Pep Talk for Consuming The News

(And still being able to write afterward.)

I’m excited about this workshop I’m teaching on May 9 on WHY WE WRITE. You can register for it here. This workshop will be excellent prep for 1000 Words of Summer, which starts May 30 and runs through June 12. More about that here.

If you’re in Atlanta, I’ll be doing this extremely fun event on April 30 with Matthew Shaer, sponsored by A Capella Books, Grocery on Home, and the Origin Stories Podcast.

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Hi friends.

In the midst of everything going on in the world I sat down and wrote this for myself so I thought I would share it with you. It’s a pep talk for reading the news and still being able to write afterward. I have written this in bits and pieces here and there in this letter before but it felt nice to go long on it this morning. Something I could refer to whenever I needed it. So I could remind myself there’s always a way through to the words.

And look—your mileage may vary. Your concerns in your life or your community may be more immediate and overwhelming. I’m not naive. Shit’s real out there. But I offer this up nonetheless. It helped me, so I thought it might help some of you, too.

First, don’t watch it on a big screen. Read it online or better yet, in print. Read it once a day. Pick a time. It will only be incrementally different twenty-four hours later, trust me. Don’t spend all day interacting with it, thinking about it, knowing about it, following it like it’s a foot race. Read it once, learn what you need to learn and move on.

And don’t start your day with it, if you can help it. Read a poem first, or a chapter of a book. Start your day with the sound of birds and a small coffee. Or start your day with your pen and your notebook. The news will be waiting for you whenever you get there. The outside world is always going on, no matter what. There is always time for panic but is there always time for calm?

If you panic while reading the news, make a list of things you can do to make a bit of difference in the world. Often there will be nothing you can do to address your specific concerns. So you must focus on a lesser or more immediate or approachable issue. There is always a small gesture you can make to be helpful. Donate a few bucks to a charity or a mutual aid fund. Buy someone some groceries. Sit down and write a letter to someone who might be in the position to help.

And when you are done with that, when you have taken that step, your mind will feel a little more expansive because you will feel less hopeless. And in that place, in that headspace, you will have made the room to write.

Then you can say to yourself: I made these gestures today for the world or my community, and now I shall make this one gesture for myself so that I can continue being present and participating in this world. Today the news does not win, you will tell yourself. Today I will write, you will tell yourself. And you will.

Keep writing,

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.