How To Find Your Way Back Into It
A weekend prompt for you.
Hi friends.
Some business first:
I’m sorry, I thought this was going to be an editing month and some of us would be working together, but there has been a slight delay. So my revisions won’t start till later, probably between Christmas and New Year’s. Best laid plans. So much ambition, always. I’ll still post about it when I get there and see if anyone wants to join in.
If you’re in New Orleans, I will once again be selling from my archives at the holiday market at Hotel Peter and Paul, on December 14 from 12-4PM. It’s a great way to get a signed copy of one of my books for yourself or a buddy or family member for the holidays, and I’m always happy to chit-chat about whatever. A portion of the proceeds will go to grocery support for families affected by ICE here in New Orleans.
By the way, absolutely fuck ICE. (And here are some ways people are organizing in the state.)
I’m sending you into the weekend with a little prompt. This past year I met someone who was just getting started writing as an adult. They had written in their youth but at a certain point had stopped writing and wanted to find their way back to it. Their story had stayed in my mind for whatever reason, I guess maybe because it’s a common one. We are freer as children to be our creative selves and then at some point real life (whatever that means) shows up and can often shut down that part of ourselves. Somehow I managed to stay in it. I do believe it’s possible to find your way back to it.
Anyway, I wrote them:
“You kept mentioning how you were creative up until a certain point in your life and then you stopped feeling as comfortable with it or even embarrassed. I thought maybe you could spend a writing session really writing into the discomfort and remembering a moment/scene or two from that time in your life and deeply remembering details and feelings. For some reason I thought this might lead somewhere a little interesting or new.”
I guess I was just asking them to write into the “no” of it all until they found their way to the “yes.” And then I wondered if you had a “no” situation at some point in your life (or in the life of one of your characters) it might be helpful to explore. It doesn’t have to be about writing or being creative! It just has to be something that perhaps redirects someone from a certain path.
OK, good luck, stay in it, and look out for each other.
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.
Jami,
Thanks for the prompt. I did have a "no" moment - or moments in college when my creative writing teacher told me my work was absolute Sh__. I decided to get a law degree instead of a masters in literature. it was a good decision, and it's been a good career, but now, at 70, I'm back to writing. He did give me one good piece of advice: Read. I'm doing that, and writing. Starting my MFA in Creative not-fiction in January. I have much more to write about...
But I love your posts...Maybe I'll return to that moment and write about it. Probably the criticism was fair, just not well done or very instructive. But I do read now with an eye to the technique and quality of the writing.; the manner in which a story is told, what makes me keep reading...etc.