Day 9 of #1000wordsofsummer 2024

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Hi friends.

Today you will write 1000 words. Because you are interested in uncovering new things you did not know before, either about yourself or others or about fictional creations. You are curious, intrigued, and ready for growth. And oh, the secrets these 1000 words hold. No matter what you are writing there is some sort of surprise waiting to be discovered. Even if it’s just that you can and you didn’t know you had it in you. But I knew you had it in you.

Welcome to the ninth day of #1000wordsofsummer. Hold steady. You’re almost there.

Today’s guest contributor is my dear friend, Priyanka Mattoo. She might be my best meet-cute story of my life. We forged our relationship online, chatting on twitter. The last trip I took before the pandemic was to Los Angeles in February 2020. She messaged me to meet irl and have a coffee, but I was too busy and told her I’d see her next time I visited the city. I come to LA so much, I thought. I haven’t been back yet.

Over the next few years, though, we became each other’s confidantes, and first readers, and dear friends. And when we finally did meet in person after all that time, it was because she flew to New Orleans to come to my 50th birthday party. Even though she didn’t know anyone who would be there but me. And she was just as I expected: regal, generous, warm—another great writer friend in my life.

I believe in the magic of building a community online or in person because I have seen how much good it has done in my own life. Now, I get to have a friend like Priyanka. And it was all because we reached out to each other, wanting a real connection.

In a former life, Priyanka was a talent agent, as well as Jack Black’s partner at their production company, Electric Dynamite. She has also written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Vulture. And, in the past four years, I have watched her develop a book, sell it, and then write it.

And now this gorgeous memoir, Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones comes out in ten days! And it just got a rave review in The Wall Street Journal. R.O. Kwon called it, “a remarkably vivid, moving epic of displacement and its aftermath” and Publishers Weekly called it, “a salve for wanderers of all stripes.”

You can pre-order her book right here. Priyanka has asked that her donation go to the National Network of Abortion Funds. And here she is on her three important reminders for writing:

“A few years ago, after a long time having various office-type jobs, I admitted to myself that I wanted to write, and that I had been scared. The exact quote, which Jami included in her 1000 Words book, was ‘If I’m bad at writing, I will have to die. If I die and haven’t written…well, I’m dead anyway. Might as well have tried.’

So I tried. And now I write all dang day, which is a blessing and a delight. I’m writing a movie, I write TV shows, I write reported pieces, I write essays on a variety of subjects, I write an advice column, and I just wrote my first book—I’m a debut at 44. But no matter what kind of thing I’m working on, I inevitably feel a wobble each time: whoa whoa whoa why did I think I could this, I have no coherent thoughts, should I go get a normal job, this piece is garbage/embarrassing/strange, I give up.

And then I re-center myself with these three reminders:

1. Nobody else exists. I mean, the writing community exists. Your friends and family exist. But no other writer exists when you are writing, because in this moment there is only you, and a blank page, and your job is to get the most you as possible onto that page. The second I stop to think about anyone else, it slows me down, or sends me spiraling. But we need your voice, specifically. You are not competing with people who have won Oscars or Nobel prizes (yet!), you are competing with yourself…how far you can get from your sloppy first draft to your best work. Nobody is ever going to call my prose spectacular, but reading it feels exactly like hanging out with me (supposedly), so that’s my own finish line.

2. Accept that being alive is excruciating—and use it. The whole point of art, in my opinion, is for the artist to lay down our feelings somewhere in hopes that someone will pick them up and recognize themselves in it. Is there anything more satisfying as a reader than gasping at a paragraph, thinking, ‘I had no idea anyone else felt this way!’ But to create those circumstances you need to lean into the venal, the jealous, the mortifying—whether writing about yourself or a character. Concede that nothing can be embarrassing if we are all human. There is just your discomfort, and then? shedding it.

3. If you’re stuck, get weird. Try think of your brain as a junk drawer you haven’t sifted through in while, and everything you uncover is a treasure for you to dust off and wonder why. Go for a walk, and track your thoughts. Why is that rusty key next to a picture of your grandmother? Why does a calliope play when you smell Old Spice? Your brain is a marvel, making connections when you’re not even trying, filing things away in its own system, which you get to explore. Because no other brain is making those exact connections, I will guarantee you that, and everyone’s junk drawer is repository of endless material. The best stuff I write—or at least my favorite stuff—feels, every time, like I’m falling off a ladder. Why did I just write about medieval squirrels in a sad travel piece about London? I don’t know! But the thoughts were next to each other, and if I’m not sitting here muttering ‘I sound insane, this is the end of my career’ while I type, I’m not doing it right.

Tidal waves of doubt are (famously) intrinsic to the gig, but one benefit of being a late-blooming writer is that I refuse to second guess my work, because I don’t want to waste any more time. I just remind myself of the above, and keep moving forward. If you hear that negative voice sometimes too, I hope you tell it to jump in a lake. You don’t suck. The work will get there. I’m so excited for you. Happy writing!”

No second guessing today, my friends. Keep moving forward.

Jami

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