Tony Abbott's Blog, page 7

An old man, a Census flyer, and a Ferris wheel . . .

Spoke yesterday at a regional SCBWI conference at the Free Library in Guilford. Some 45 folks attended. It was a mess of a talk, all jumbled, the best part of which was that I was able to bring my friends along — in the sense that I quoted from several books by the writers who keep me company in my room when I write. Each of them dead, of course, or they wouldn't all fit into my room or at the podium. The talk made so much more sense on my note cards than it did when I gave it, and it was so ...

FBR 69: It's a wonder I held out . . .

. . . for as long as I did, dropping that fat book in and out of my Amazon shopping cart for weeks, before I succumbed to the inevitable and proceeded to checkout. Three Days Before the Shooting . . . the unfinished second novel, the mountain of pages finally printed, the bewildering fragment of forty-two years' work, seen at last. Ralph Ellison lived plenty long after he published Invisible Man, but apparently not long enough. Some sixteen years after he died, we can finally take a look at t...

It's a wonder I held out . . .

. . . for as long as I did, dropping that fat book in and out of my Amazon shopping cart for weeks, before I succumbed to the inevitable and proceeded to checkout. Three Days Before the Shooting . . . the unfinished second novel, the mountain of pages finally printed, the bewildering fragment of forty-two years' work, seen at last. Ralph Ellison lived plenty long after he published Invisible Man, but apparently not long enough. Some sixteen years after he died, we can finally take a look at w...

FBR 68: Cone-dragging, and other sports . . .

Having just returned from Rochester, that island of lovely lawns in the thumb knuckle of Michigan (as described by natives), I'm beginning to "unpack" the mind — stuffed from a week of school visits, lunches, dinners, a banquet, and thousand-book signings, all hosted by the town's extraordinary Authors in April program, a feat of organization made possible by hundreds of volunteers, a fleet of cars, a bizarre delivery truck, a slobbering St. Bernard, a pen-protector's worth of Sharpies...

Cone-dragging, and other sports . . .

Having just returned from Rochester, that island of lovely lawns in the thumb knuckle of Michigan (as described by natives), I'm beginning to "unpack" the mind — stuffed from a week of school visits, lunches, dinners, a banquet, and thousand-book-signings, all hosted by the town's extraordinary Authors in April program, a feat of organization made possible by hundreds of volunteers, a fleet of cars, a bizarre delivery truck, a slobbering St. Bernard, a pen-protector's worth of Sharpies...

FBR 67: Wandering down Broad Street . . .

. . . in Chattanooga on an errand or two, I saw a crumpled dollar bill, so barely touching the ground it must have just fallen there, though there was no one directly ahead of or behind me. You know how your heart thrills to see that particular green in an untypical place; mine did, and instinctively I scooped it up. Feeling vaguely as if I'd been seen, I offered it to the first people I saw, a couple paused on the walk ahead, one of them shaking something out of her shoe. They thanked me...

Wandering down Broad Street . . .

. . . in Chattanooga on an errand or two, I saw a crumpled dollar bill, so barely touching the ground it must have just fallen there, though there was no one directly ahead of or behind me. You know how your heart thrills to see that particular green in an untypical place; mine did, and instinctively I scooped it up. Feeling vaguely as if I'd been seen, I offered it to the first people I saw, a couple paused on the walk ahead, one of them shaking something out of her shoe. They thanked me...

FBR 66: My Moon Under Water . . .

There is a breakfast place some fifteen to twenty minutes away by back roads that is just about the perfect setting for work. Not the serious work you need to do in quiet isolation, but for the kind of journalistic observation that keeps the mind swept and tidy.

The restaurant, which seems a far too grand word for it, is set on a spit of land between two roads and surrounded by a ball field, a cemetery, and a service station. The roads, the field, and the station provide some background...

My Moon Under Water . . .

There is a breakfast place some fifteen to twenty minutes away by back roads that is just about the perfect setting for work. Not the serious work you need to do in quiet isolation, but for the kind of journalistic observation that keeps the mind swept and tidy.

The restaurant, which seems a far too grand word for it, is set on a spit of land between two roads and surrounded by a ball field, a cemetery, and a service station. The roads, the field, and the station provide some background...

On the sidewalk on Broad Street . . .

. . . in Chattanooga was a crumpled dollar bill, with the look of being newly fallen. It was hot on that sidewalk. You know how your heart thrills to see that particular dollar-green in an untypical place; mine did, and I scooped it up without a thought, offered it half-heartedly to a couple paused on the walk ahead, and, when they thanked me, but no, it wasn't theirs, held it loosely in my fingers for another half block or so, as if to show I wasn't such a greedy man, then saw no option but ...