If you’re just joining us, yes you can start today. Here’s the first day’s letter, and here’s an FAQ. 100% of this month’s donations go to charity so please consider subscribing. If you’re interested, a book version of 1000 WORDS will be published in January 2024
CLINT SMITH. This author needs no introduction for those of us who teach K-12, particularly those of us who work in schools that are proudly antiracist, or who teach poetry, or who live a stone's throw away from the Nuyorican Cafe, and I'm proud to be all three of those things. (I read Elizabeth Acevedo's beautiful "The Poet X" last year with my 8th graders, and for our final poetry writing celebration, we turned our classroom in the Bronx into a mock version of the Nuyo.) Clint is quite a hero to us around these parts.
And it's so true, that we need to write pages and pages of private stuff in our writers' notebooks before we have something that's ready to shine up and show the world. I tell my students that you gotta haul the big gorgeous rock of ideas out of your head and onto the page first, before you know what to chisel away into the poem (or essay, or song) that it's eventually going to be. Thank you for naming and normalizing this, and thanks to you both for all the work that you do to support budding writers everywhere.
Loving Clint Smith's origin story. The 40,000 words you'll write but never use. The hours of practice. &, most of all, that groping towards something you can't quite name & don't know how to do until one day you realize you have found your way. So encouraging. It's not enough to get me up & writing at 6am--but his story will be with me when I do, say, in another hour or two.
It’s possible that the Red Wheelbarrow here in Paris will pre-order for us. I will check and let you know. In the comments section before the end of this Challenge!
I live in France and think I'm going to pre-order online from Blackwells in the UK which offers free shipping to France, as I can't yet find it on any French bookshop sites (except Amazon.fr).
LOVE these thoughts from Clint Smith. And I believe his analogy to athletic practice is so apt. I think it was LeBron James (or Will Smith?) who said something like: Practice is failure in a controlled environment. You try a bunch of things to figure out what works and what doesn't, and you put in a bunch of reps on the things that work so you can make them *really* work. And it's utterly natural for a lot of that "failure" to happen on the playground or the training field.
The false idea we carry around about pro-grade writing — which I personally connect with my honors-kid syndrome — is that we "should" get it right on the first try, or the sixth try, or the 37th try. And get we think it's totally normal to need way more reps than that to learn to walk, or shoot a jumper, or formulate a compound-complex sentence in our native tongue.
It's all practice. It's not merely okay to fail and fail and fail in practice — it's NECESSARY.
Thank you for Clint’s origin story which is the best advice I have ever read on first drafts. I now have more compassion and respect for the hundreds of pages I wrote that led me to my current novel. Jami, you are the best literary citizen in the world!
Love all this. We are not teaching children this truth -- about writing, about drafting. By high school and on into college, young people believe you just start writing a thing, then clean up the punctuation, and then recopy and resubmit. They have no idea of this process. Including the new generation of aspiring English teachers. I spent a semester wrestling against the conditioning as an adjunct; I broke through with a few. Can I break through for myself? Break through this deep belief that words are wasted if they don’t go somewhere for some purpose? That if I’m good, if I’m a real writer, that it should come out golden without toil?
“You don’t just sit down to write the book and have it all automatically pouring out of you … “ What perfect advice for Day 2. Thank you, and off I go (well, actually, back into bed I go) to write my next 1000 words.
Deeply inspiring, thank you. I just wrote and rewrote an essay that I knew wasn't what I wanted to say--yet. But persevering, the real one emerged. First, those "wasted" words had to get cleared away. Clint is so right about this process.
1,316 words this morning post-meditation, post surprise very cold, rainy walk with a neighbor's dog! Like jumping in a cold pool, it was the perfect pre-writing surprise. I love Clint Smith's words today, so true. Today's scene was probably nothing I'll end up using, but the end led me to a cliffhanger that opened up a whole new idea. Unlike most years, this year I didn't have time to prep first, so I just opened the document where I left off in April and started. There's a freedom in writing this way -- and also knowing that it all matters, even if it ends up on the cutting room floor.
I love this metaphor--especially as a high school cross country coach. The quote on the back of our summer camp shirt is, "The will to win means nothing compared to the will to prepare." I can see how this also applies to writing!
I used to teach writing in prisons here in MA and one day Clint was part of my group. He wasn’t allowed into the prison bc he was wearing “work boots” (it was winter and slushy!). He went off to Walmart and bought a cheap pot of shoes to be allowed in. I always remembered him from that brief interchange--he was so frustrated and yet so restrained and determined.
Day 2 was much harder. But I did it. A large part of it was revision of Day 1. That is much harder to track words. Anyone else doing revisions on any of these days??
CLINT SMITH. This author needs no introduction for those of us who teach K-12, particularly those of us who work in schools that are proudly antiracist, or who teach poetry, or who live a stone's throw away from the Nuyorican Cafe, and I'm proud to be all three of those things. (I read Elizabeth Acevedo's beautiful "The Poet X" last year with my 8th graders, and for our final poetry writing celebration, we turned our classroom in the Bronx into a mock version of the Nuyo.) Clint is quite a hero to us around these parts.
And it's so true, that we need to write pages and pages of private stuff in our writers' notebooks before we have something that's ready to shine up and show the world. I tell my students that you gotta haul the big gorgeous rock of ideas out of your head and onto the page first, before you know what to chisel away into the poem (or essay, or song) that it's eventually going to be. Thank you for naming and normalizing this, and thanks to you both for all the work that you do to support budding writers everywhere.
I honestly felt ridiculous introducing him!! But he deserved his accolades anyway. :)
Omg, yes! Give Clint ALL of his flowers! There are still some who don't know him, and I'm so happy now that more people will.
Loving Clint Smith's origin story. The 40,000 words you'll write but never use. The hours of practice. &, most of all, that groping towards something you can't quite name & don't know how to do until one day you realize you have found your way. So encouraging. It's not enough to get me up & writing at 6am--but his story will be with me when I do, say, in another hour or two.
I’m saving all these emails. I just know I’m going to come back to them in-between my writing sessions and/or when I’ll go through a writing draught.
Victoria wait'll you see the book! It's a collection of five years worth of letters and more.
Can I pre-order from France? 😊
It’s possible that the Red Wheelbarrow here in Paris will pre-order for us. I will check and let you know. In the comments section before the end of this Challenge!
I live in France and think I'm going to pre-order online from Blackwells in the UK which offers free shipping to France, as I can't yet find it on any French bookshop sites (except Amazon.fr).
Just an aside---Where are you in France? I'm in Paris.
Awesome! Thank you Natasha and Sara 👍
I live in Antibes, south of France. I used to live in Paris years ago, forever my favorite city!
LOVE these thoughts from Clint Smith. And I believe his analogy to athletic practice is so apt. I think it was LeBron James (or Will Smith?) who said something like: Practice is failure in a controlled environment. You try a bunch of things to figure out what works and what doesn't, and you put in a bunch of reps on the things that work so you can make them *really* work. And it's utterly natural for a lot of that "failure" to happen on the playground or the training field.
The false idea we carry around about pro-grade writing — which I personally connect with my honors-kid syndrome — is that we "should" get it right on the first try, or the sixth try, or the 37th try. And get we think it's totally normal to need way more reps than that to learn to walk, or shoot a jumper, or formulate a compound-complex sentence in our native tongue.
It's all practice. It's not merely okay to fail and fail and fail in practice — it's NECESSARY.
Thank you for Clint’s origin story which is the best advice I have ever read on first drafts. I now have more compassion and respect for the hundreds of pages I wrote that led me to my current novel. Jami, you are the best literary citizen in the world!
Love all this. We are not teaching children this truth -- about writing, about drafting. By high school and on into college, young people believe you just start writing a thing, then clean up the punctuation, and then recopy and resubmit. They have no idea of this process. Including the new generation of aspiring English teachers. I spent a semester wrestling against the conditioning as an adjunct; I broke through with a few. Can I break through for myself? Break through this deep belief that words are wasted if they don’t go somewhere for some purpose? That if I’m good, if I’m a real writer, that it should come out golden without toil?
AMEN to all of this, Gwen.
“You don’t just sit down to write the book and have it all automatically pouring out of you … “ What perfect advice for Day 2. Thank you, and off I go (well, actually, back into bed I go) to write my next 1000 words.
The warmth of Clint Smith in his Stephen Colbert interview makes his kind advice even easier to absorb. What a talent and extraordinary human being.
Deeply inspiring, thank you. I just wrote and rewrote an essay that I knew wasn't what I wanted to say--yet. But persevering, the real one emerged. First, those "wasted" words had to get cleared away. Clint is so right about this process.
1,316 words this morning post-meditation, post surprise very cold, rainy walk with a neighbor's dog! Like jumping in a cold pool, it was the perfect pre-writing surprise. I love Clint Smith's words today, so true. Today's scene was probably nothing I'll end up using, but the end led me to a cliffhanger that opened up a whole new idea. Unlike most years, this year I didn't have time to prep first, so I just opened the document where I left off in April and started. There's a freedom in writing this way -- and also knowing that it all matters, even if it ends up on the cutting room floor.
I love this metaphor--especially as a high school cross country coach. The quote on the back of our summer camp shirt is, "The will to win means nothing compared to the will to prepare." I can see how this also applies to writing!
I used to teach writing in prisons here in MA and one day Clint was part of my group. He wasn’t allowed into the prison bc he was wearing “work boots” (it was winter and slushy!). He went off to Walmart and bought a cheap pot of shoes to be allowed in. I always remembered him from that brief interchange--he was so frustrated and yet so restrained and determined.
This letter is fire. Thank you for sharing Clint’s words!
oh wow, what a great post and inspiring story. such a timely reminder about persistence, patience, practice. he is so right. okay, back to writing!
This was great.
Day 2 was much harder. But I did it. A large part of it was revision of Day 1. That is much harder to track words. Anyone else doing revisions on any of these days??