Barbara Abercrombie's Blog, page 16
November 7, 2011
Joan Didion's Blue Nights
I read Joan Didion's new memoir Blue Nights this weekend. Or rather, I read it and reread it. That's the kind of writer she is, you reread pages to see how she puts a sentence together, how she does what...
November 5, 2011
Tracking Books
A confession: I love to track my online book orders. I always click on order update, and then I click on for the complete history of my order. Here's the latest info for my current book order. Date Time Location...
October 31, 2011
Writing As A Daily Habit
"You go to work everyday. You sit your butt in a chair...and you put in your hours just like everyone else who goes to work," writes Ellen Sussman in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers. "Take yourself seriously. Say...
October 26, 2011
Halloween Party!
You and your dog are invited to a Halloween party this Sunday (October 30th) at Maxwell Dog in Studio City. Monica Holloway and I will be reading from our books and her son Wills will be judging the dog costume...
October 24, 2011
A Writing Retreat in the Mountains
This past weekend I held a writer's retreat in the mountains north of L.A. (see everybody above). It's amazing what happens when a bunch of smart, generous people get together to write - and have nothing else to think about...
October 20, 2011
Two Quotes for Today
I'm about to go up to Lake Arrowhead to give a weekend writing retreat and I just found two quotes to open the retreat with. Both express how I feel about writing, how we're always beginners when we face the...
October 17, 2011
A Week of Reading
I've been lost in three wonderful books for the past week or so. The first was The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. Yes, the novel has a lot of baseball in it but you don't have to be a...
October 6, 2011
Follow Your Heart
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner...
October 3, 2011
To Burn Or Not To Burn
Dominique Browning wrote a thought-provoking essay in Sunday's New York Times (10/2/11) called "Burning the Evidence" - about pitching forty years of her diaries into a blazing fire. (Link below.) What to do with your diaries/journals is a questions all...
September 26, 2011
Inspiration for Writers
Inspiration arrived this morning in my email; Patricia Edie sent me links to the story of a remarkable woman and writer, Elle Newmark. Read her blog post, "Passion is our consolation for mortality": http://www.thebookofunholymischief.com/ and then her obit: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/20... When...
