On Literary Sidepieces

This week I announced another Mini #1000wordsofsummer! This spring, March 2-7. Six days of writing 1000 words. Details here.

And if you’re in New Orleans, I’ll be doing a write-along this Thursday with my buddy Katy Simpson Smith at fave Blue Cypress Books. If you’re interested in getting a personalized copy of 1000 WORDS or any of my books, you can order one through them and I will sign it when I’m there. Our pals at Loyalty Books still have some signed copies in stock too.

And of course, 1000 WORDS is available in lots of of other places, too.

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Hi friends.

Woke up today thinking about all of you and wishing you a healthy push through achieving all of your current goals and dreams. On the other hand, you could just pick one to finish, and that would be enough.

While I was on tour, I met a man in Jacksonville who told me that he had multiple projects in play that he had been working on forever and ever. He sounded jovial about it, and I was happy for him that he loved writing so much. His wife, however, was ready for him to finish something. Recently she had made him write a check for $2000 to a particularly unsavory and headline-seeking Florida politician (who shall remain unnamed so as not to sully the positive vibes of this letter) and she told him if he didn’t finish at least one of his projects this year, he had to send that check. And let me tell you, that man was gonna finish it.

At last those Florida politicians were finally supporting the arts.

I do think sometimes it’s healthy to have a few balls in the air, especially if you need to take a break from something. My friend Priyanka and I were talking about how she’s doing some really intense personal writing right now for her new book, and how every day feels so emotionally heavy but she has to keep going back to it, showing up for it, and it’s just consistently tough. I asked her if she had another project she could dive into for a while, one that felt lighter, easier, funnier, because she is a funny writer, too, as well as a serious one. We all need a sidepiece project sometimes.

Often enough that sidepiece can turn into something more serious, too. I’m not the first writer who has invested significant time in a project and messed around with something on the side as a break only to watch that project overtake the main project. I often work on two books at the same time during the early stages to see which one I like better or feels more important or like a bigger book. Sometimes I realize I’ve been running characters through different scenarios in one book just to see how they’ll react, only to pluck them out of the one project and put them in another now that I know them a little better. And sometimes I just have something to say in one project that I can’t say in the other, something I need to say urgently, and once I’ve said it, it’s done, and I can move on.

I also like side projects as a way to keep the momentum going if you’re feeling frustrated with your main project, so you can feel like you’re still being creative. Writing these letters can sometimes do that for me if I’m circling my main project for a while. They help me hammer out my feelings about my work in one way or another, and also just make me feel like I had a small success for the moment.

Some days that’s what we are all just living for: a tiny bit of success. That sense we’re still in motion, still connecting to the page, still using our brains, still alive. Just to write anything at all can be enough to get us there.

Good luck this week,

Jami

P.S. This week’s donation went to Operation Restoration.

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.