Abercrombie - A Year of Writing Dangerously: 365 Days of Inspiration and Encouragement

This book is both hardheaded and softhearted in its assurance to readers and aspiring writers that they arent the only ones caught up in this glorious delusion that we can write, and that it will not only heal us but will make the world better.

Carolyn See, author of Making a Literary Life

This book is intelligent, generous, compassionate, and true. Its like getting a whole lifetime of writing wisdom packed into one year. I loved it.

Jennie Nash, author of The Threadbare Heart and The Victorias Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming: And Other Lessons I Learned from Breast Cancer

I loved this book. Every entry is a new adventure, followed by a quotation that illuminates and stimulates the mind. Hooray for Barbara Abercrombie!

Abigail Thomas, author of A Three Dog Life

Exuberant writing-whisperer Barbara Abercrombie fills her infectiously joyous book with insider writing advice, quotes, confidences, and support that will inspire, cajole, and jump-start every writing muscle in your heart and soul. Funny and full of comfort (and the company of writing rock stars), this book is as essential to any writer as a verb.

Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You

If you are a writer and go on, be brave, say, I am a writer then this is the book you will turn to every morning, noon, or night when you sit down to write. These are the words that will inspire you, that will chivvy you along, and that will remind you that, come what may, you have no choice you must write. Barbara Abercrombie is an amazing teacher, and with this book youve just joined her class which meets every single day. Congratulations. Now read on and write.

Jacqueline Winspear, author of the Maisie Dobbs mystery series

When you open Barbara Abercrombies brilliant A Year of Writing Dangerously, you are in a house full of writers, each of whom wants to march you over to a corner to tell you something important about the writing life. The charm of this book lies in Abercrombies impeccable taste in the writers she chooses and the way she deftly wraps her own thoughts around each entry so that it becomes a memoir of one writer presiding over a feast of writers. Prepare yourself for a wonderful party! Then start writing.

Phyllis Theroux, author of The Journal Keeper: A Memoir

Barbara Abercrombies new book manages to be both candid and inspiring. Full of the kind of wit and wisdom her students have come to expect and her lucky readers will surely treasure.

Dennis Palumbo, psychotherapist and author of the Daniel Rinaldi mystery series

I love the title of this collection of writerly wisdom, because writing is dangerous, and we need courage to face that danger day by day. A Year of Writing Dangerously gives us courage and inspiration in 365 little gems. Reading this book is like having an old friend in the room or a box of divine chocolates, each wrapped in gold foil, each with a surprising nugget at its center. There is something necessary in these pages for everyone, from the beginning writer to the widely published author. I will keep this book close at hand for those many moments when I will need it.

Naomi Benaron, author of Running the Rift, winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction

This is a lovely book beautifully written, beautifully thought. But that wouldnt be enough, would it, to make it necessary? So let me add: this is a tremendously useful book for anyone who wants to write and for any time in that persons life, whether just beginning or already well published. By the time I got to , I already had six writing friends on my list to give it to, and the book has more than 365 pages! It is a daybook, something to keep on ones desk and beside the bed. This book is a friend, and will be one long after the year is up. It speaks lasting truths in a wise voice.

Janet Sternburg, author of Phantom Limb

F ICTION

Good Riddance

Run for Your Life

N ONFICTION

Writing Out the Storm

Courage & Craft

Cherished: 21 Writers on Animals They Have Loved & Lost

(Editor)

P OETRY

Traveling Without a Camera

(with Norma Almquist and Jeanne Nichols)

B OOKS FOR Y OUNG P EOPLE

The Other Side of a Poem

Amanda & Heather & Company

Cat-Mans Daughter

Michael and the Cats

Charlie Anderson

Bad Dog, Dodger!

The Show-and-Tell Lion

Copyright 2012 by Barbara Abercrombie

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Text design by Tona Pearce-Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Abercrombie, Barbara.

A year of writing dangerously : 365 days of inspiration & encouragement / Barbara Abercrombie.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-60868-051-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Authorship. I. Title.

PN145.A26 2012

808.02dc23

2012009880

First printing, June 2012

ISBN 978-1-60868-051-1

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Emma, Axel, and Grace

I write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts.I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words.