My latest book, A Year of Writing Dangerously will be published by New World Library next month. There are 365 entries – anecdotes, quotes and writing prompts to encourage and inspire you, day by day, through a year of writing. It's like going to a party with all my favorite writers. They'll hold your hand…
Tag Archive for writing
Writing Advice
How To Write by Elmore Leonard
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 7 Comments
This says it all. Rules for writing by Elmore Leonard: 1 Never open a book with weather. If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you…
teaching writing
Lake Arrowhead Writing Retreat: November 2010
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 0 Comments
I’ve scheduled space at the UCLA Conference Center for a writing retreat the weekend of November 5-7th. If you’d like advance notice of sign-ups for this retreat please email me with November Retreat in the subject line and I’ll send you more information in May. Thanks. B.Abercrombie@verizon.net
Getting Started
Getting Started: The Secret to Writing
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 9 Comments
Have you started writing this year? Or are you continuing what you were writing in 2008? More often than not there’s a but when people tell me they want to write. But I don’t know where to begin, but I don’t have the time, but I don’t have writing skills, but I’d be embarrassed…
Quotes for Writers
Quotes
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 1 Comment
"The material’s out there, a calm lake waiting for us to dive in." – Beverly Lowry "I have not looked at a newspaper in twenty years; if one is brought into the room, I flee. This is not because I am indifferent but because one cannot follow every road." – Jean Cocteau
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…
Writing Advice
rx for writers and a love letter to my students
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 1 Comment
We’re starting the Writing Clinic this week. Check it out below, and please send us your writing questions or problems. (Send to StuartandCharlotte@yahoo.com or click on “comment” below. You can use just your first name and a fake e-mail address if you want to. No need to fill in URL.) I’m winding up my spring…
Writing Advice
quote of the week: fiction into film
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 0 Comments
“I was not prepared for the emotional hammering I got when I saw [the film]….It is an eerie sensation to see events you have imagined in the privacy of your mind, and tried helplessly to transmit to others through little black marks on a page, loom up before you in an overwhelming visual experience.”
– Annie Proulx
teaching writing
numbers
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 4 Comments
I’m writing this in Twin Bridges, Montana. It’s 32 degrees outside and I’m 90 miles away from the big city, Bozeman. This morning I’ve been reading a book of poems, Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison by Ted Kooser. Each poem is about a morning walk he takes from November 9th to March 20th. The day’s date becomes the title of the poem … (click on the title to be taken to the full post)
teaching writing
courage and community
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 2 Comments
Who is your community? The more I teach, the more I realize how important community is for writers. The world at large will not support your writing and doesn’t care if you ever get a word down on paper. Your writing will make your family and friends nervous and anxious because they’re afraid you’re going to spill the beans and expose their life. And then they’re afraid you won’t, that they’re not interesting enough for you to write about, you don’t care enough about them. It’s a non-win situation. It’s best to not even talk about your writing to your family. And for God’s sake, don’t let them read it.
