A Reason to Send You a Letter

Maybe you only need one.

1000 Words of Summer starts May 30 and runs through June 12. More about it here.

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Hi friends.

Sometimes I write rough drafts of these letters when I get a Big Idea, something that feels important and like a message I should send to all of you, and then I let it sit in my drafts for a few days fermenting. I guess I’m waiting for some other things to happen in my life or other ideas to show up (it’s OK if they are smaller, lowercase ideas to support the big one) to fill out the rest of the letter. And then I mess around with it a bit more, to make it feel even bigger. But sometimes the Big Ideas never make it out of the draft because it has started not to sound like a letter I am writing but just a concept I wanted to share and I don’t want to write that way, not here, maybe not anywhere.

Also sometimes I have conversations with people about what the project of this letter should be, or what the project of me should be. I find these conversations hard to have because I never want to be too strategic about anything I am doing because it ends up feeling inauthentic to me. Fake. Not a good time.

And when it stops being fun I don’t want to do it anymore. I want to take all my little writing toys and go home. Writing anything is a lot of work and we barely break even in the end. So shit should be fun.

All this to say that every letter I have written in the past week has felt forced to me because I’ve let these conversations get in my head. What is the “why” of this project? How would I describe this as a brand? (DO I HAVE TO?) Can something be both an art project and a community? How does it change when money comes into play? Who do I have to be in all of this? What if I’m a totally imperfect person? What if I’m not in a good mood some days? I mean how can any of us be expected to be in a good mood?

What if all I want to do in the end is just tell you that writing is good for you, good for your soul, your heart, your mind, and that you should make time for it because it will help you to be an ever so slightly better version of yourself? What if all I care about is pushing you closer to the page so that you can be closer to yourself?

What if I told you that I believe in you? What if I told you that I know that you can do this, that every day you are capable of writing just a little bit more? What if I told you that when I go to the cafe in the morning and see someone else happily (or sometimes desperately) pulling out their notebook I imagine it is one of you? What if I know you can do it because I see those people? Out in the real world, everywhere, people are writing.

What if I told you that all I wanted was for you to be a little bit happier in a world that seems hellbent on ruining our spirits? What if I just want us to feel a little bit better? That’s it. Just a little bit better.

Is that enough reason to send you a letter?

Jami

You are reading Craft Talk, the home of #1000wordsofsummer and also a weekly newsletter about writing from Jami Attenberg. I’m also on bluesky and instagram.