Today's Writing Pick-Me-Up

The good one sentence can do.

Hi friends,

Good morning, I’ve been going through a few years of notebooks while I work on this proposal, which is challenging and a little crazy-making if I’m being real here. But I’m finding positive stuff too, lots of little pep talks I have given myself along the way. And I discovered this little note to myself I thought I would share with you in case you need a little pick-me-up when you’re writing today—or any other day:

You are at an inflection point. This is the moment when you’ve decided to make something brand new happen with your writing. All you have to do is sit down and write and suddenly everything can shift at once. Even if it’s just one new sentence that stands out from the rest of them. That one sentence can change the course of an entire book.

But I think this is my approach to writing all the time. Maybe this is why I love it so much and rely on it to carry me through difficult times. Every single time I sit down to work I view it as an opportunity to make a little magic happen. One good sentence can change my life, even if it’s in the smallest way.

Think of all the great first sentences of a book you’ve read that immediately challenged you or piqued your curiosity so much you willingly gave yourself over to reading for the next few hours. Or the last ones of a book that have shifted something inside of you or brought you comfort. Think of all the times you’ve quoted other writers or had them quoted to you. Think about how one good sentence can infiltrate conversation, culture, or the way we move in the world.

“History has failed us, but no matter.”—Pachinko, Min Jin Lee

“Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.”—Slaughterhouse-Five, Kirk Vonnegut

Not a book, a speech, but written no less: “The function of freedom is to free someone else.”—Toni Morrison

And I know we don’t need to hear about what we plan to do with our one wild and precious life ever again, but Mary Oliver really wrote that sentence, didn’t she?

Those sentences came from one day, one moment in a writer’s life, where they sat down to work, and then everything became new for them, their whole life was new, and whatever they were working on was transformed. We can’t expect this to happen. We can’t presume greatness. But we can sit down every day and try.

And maybe that sentence will be just for us and no one else. That’s more than enough.

If you have a second, share your most favorite literary quotes ever in the comments.

Have a nice weekend. I hope you can get some good work done.

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.