Writing Time

West Coast Writers

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 of the USA.

Welcome to West Coast Writers Blog wherever you're from!

Creative writing thoughts and schemes from a book author who enjoys both fiction and nonfiction, with a little poetry thrown in. Thoughts about writing a book, interviews with book authors, interviews with other writers, writing prompts, and thoughts about the writing life crop up here. In January, I participate in a River of Small Stones project, and in February, I run Alphabetaphilia on this site. See the pdf below for some of the great sentences produced in this year’s Alphabetaphilia. I'd love to hear your thoughts, and you can post as "anonymous" if you like, no need to register. I do moderate comments (with good cause, sadly), but I'm usually fast in posting what you've commented. I'm the author of memoir Breaking Through the Spiral Ceiling, available through Amazon.com. A free sample can be viewed below the postings on this blog.

 

Writing Regularly - or Not - and Good News

Let's face it. Sometimes we can't work, we can't get our writing done every day. I'm always saying you have to write regularly, but sometimes life just sweeps over you and the best you can do is to write field reports in your journal. 

I've had a tsunami of grandchildren for the past ten days.  Plus their parents, their cousins, their other grandparents - it's been wonderful but not a time when I got a lot of work done on the new book, or posts written for this blog, or classes and workshops prepared for fall. Emma was here for a full week and no one on this planet has more energy than my eldest granddaughter, and Grace was here earlier and developed a lot of red bumps which got everyone very excited. And then a bedroom window was mysteriously broken, and in a household where  almonds and yogurt are called breakfast, suddenly eggs were required, French toast, and for dinners whole chickens were cooked, etc. You just can't write regularly through some of this stuff.

Let yourself off the hook if you're not writing every single day. Just keep jotting down those field reports from your journal.

And the good news! Three of my students have had essays accepted in the L.A. Times new Saturday column about love and relationships in Los Angeles. Jill Cargerman's wonderful piece about being married and happily childless was published a few months ago. Tomorrow, August 25th, Dr. Bob Goldman's essay will be published, and Barbara Lodge just called me yesterday to tell me that her latest essay has been accepted and will be published soon in L.A. Affairs. Congratulations. I'm so very proud to have them as students!

And don't forget the UCLA Extension Writer's Faire this Sunday on campus. It's free and a great way to spend a Sunday. Come say HI. 

 

 

Best Books for Writers

Some happy news this week: A YEAR OF WRITING DANGEROUSLY has been chosen one of the Best Books for Writers by Poets & Writers Magazine. 

Other news of the week: The Night of Packing Dangerously. As I was packing up my old house to move in Lake Arrowhead (see post below) a bat appreared flying - zooming - around the living room. I became a wee bit hysterical and Nelson ran upstairs and hid under the bed. A few days later the bat was found under the couch that I had left behind by the new owners. Happily escrow had closed by then. I'm now moved into the new house and as soon as I get a kitchen counter and sink I'll be all set. (And will stop going on and on about all this.)

The Writers Faire at UCLA Extension will be held on campus on August 26th, 11:00 am-3:00 pm. I'm chairing a panel, "Truth and Imagination: Where NonFiction and Fiction Meet" with two of my favorite writers/instructors, Samantha Dunn and Sandra Kobrin. And I'm also on a panel that Lisa Cron is chairing on "Getting Your Creative Work Published".  The whole event is always great fun and if you're interested in taking writing classes you get a chance to meet the instructors - and to hear a lot of lively discussions. So if you're in L.A. please come say hello. 

Thoughts When Moving

And why did I ever think a moose candle holder was a good idea?

The move out of my old cabin in Lake Arrowhead and into the new one is almost completed. And then this blog will go back to the subject of writing. 

 

Finding Story: Blended Families

I'm on vacation with part of my family in Hawaii and we're all staying in the same house. Everything is soft, warm air, ocean and sun. R. is here, and his daughter and grandson, and one of my daughters and her family including her stepkids, (one stepdaughter just flew in from Austraila) and their families plus my daughter's teenage half-brother and half-sister, (my ex-husband's kids) who flew in from England.

So there are seventeen of us (including one baby) under one roof. I thought this would be the makings of a wonderful essay: all the complications and drama of blended families and the strange generation lines due to the divorces. Grace who is seven years old is the aunt of Lucy who is also seven years old, and Sian who is thirteen is Grace's aunt. And Nick who is thirty-one is Grace's brother. William who is fifteen is Axel's uncle.

You'd think all this would provide story and drama to the week, but here we all are, happy as clams. 

Stay tuned. 

The gang leaving LAX:

 

An Interview, A Prompt, and A Retreat

Here's a writing prompt I found on the beach early this morning as two young women jogged past me.  The one with a blond pony tail said to her friend, "You know my brother threw him out of the house.."

"Yeah," said her friend.

"So now my dad lives in a garage."

What did the father do to get thrown out of the house? How did the brother have so much power?  Describe the garage, the father.  (These gems are everywhere - you just have to be nosey, listen hard and carry a notebook.)

*

I did an interview with Chase March last week that was great fun. Here's the link to both the podcast and the text of the interview on his blog. It's a half hour discussion about writing and my new book, A Year of Writing Dangerously.

http://chasemarch.blogspot.ca/2012/07/write-dangerously-with-barbara.html

*

A few spaces are still available for the Writer's Retreat in Lake Arrowhead, October 26 - 28. Write to me if you'd like more information. ([email protected])

 

An Evening of Dangerous Reading

If you live east of downtown Los Angeles, please come to the Flintridge Bookstore and Coffee House in La Canada Thursday night at 7:30.(July 12th) I'll be reading from A Year of Writing Dangerously and talking about two of my favorite writers who have roots in La Canada. (If you live on the west side of Los Angeles I fully understand the difficulties of going east in the evening. If you live in other parts of the country or the world, I'm talking about gridlock traffic.)

In any event, I hope to see some of you Thursday night.  It's a great independant bookstore and I love doing book signings there.  Here's their flyer for the event and address:

1010 Foothill Blvd ~ La Canada ~ CA ~ 91011   818.790.0717 ~ www.flintridgebooks.com

 

 

 

 

All Writers At Some Point Get Rejected, Get Rejected....

Even Gertrude Stein.

Off the Grid: Glacier National Park

As previous readers of this blog may know, my husband R. is into adventure. So last week, publication week and cabin renovation in Lake Arrowhead in full swing, we go off to Glacier National Park. This is up in the boonies of Montana. People, this is off the grid. There is no email or wi-fi or television. There are no newspapers.

R., who years ago was a guide for the Sierra Club, was in heaven.  He gazed at mountains, took hundreds of photos. It rained off and on. It was forty-six degrees.  I gazed at the No Service at the top of my iPhone.  I am not a good companion to take to a National Park. And this is embarrassing to admit. I want to be home with my dog. I'm addicted to technology. I'm a workaholic.  And yet - there was a magical walk through cedars in the rain at Lake McDonald, and then one morning at Many Glaciers lake I woke at 5:00 and the top of the huge dark forboding mountain outside the window had turned rose colored in the rising sun. It was glorious.  

A Cabin for Sale

Bidding Wars Are Back In Tight Market! - Los Angeles Times June 10, 2012

What could be a lovelier headline to read when you have a house about to go on the market?! My cabin in Lake Arrowhead goes up for sale next week as the renovation of my new one marches on. (All of this real estate juggling - moving to the other side of the lake - is to live closer to my daughter and her family who just bought a weekend place up there.) My old cabin is in the woods, totally private and I've spent nine years renovating it. Lake Arrowhead is just a hundred miles from L.A., a whole other world, and, best of all, prices are about a quarter of what L.A. houses sell for. If you want to take a look or find out more, give my real estate agent extraordinaire, Keith Binkley, a call at 310-413-8589 or go to his website.

And the Marketing Whore will be back very soon because A YEAR OF WRITING DANGEROUSLY will be published next week - and it's a lot cheaper to buy than my cabin.