The Page is Always Waiting
And your words are always there for you.
Hi friends.
Everyone I know is stressed out right now. I suspect it’s universal. I just wanted to write a quick note to let you know I was thinking about you.
When things are chaotic, remember you can always center yourself on the page.
There are all kinds of reasons to be on the page. Because you are serious about what you’re trying to accomplish with your words. Because you are trying to solve a problem, and this is the most logical way for you to attack it. Because you are trying to write your way to somewhere new. Because you are simply trying to track and remember events in your life so you won’t forget them.
That last reason is one of my main purposes for writing regularly. I just have to write shit down so I have a record of it, even if I never do anything with those words again.
And sometimes I have to write so I can get to the other side of a moment in my life. I just whip through those feelings and then it’s over and I can move onto the next.
All I know is it steadies me, makes me feel safe and secure. I know who I am when I’m writing. I can collect my thoughts. I can be honest with myself when I’m on the page. I can finally calm myself in the eye of the storm.
I want this for you, this calm, today. Just check in with yourself, with your words. I want you to feel OK. I want you to be able to collect yourself. Just take a second and write it all down.
You’re still there. We’re all still here.
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.
Best reason to journal. Writing forces us to sort chaos into order. It always feels better after. Not necessarily good, but better.
I think I appreciate my writer friends and these newsletters now more than ever! Writing is keeping me just this side of the looney bin at this point ... and I feel like it's my duty to preserve some of this insanity for future generations (hopefully, someone will read my musings some day). Also, nature. I highly recommend taking advantage of the coming of spring and getting outside. I took an hour out of my day yesterday afternoon to sit on my front porch with a neighbor and a bottle of wine. She isn't a writer, but she's a lovely person and brought over a book of cat poetry (think Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven from the perspective of a cat) and a bottle of wine. I could have sat there all day enjoying the respite from the insanity!