What The Yes is For

Taking advantage of the gift of time.

Hi friends.

Greetings from my residency in Key West, which is pretty much a perfect space.

Some of you know I haven’t been much of a residency gal in the past mainly because I am so content and productive working at home. And I travel quite a bit for work already so sometimes when I get home all I want to do is stay there. Also I have had dogs over the years, and I have yet to find a residency that allows a dog. (Someone please make that residency for me, thank you.)

But it had occurred to me in these past few years that I needed to shake things up a bit professionally and creatively and put myself out in the world more, not just as someone who does speaking engagements but also as someone who connects with other artists in a deeper, more slow-burning manner. I applied for a bunch of residencies and…did not get into most of them! This is how it works sometimes. Most creative careers are built up of thousands of no’s and every so often maybe one yes.

Well, this is my one yes. And I feel so fortunate.

I’ll be here for the next three weeks or so with a great group of artists and I plan on using this time to collect my thoughts, reassess, and relax at first and then dig in deeply to the new novel I’m working on. I have sent off edits on The Amnesiac to my editor—more on that soon—but for now I’m in that gentle transitional space of finishing something old and beginning something new.

What does moving on from one thing to the next look like? How much time do we need to recharge or refill that well creatively? For some people it can be weeks and for others it can be months and months. For me, I don’t really know how to stop working, generating new ideas, thinking deeply, putting myself in the mind of a character or a story. It keeps me mentally healthy, and it helps me to feel like I have a purpose in this world.

But sometimes I need to force myself to take a break. I did too much this fall, this year, last year, the year before. (“That’s what this yes is for,” I told myself.) And I do find reading the work of others helps me when I need to be in a more liminal headspace. So that’s what I’ll do for as long as I need to these next few weeks. I began with the new Lily King novel, Heart the Lover. I’ll keep you updated on what I’m consuming this month. I am ready to receive some wisdom from my peers.

Goodbye from me and all the Key West chickens for now. I’ll send you another missive soon.

For now, we read and rest—

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.