The Strongest Suit

Don't take it for granted.

I’m teaching a zoom workshop to get us prepped for 1000 Words of Summer or really anytime you want to write at all. It’s on May 9, and it lasts an hour but I’ll answer as many questions as you’ve got after my talk. I’m psyched for it!. More details here.

If you’re in Atlanta on April 30, I’m going to do this cool podcast live-taping event with Matthew Shaer at Grocery on Home. We are going to talk about the origins of 1000 Words! Tickets available here and includes a copy of the book. There’s limited seating so I’d get them quick.

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Hi friends.

Every so often, in the middle of the night, I’ll let myself wish for things I don’t have. I already have a lot, I am lucky, but also I have worked so hard, am still working so hard for all of it.

But the things I want or at least wish for in that moment are things you can’t earn or buy or make happen at the snap of a finger. Also there are twists and turns our lives take that make certain aspects of life too challenging to achieve or may have disappeared the chance of them entirely.

What can you do about any of it? Can you be mired in regret or unfulfilled desires for the rest of your life? That pool of mud is so sticky.

And so I have learned to accept that what I have is more than enough and that all I can do is keep working with what I have at hand.

Still we all wish for things we don’t have, don’t we? And then we look at all the skills and tools and strengths and connections we possess. The strong suits. We assess the possibilities. We wonder if there’s one more path toward our dreams we just haven’t considered yet. We imagine.

I think this is one of the reasons why I love writing so much and have always loved it. Because in my fiction I’m always able to make my dreams happen. I’m always able to live the life of someone who is enacting all the possibilities I was never able to experience myself. I can be anyone, I can try on any life for size. I can feel the positive feelings that kind of existence might provide me and also see where all the seams are showing, too. Why it might not have worked out anyway in the end. All the lives I can live through my words.

A real gift, these imaginations we have. Maybe the strongest suit of all.

Hope you are staying steady,

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.