The Crowd Work is the Best Part

On a lovely college visit.

Hi friends.

I’m at the airport, waiting for the first flight of the day, thinking a little bit about the sweet event from last night. I thought I’d just send out a quick note with some reflections.

As always, the questions are the best part. I’ve heard—and told—my own story hundreds of times, so who cares about me? I’m happy to share it, but the interactions with the crowd and the connections that come from that are truly what keep me alive on the road. And the crowd was a lovely mix of students and local residents and even some subscribers to this newsletter. It is always so great to meet you all in person!

I loved meeting the subscriber to this newsletter who has been trying to finish their memoir for years and just wanted it to be done already, I told them the trick I learned from a man in Jacksonville last year. He had multiple projects going and needed to pick just one to finish. His wife made him write a check to a politician he hated and threatened to send it by the end of the year if he didn’t finish at least one project.

I suggested to the person last night they give a similar check to their accountability partner. Sometimes a financial threat can inspire people to write. (Lord knows my mortgage inspires me every morning.)

There was also another person there who had a finished short story collection they were hesitating to send out on submission. Because if they didn’t send it, then no one could say no. I encouraged them to send it out. What if a book deal was waiting for them?

This morning I was thinking about it a bit more, and it reminded me of this piece I wrote about rejection for The Guardian.

What can we learn when someone says no to us? What if we can grow and move forward and maybe even start writing the next thing when someone releases us? And also maybe there will be a yes in that mix! Or some kind of encouraging feedback that can guide you in a new direction.

Don’t hesitate, my friends. Take a risk. Put yourself out there.

I also met some very smart young people who were students at the school. They really made my night.

I appreciated the person who was studying journalism and planned on becoming a journalist because we needed more people to report the truth. I couldn’t agree more.

I appreciated the person who introduced me before I spoke, who had read and interacted with my work so thoughtfully. I was very touched by their words.

I appreciated the person who was writing an epic poem and just loved poetry so much in general. They sparkled with enthusiasm.

I appreciated the person who was finding their way back to writing in their journal so they could use it as a way to process their feelings. (No better reason!)

And I appreciated the young person who wanted to know how to write without sounding like the other writers they had been reading who were influencing them. How could they get closer to their own voice?

At the time I said that this was very normal in the evolution of a writer, especially when you’re starting out. We spend our entire lives growing our voice. How I sound now is different than how I sounded in my first book twenty years ago.

I suggested they take something they were working on and start writing it over again from scratch and see if it sounded more like them now. To just try and tell the same story as they remembered it. Because sometimes we just have to get that first, more imitative version out of the way.

This morning it made me flash on a very specific memory: the first time I read On the Road when I was backpacking across Europe probably sometime in my twenties. Jack Kerouac’s voice in that book is very convincing— it’s why that book has held up for so many years. And I remember, at the time, to my annoyance, I couldn’t shake it after I read it. Everything I wrote in my journal sounded like Kerouac for weeks. I was working my way through something. I was trying something out. I still wonder if any traces of his voice remained in mine after that.

I still feel this way all the time about writers I admire. We learn from them, maybe even steal from them, even if it’s just temporarily. We try to figure out what they’re doing well and sometimes we need to do a practice version of it ourselves. Eventually our own voice shows up, though. The older we get, the more us we can become. I feel that way all the time. I become more me every day.

OK, have a nice weekend. Thanks again for having me, Elizabethtown. You asked good questions and made me think.

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.