Writers love to do anything but write, which includes talking about writing and bemoaning writing advice while also giving said advice. Flowery, begrudgingly, self-deprecatingly, writers love talking about writing because so much of our brain space is taken up by the act of writing, and when someone accomplishes it, the rest of us want to know how they pulled off such magic. Fortunately for us writers starting out — I recently finished my first draft of a fiction book, so this was a well-timed audio listen for me — Jami Atttenberg’s 2024 book, 1,000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round, offers a few bits of wisdom from a wide range of authors, including Attenberg, about how to create that magic. Attenberg voiced her portion of the book, and throughout her own advice are words of wisdom from 50 other authors, including Roxane Gay, Celeste Neg, Meg Wolitzer, and more. Importantly for context, it seems like many of those letters were written not long after the COVID-19 pandemic. The letters often reference the difficulty of writing during a global and historic pandemic, civil unrest, the presidential election, and so forth.
Spoiler alert: Writing is hard. Sometimes, the stuff that looks like not writing — daydreaming, taking a walk, staring blankly at the screen, doing the laundry, and whatever else — is a form of writing, an all-encompassing necessity for the “act of writing.” This is why writers are often protective of our solitude, quiet time, and time itself because we know we need more than just the time it takes to literally write; we also need the time it takes to make writing happen. Of course, all writers are different, which is the classic throat-clearing before any writerly advice. There are no hard and fast rules. Except, of course, that at some point, you must write and you must finish what you’ve written. It must be shared with the world. Some may disagree with that last part. After all, diaries and such exist, but the point, as I see it, of creating art is for it to be engaged with. For it to then exist within the minds of others.
As a very online writer, who doesn’t travel in writerly spaces as much as I ought to, Attenberg’s #1000WordsofSummer literary movement completely passed me by. But it was a movement with humble beginnings Attenberg and a fellow author started in 2018 to meet a looming deadline. They wanted to push themselves to see if they could do 1,000 words a day for two weeks straight. Because a lot of Attenberg’s friends are teachers, it took place in the summer. I was curious how long, on average, it takes Attenberg to write 1,000 words. For me, it depends on if I’m in the “hum” mode or if I’m forcing it. Because 1,000 words isn’t all that much when you think about it in the grand scheme of a blog post like this, and certainly a book. At this point in my book review, I’m already half way to 1,000 and I’ve barely started to dig into some of the advice. Certainly, even two weeks of doing that doesn’t make a book, but it’s a nice way to knock out 14,000 words. Attenberg said 65,000 to 85,000 words, depending on your book and genre, is a good range for a book, though. So, anyhow, this book is presented to us as a handbook for creativity, productivity, and writing.
Let’s get to some of the advice I was able to put into my Notes app while listening. I’m going to hit these bullet point style:
- Roxane Gay said to take yourself seriously, but not too seriously. There exists a delicate balance between a writer’s penchant (mine included) for self-deprecation and often an equal desire to write the Next Great Literary Novel™. I go back-and-forth on both of these. Like many writers, I want to write something with critical acclaim, which often means staying power, too. But I also love reading (and writing) fun genre books. However, I think it’s more difficult to take myself seriously than it is to pull back the reins on the latter desire. To stand athwart the cynicism and self-deprecation and say, “I have something important and worthwhile to say. Take me seriously.”
- Related, there is absolutely something to be said for silly and fun writing (like a lot of my blog posts!) and not just trying to write that Next Great Literary Novel™. That is its own form of catharsis and a necessity, too.
- Attenberg had a fantastic point that I wish my younger self would have taken heed of: Writing is cathartic in the moment, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be published in the moment. My younger self often wrote in that cathartic way and would then share/publish it immediately. But distance helps with any writing project, especially one manifest from catharsis.
- One of my favorite bits of advice from the book, which reinforced what I already felt, is that expiration dates are silly for writers. Yes, by way of comparison, we may feel sad realizing we didn’t publish our first novel in our 20s or 30s or even 50s! But our contribution to the world doesn’t have an expiration date; it can occur whenever we’re ready and capable of sharing it with the world.
- That said, we all are, of course, writing against the ultimate deadline: our death.
- This advice may be the hardest for all of us writers, especially the type A personalities and perfectionists among us: Embrace good enough. You have to finish. You have to let go. Complete the project! It will not be perfect. There are bound to be mistakes and ways you could have revised this or that. But it’s good enough.
As I said, this was an opportune time for me to encounter Attenberg’s book and to hear much of the advice from her and other authors throughout. To hear that Celeste Ng, who has written one of my favorite novels (Everything I Never Told You), struggles like the rest of us, was beautifully validating. And yes, Attenberg gives me a useful, timely reminder that first drafts aren’t going to be great, but they contain the pieces of the magic we need for the second and third drafts. Keep going. I intend to. Thank you, Attenberg and other authors, for the useful motivation!
For the record, unintentionally, I finished this review at 1,090 words, taking about 40-ish minutes to write.
Milam's Musings 