Hi friends.
#1000wordsofsummer starts in 12 days. You can find out everything you need to know about it here. If you’re not already all in, I hope you’ll consider joining us as we write 1000 words a day for two weeks straight.
Do you ever think about why you write? Why it’s good for you? How it benefits you? How it makes you feel? Why you are committed to this act in your life?
I do, all the time.
I write because it is the thing I have to offer, the sharpest skill I have. I write to make people—and myself—feel less alone. I write because I want to communicate messages with the world. I write because I want to exercise my freedom of speech. I write because I believe in myself. I write because I’m an artist, and if I didn’t make my art I’d probably go mad. I write because it’s fun; I take genuine pleasure in the words dancing before me on the page. I write to make myself laugh. I write to process my shit. I write because it’s my job, and I get paid to do so, and I don’t take that for granted. I don’t take any of this for granted, ever.
And I write because I have mental health issues, and writing is one way I contend with my anxiety.
It never feels like anything important is real to me unless I’ve written it down in some way. Even if it’s just in my journal, in secret, in hiding. I have a need to steady myself in the world with my words. It’s how I cut through all the constant buzzing around me and capture the simple truths.
Why do you write? I’m leaving the comments open today so you can share what writing means to you.
Jami
You are reading Craft Talk, the home of #1000wordsofsummer and also a weekly newsletter about writing from Jami Attenberg. I’m also on twitter and instagram. I try to answer comments as best I can, which are open to paid subscribers. One hundred percent of this month’s donations will go to charitable donations. You can subscribe here.
I think the (ongoing?) writing of my memoir made it clear that I am writing for who I *was* (and for other people like that young, frightened me). I’m sending up a flare, saying I’ve made it to places younger me couldn’t have even imagined and, more importantly, that younger me will be safe, whole, and loved with current me.
Because the lives of girls and women are still mostly unknown, and because reading essays, memoirs and fiction by women made me aware of this fact, and have given me strength to help change it.