writing Advice
Again and again and again: Take Notes
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 12 Comments
I say this to my students all the time and God knows how many times I’ve said it on this blog: take notes. Especially going through hard times. You don’t have to make sense of what’s going on, you don’t have to write well, or write about your emotions, just get the details down. They…
Writing Advice
Sunday Morning Gift: Inspiration
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 3 Comments
This morning in the New York Times Book Review Kathryn Harrison wrote an eloquent review of Joan Acocella’s new book Twenty-Eight Artists And Two Saints. Harrison quotes the book, “What allows genius to flower is not neurosis but its opposite…ordinary Sunday-school virtues such as tenacity and above all the ability to survive disappointment.” and then…
Writing Advice
Writers’ Resolutions
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 9 Comments
You’re keeping a journal, right? (Or notebook, computer file, whatever you want to call it.) If you’re not, this is a good time to start. And here’s an idea for your first entry: Write down five goals for your writing in 2007. Or two or ten. What do you want to have accomplished by 2008?…
