Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - How to Start Writing with Jami Attenberg

00:00:00.000 Hello, hello, hello. We spend a lot of time in this podcast talking about the ways that

00:00:11.160 social media is bad for us, and the ways that it also makes us feel bad. But there are

00:00:17.900 upsides. We know that, and I get good things out of it every single day. One of the best

00:00:23.520 things I get out of it is that I get to connect with listeners. So many of you DM me and

00:00:29.820 email me and also stop me in person at places like jurassic world live in allentown to tell 0.64

00:00:36.420 me that you love the podcast and i fucking love that if you see me on the street grab me grab me 0.79

00:00:42.840 and tell me you listen because everyone likes to be told that people like the things they make and 0.61

00:00:47.740 the things that they do i love it i do i really do now this is part of our january series that

00:00:53.360 is probably going to bleed over into february because we've had so much trad wife news it's

00:00:58.960 our series on how to make social media work for you, how to make your resolutions like actually

00:01:05.800 come to fruition by using social media for good. And a lot of you have told me on the Instagram

00:01:12.280 that one of your resolutions or intentions for this year was to start writing. And it's writing

00:01:19.640 all kinds of different things. Some of you want to start a newsletter, some of you want to write

00:01:23.980 a screenplay or want to write more poetry or a book, a novel or a memoir. And you've been asking

00:01:31.080 me for advice. Now, I have a lot of advice and I write about it in the sub stack over the influence,

00:01:37.340 which, by the way, don't forget you get a free lifetime subscription to when you order the

00:01:42.740 Sicilian inheritance and send me the receipt. Can't stop, won't stop. I'm a marketing monster.

00:01:47.880 Guys, I printed out flyers for the Sicilian inheritance with QR codes and I'm putting them

00:01:53.080 on the back of bathroom doors in bars. How is that for some gorilla marketing? Yeah, yeah. You sit 0.99

00:01:59.800 down to poop and you see your new favorite book, The Sicilian Inheritance, and you order it right

00:02:04.820 there because everyone has their phone in the bathroom. Yeah, it's gross. And also I think it 0.88

00:02:10.500 might work. So pre-order early and often The Sicilian Inheritance is going to be your new

00:02:15.060 favorite book. That is today's Sicilian Inheritance plug. Sorry, not sorry. Love you all.

00:02:21.360 Anyway, I want to help you write more. I do. I do. And so today I'm having on Jamie Attenberg,

00:02:28.700 who wrote the book 1000 Words and who has the Substack Craft Talk, both of which are about

00:02:34.320 how you can get down and get started writing, how you can keep writing, and how you can be a great

00:02:39.860 member of the literary community. Jamie is a New York Times bestselling author, and she's just a

00:02:45.660 total badass. This book and Jamie's sub-stack craft talk were actually born out of social media.

00:02:52.660 Five years ago, she started encouraging people to do hashtag 1000 words of summer, where people

00:02:59.100 just sat down and wrote a thousand words. And through that, she got to meet some really cool

00:03:04.360 people, and they all got some writing done. And for two weeks out of the year, they all felt a

00:03:09.740 little less alone in the writing world. And then it just got bigger and bigger because social media

00:03:16.400 can be good for community. And now A Thousand Words is a book. I actually gave it away on the

00:03:22.440 Substack this weekend. So many of you wanted it. It's a great book. Go grab it. Luckily, I have

00:03:29.120 this podcast. And so I can call up authors and cool people and say, hey, come on my show and tell

00:03:36.400 my audience all of your secrets. And okay, if not all of your secrets, come on and talk to us about

00:03:43.640 writing and all of the amazing things that you've learned and put in this book. So I did that. I

00:03:49.700 just, I called up Jamie. And here's our conversation about how to get started writing, how to keep

00:03:54.980 writing, and how to be in community with other writers. Hi. Hi. On this podcast, we talk a lot

00:04:03.660 about how social media and the internet is driving us all insane. But I do think that there are some

00:04:10.820 real things of value and wonderful things that we can get out of social media. One of them is

00:04:16.440 community. And your book, your new brilliant book that I have bought for so many people

00:04:23.060 who are writers and who want to be writers, was really born out of social media in a way.

00:04:30.960 can you explain that to me? I think it was 2018, a friend of mine who was a writer here in New

00:04:36.740 Orleans and I were trying to figure out how to get some momentum on our projects that we were

00:04:41.280 working on. And she's a teacher, so she really has to do a lot of her work in the summertime.

00:04:46.560 And so I was like, well, let's just do like a bootcamp, like do a thousand words a day for a

00:04:50.900 couple of weeks. And I find that if you just sit there and show up for yourself and keep doing the

00:04:56.680 work, something good comes out of it. Being generative, even if it's very messy, is very

00:05:02.060 helpful. And then I tweeted about it because I tweet about lots of things and I'm a fairly online

00:05:09.340 person. And I said that I was going to do this. And then all these people who followed me said

00:05:14.140 that they wanted to do it too. And I just thought, all right, I'll start a little newsletter that

00:05:18.760 people can sign up for and I'll send everybody little notes to be helpful. And then it just

00:05:23.160 sort of evolved in a really organic kind of way, which is, you know, my favorite way for things to

00:05:28.060 happen on the internet. I feel like when people plan things, it almost never works out the way

00:05:32.220 that they want them to. And so I asked some of my writer friends to write little notes too.

00:05:39.620 And that was sort of how the first summer of a thousand words of summer started. And I think we

00:05:45.920 had 200 people that signed up the first day and then 2000 people by the end of that first year.

00:05:51.080 And then I just did it once a year, you know, for like five years in a row.

00:05:56.860 And every year it doubled.

00:05:58.980 So it was like $2,000 the first year, $5,000 the next year, $10,000, $15,000.

00:06:03.400 And now we're at, you know, we're going to close in probably at $40,000 for this summer.

00:06:08.140 And we all just keep doing it, keep showing up for it.

00:06:12.260 And there's an incredible community that's come out of it.

00:06:15.500 And people come back year after year.

00:06:17.280 It's just a really lovely experience.

00:06:20.320 and now that i have this book out and i've been able to tour from it i've been able to meet a lot

00:06:24.740 of people in person and that has just been very heartwarming and rewarding yeah because i'm being

00:06:32.100 a writer it is lonely and getting out there and getting to fill your cup with other people it

00:06:37.940 really it always warms my cold dark heart i have to say it does and you're so right when you plan

00:06:44.700 to do things on the internet it it never goes well it's it just it's the serendipity i think

00:06:51.860 that brings community together and i think you just you tapped into something so primal

00:06:57.480 in people that we want to write but we also want to be in community and a thousand words made people

00:07:04.780 feel like they were in community it really did create a community and i think that's what all

00:07:09.840 writers need it's really it's really nice even if it's just somebody to check in with you know

00:07:15.920 once a day and say this is how many words that i did this day which is event which is really like

00:07:20.280 how the community kind of evolved is that we would check in with each other online at the end of the

00:07:24.980 day and say you know hashtag a thousand words this summer i wrote 900 words today i didn't quite get

00:07:30.960 there or i wrote 1500 i was on fire or you know i'm so distracted today and then people can say

00:07:37.160 that's okay. It's okay to be distracted. We all get distracted. So all of these, you know,

00:07:42.880 kind of lessons started to emerge from it. And I eventually turned it into a weekly newsletter,

00:07:47.920 but for the first, I think four years or something, I really, or three years, maybe I

00:07:52.700 just had it once a year because I hate it when people email you for something that you didn't

00:07:57.420 sign up for. And I, it's free for everyone, which is really important to me because I didn't, you

00:08:03.660 know I talk a lot about have talked a lot about this but I didn't go to graduate school and I

00:08:09.620 didn't really have a direct path after graduating from college to understanding how to become a

00:08:17.280 writer which I don't even know if there is a direct path but graduate school sort of teaches

00:08:20.620 you that and I think that there's sort of this feeling amongst writers that if they don't take

00:08:25.080 that path then they're not allowed in that there's sort of a you know there's gatekeeping going on

00:08:29.760 And so I really wanted to like create something that was available, welcoming, made people feel like they could, made people feel like they had the right to be there.

00:08:42.000 So it's also a community that's born out of that accessibility.

00:08:46.280 Yeah.

00:08:46.600 And you have made it so accessible.

00:08:49.080 I didn't go to grad school for writing either.

00:08:51.880 I went to grad school for journalism, but not.

00:08:55.180 And I also say I don't know how useful that was.

00:08:58.280 But, you know, not for writing novels, not for writing books.

00:09:03.720 And I just kind of stumbled my way into it.

00:09:06.600 So I think that accessibility is really important because we can't all monetarily afford to go to the MFA or afford it in terms of time.

00:09:15.440 It is a long time commitment to do those kinds of programs.

00:09:21.180 It really is.

00:09:23.180 You talk a lot about your word count and also the word count of a thousand words a day.

00:09:27.480 but you also say it's different for everyone mine mine is usually around a thousand and my best

00:09:34.240 advice that i give to people who want to be writers is it's so much about showing up and

00:09:38.500 just putting your butt in the seat and that it's the muscle that you just you do it every day and

00:09:43.960 it's not the number of words necessarily so it's not about the thousand words right but it's about

00:09:48.840 the act of showing up yeah in the in the book and in life also i talk about the idea of a good day's

00:09:56.300 work. So 1,000 words was what we started out with because that is also what I use. And I say 1,000

00:10:03.640 because if you're able to have the time free and to be able to be focused on it, within three to

00:10:11.480 six months, you can get an extremely messy, rough draft if you're doing five days a week of 1,000

00:10:16.280 words a day, allowing for life to get in the way. And then you have another six months to revise it.

00:10:21.500 I have a book that comes out usually once every two years. And that's the schedule that I keep

00:10:25.660 myself on. But as this project has evolved, all kinds of writers have shown up. And so there's,

00:10:32.920 you know, on the one hand, there's people who are like, I'm just starting. I'm just figuring it out.

00:10:36.500 I love writing, but I don't know very much about it. And so a thousand words a day seems daunting

00:10:41.100 to them. And so I say, you know, you know, you know what it's like to sit down and work hard

00:10:46.140 for that day. So maybe it's 250 or 500 words a day. It's really about showing up. Also, we have

00:10:52.060 all different kinds of genres that are showing up. So there are people who write poetry and who say,

00:10:56.440 I'm just going to write a poem a day. There's people who write screenplays. There's people who

00:11:00.000 do science writing, which involves a lot of research, for example, or different other kinds

00:11:04.980 of journalistic projects. There's people who are editing. They use that time really just to edit

00:11:09.300 something that's already written. And so that's not, you know, a thousand words as a metaphor

00:11:13.920 doesn't really apply to them, but they know what it's like to sit down and really say,

00:11:18.860 I got a lot done today. So that for me is a thousand words is really the metaphor of a good

00:11:23.980 day's work. Yeah, I totally agree. And you say in the work that a thousand words, it's more than

00:11:30.420 that. And this is exactly what you just said. It's a good day's work, a meetable goal, a step

00:11:35.940 towards finishing the project and a simple metric for creative output, which is something that

00:11:41.080 you can't really measure and you have to create a way to measure it that's right every it's it's

00:11:48.000 really different for everybody but it's again it's that idea that like every day or five days a week

00:11:54.080 or maybe it's two days a week and that's all you can do um if you're not you know year-round kind

00:12:00.560 of thing there's plenty of people you know just having been on tour where there people were like

00:12:04.420 i work 40 hours a week i have kids like how do i how do i find that time i actually did this great

00:12:09.880 interview with NPR's 1A show recently. And it was me and Isaac Fitzgerald and Deesha Filia.

00:12:17.200 And they were talking to, they asked Deesha about how she managed to finish her book. It took her

00:12:22.840 10 years. She wrote that wonderful book, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. It took her 10

00:12:27.280 years to write it. She had four kids. And she said that one of the things that's helpful to think

00:12:33.140 about is sometimes you're going to disappoint people. Like maybe you're not going to go out

00:12:37.720 on a friday night maybe you're going to stay home and work you know what i mean so it's um it's

00:12:43.060 really about um carving out that time carving out that regular space saying to yourself this is the

00:12:50.520 thing that i want this is the kind of writer i want to be this is the kind of project that i

00:12:53.860 want to do and and just showing up and doing it yeah just just getting getting yourself in that

00:13:01.620 chair. Time for a quick break. When we get back, we'll dive into why Jamie's chosen to devote her

00:13:08.360 life to writing, and also how to be a good writing citizen in the world.

00:13:12.600 you you talk a lot too about why you choose to write and and and why you've committed

00:13:33.400 your life to this can you talk to us a little bit about that well it is it is like the best way

00:13:40.360 that I know how to communicate with the world. It's really important to me in that way. It is

00:13:46.460 fun for me. I've always written. I've always told little stories to myself. Even when I was a little

00:13:52.440 kid, I was writing little stories for myself. So it's joyful. It's pleasurable. It feels

00:13:59.040 necessary to me. It feels like things don't really exist unless I write them down and process them in

00:14:03.940 some way. I also love someone who has anxiety and it helps me to contend with my anxiety. If I can

00:14:09.840 write things down, then I can, you know, assess my feelings, calm down. It's very soothing to me to

00:14:15.720 do it. So there's, there's so many reasons why I write. I think, I think on the one hand, it can

00:14:20.560 be vastly different for, for so many people, but at the same time, I think that most people

00:14:26.940 at their core just really love it. Yeah. And I, I agree. I mean, I feel like I choose to write

00:14:33.340 because I have something to say because I have these stories inside me because I make sense of

00:14:38.240 the world by reporting it. And otherwise I can't process it. And also, yes, yes, yes, yes, the

00:14:45.240 anxiety. I'm so curious if we took a poll of writers of how many of us have anxiety, I think

00:14:52.860 it would probably be at a solid somewhere in the 90%. Yeah, a lot of us. A lot of us do. A lot of

00:14:59.080 us do. I mean, go to any book party and you'll see it in action. So. Truth, truth. Actually,

00:15:04.860 Glynis McNichol told me she was just at your book party where she ran into Isaac Fitzgerald and they

00:15:10.260 they were you know just singing your praises and also everyone was talking about anxiety

00:15:15.280 yeah yes I mean I feel like I have less anxiety now that I know that I that that's what it is

00:15:22.540 that I have you know like I'm sort of take more I learn how to take more steps to manage it and I

00:15:27.320 also have an understanding that of what writing can do for me and that if they're when things

00:15:32.560 really feel like at their most chaotic if I can somehow carve out that time to sit by you know

00:15:37.200 with my journal by myself then I know that I know that it's going to sort of steady me in the moment

00:15:41.780 yeah absolutely absolutely and yeah it is the writing for me it's also the Zoloft let's be

00:15:48.460 honest love my Zoloft one and a half pills I take every day and uh and the sense also my word count

00:15:56.000 for me is that it does give you some semblance of control. And you write that in here too. You say

00:16:03.220 that writing these thousand words is an attempt to achieve a small semblance of control in our

00:16:08.000 lives. To sit down and write is an act of grasping at a stable, realized moment in the were of

00:16:14.940 existence. Hmm. Did I write that? That sounds nice. Doesn't that sound nice? I love it when

00:16:21.040 people I love it when people read things I wrote to me I'm like that's nice yeah that's meaningful

00:16:26.360 yeah um yeah it's really it's really all true it's really and um and I would say also you I

00:16:34.560 think you started this conversation talking about being online and that is a really chaotic space

00:16:40.280 that a lot of people I know we're all kind of stuck in it you know one way or another or you

00:16:45.620 know if it's part of our job like to me I feel like it's part of my job to be online not just

00:16:49.440 because I've created this community, but because when you have a book come out, you know, you have

00:16:52.560 to spend X amount of time online promoting it. Um, and, but also I, I like to be online and I like

00:16:58.600 to figure out positive ways to be there. I still believe in it. Do you know what I mean? Like,

00:17:03.080 I still think, I still think you can, I'm, I mean, I have living proof that like, um, that you can

00:17:08.280 make, you can make good things out of it. But I think that like the kind of writing that a lot of

00:17:12.300 people do online is not as fully, it's not as helpful as the writing that you can do in real

00:17:18.380 life for yourself. Like, I don't know if it's, I just don't, I just think it's, there's something

00:17:23.160 like a little bit triggery at this point about being online. And, and we're, we're so used to

00:17:30.240 just hitting send. Whereas I think that when you do kind of long form stuff for yourself, for

00:17:34.600 example, you're, it's more contemplated, it's more thoughtful, it's, it's more fully realized.

00:17:40.860 I'm not saying you don't do online writing. I'm, I'm always going to do it. And it's part of the

00:17:44.860 spectrum of who I am as a writer. But I think that this other kind of writing is one that's

00:17:49.920 going to be always be much more helpful to me. Yeah. And it's different. It is different when

00:17:55.360 you have something that you're just kind of incubating on your own versus dashing something

00:18:00.620 off or something even that you know you're going to hit send in a few days versus something

00:18:05.240 that you're not going to send for six months to a year. It is a different, I think it's a

00:18:10.720 different part of your brain. It really is. I mean, just like, you know, the handwriting

00:18:15.760 uses a different part of your brain versus typing. So I always handwrite first before I.

00:18:22.200 No, really? You handwrite. I handwrite usually in the mornings and then I'll type it when I'm

00:18:30.500 doing my thousand words and then I'll type it up later in the day. So it's almost like a

00:18:34.320 1.5 draft. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Because there's like that roughness to it.

00:18:40.720 But also I feel freer and more experimental when I'm handwriting and I'm a lot, I'm messier.

00:18:47.520 And I think that there's, and I'm allowed to make mistakes, but also that means I can

00:18:50.720 travel down paths that I might not consider if I were typing.

00:18:54.020 And then when I type, there's an instinct always to want to make it perfect.

00:18:58.500 And I think when we want to make it perfect, I think that's great.

00:19:02.000 I think that's like, uh, uh, you know, something to shoot for.

00:19:05.180 That's an, that's an achievement, but then you're, then there's sort of, it's sort of

00:19:10.100 finished. It has a more finished feel to it. And I'm in it for the play. I'm in it for the

00:19:14.460 experimentation. I think that's where the magic happens. I'm not a woo-woo person about pretty

00:19:20.500 much anything in the world, except for that magic does happen when you're writing. Characters talk

00:19:27.760 to you. Stories come to you. But only if you're kind of in that state of play. I do not handwrite,

00:19:35.120 but I'm fascinated by people who handwrite. I think that this is something I would like to try

00:19:38.900 on my next novel. But I want to get in the weeds for just one second. What do you write on? And

00:19:45.240 what do you write with? Wait, I was just going to ask you, though, do you write in a journal?

00:19:49.040 Do you handwrite in a journal? I don't. I don't journal either. No, I know.

00:19:53.560 Try it. Just try it. You're not wrong. You are not wrong. The only journal.

00:19:58.820 Do you want me to send you a journal? I can buy you a journal.

00:20:00.860 I'm not going to make you buy me a journal. But if you want to recommend one that you love,

00:20:06.000 I will order it right now and the only this is this speaks to where my head has been for seven

00:20:13.300 years the only handwriting I have done is in my I have those little one line a day books for my

00:20:19.640 three kids and I've written in their books but I haven't written for me and I think that that says

00:20:24.780 a lot about me busy right now yeah well also what what and who I've been prioritizing and now maybe

00:20:32.600 it is time to make a shift i mean i don't know you but yes i mean it's just therapy this podcast

00:20:40.980 is just therapy for me therapy for listeners therapy for guests it's just putting it putting

00:20:46.880 it all out there i love it i love a shift um i you know i always go to um jetpens.com that's where i

00:20:55.180 buy my pens that's where i would i would love for them to um how do i get sponsored by jetpens.com

00:21:01.400 oh okay we can make that happen we can manifest that shit like okay i think every writer wants

00:21:08.440 to be sponsored by jetpens.com but um i'm just like looking at my journal that i have that i 0.95

00:21:13.700 got so i i buy like lots of different kinds but i like um ones with like graph paper the best

00:21:19.300 because i don't know why but i just do um i find it like less intimidating and um i'm looking at

00:21:26.460 It's, it's called Kokuyo. I'm not going to like pronounce it right. It's K-O-K-U-Y-O is the brand,

00:21:33.120 but it's got like a plastic cover to it. It's got like these, you know, like there's a little tint

00:21:39.460 to the, um, the ring, you know, it's, it's got a little ring in it. Um, and I don't know, it's

00:21:45.120 like sort of stylish and chic and it makes me feel, feel cool when I'm using it, but I like all,

00:21:49.940 all kinds of sizes. I'll buy it with my travel doll. I'll buy like a, you know, notebooks from

00:21:56.620 the museums, things like that. So I have like stacks of notebooks that are always at the ready.

00:22:00.960 Sometimes if I feel like a friend of mine is feeling blue, like a creative friend,

00:22:04.620 I'll send them notebooks. I actually just sent Isaac Fitzgerald who was not feeling blue,

00:22:09.260 but I just sent him actually a couple of notebooks because he's, you know, starting

00:22:12.360 writing on his new project. And so I think that's a great gift for a writer. And, and I just,

00:22:19.580 I don't know. I just like having them around. I'm not scared of the empty page. I find it

00:22:23.900 inviting and exciting. Which so many people are scared of the empty page. And so I think that

00:22:29.060 that's just a nice thing to say, too, that it doesn't have to be scary and that by putting

00:22:34.400 pen to paper, it's kind of a way to get over that fear. It's for you. It's for you. Like you

00:22:40.380 were saying, I need to shift things a little bit. It's, you know, and who you've been doing things

00:22:45.600 for, right? It's, it's your little, it's your time with yourself. I just did a workshop. I don't

00:22:51.660 really do a lot of workshops, but on this book tour, I've been doing write-alongs, which has

00:22:56.340 been really lovely. What are those? I did one, actually did one in Brooklyn. I did one at the

00:23:01.520 Center for Fiction. Um, it's just, uh, I talk a little bit about the book, but mostly I give

00:23:06.640 writing prompts and then we sit there and write together. And it, there is something really

00:23:11.380 incredible about 50 people in a room sitting together writing quietly and it really is um

00:23:19.540 and I mean this in the best possible way but it can it's it's a little bit confrontational

00:23:23.960 right because you feel like you have to um and um but I did I did one but I guess if you sign up

00:23:32.120 for it you want it you know what I mean I think you kind of know you kind of know that yeah yes

00:23:36.280 But there was, I just did this workshop in Florida and this woman said, I'm here because I've not, I've really never written. She's a reader, I think. She's like, I really never written, but I think I want to. And she was a little bit older than me. Maybe she was like in her 60s or something like that.

00:23:52.400 and and she wanted tips on how to do it and I was like man you just got to start and so then when

00:23:59.040 we you know I gave the writing prompts she wrote so busily the entire time both sessions she wrote

00:24:05.060 and wrote and I was like that I was like now you're a writer you know yeah like now now you're

00:24:10.740 doing it yeah and she was there you are learn something about myself from doing this and

00:24:15.720 And so, yeah, it was it's it's really invigorating to see to watch this happening.

00:24:22.320 Yeah. Yeah. Well, I find reading the book very invigorating, too, because it's great advice from you, but also from about 50 different writers.

00:24:31.820 And just kind of gathering that wisdom from so many people in different stages of their life.

00:24:39.940 You have Liz Moore, who writes about writing while being quarantined with two kids. I think her and I were both going through that at the same time in Philly with the same number of kids, and also writers that are single and living alone. And there's just such a variety in here that I think every writer can find themselves in here.

00:25:00.960 Find somebody in there. Yeah. I mean, I think that the things that I have to say in the book

00:25:06.260 are very simple. And I don't want to say repetitive, but it is really just telling

00:25:14.240 you kind of the story of like writing again and again and again. But it's a motivational book and

00:25:19.800 it's a self-help book. And that's kind of, that's how those books kind of work. And hopefully I've

00:25:25.160 evolved, explode the process a little bit. So it's a little bit more than just repetitive.

00:25:30.960 But it's really, I've always thought of the book as just a vessel for these wonderful writers and their letters, because they're all vastly different kinds of writers.

00:25:41.180 Their voices are, you know, directly in there.

00:25:44.640 They're directly talking to all of us.

00:25:48.000 And I had the experience when I was putting the book together.

00:25:51.340 Well, actually trying to decide whether or not I wanted to put the book together because it wasn't really, it's not what I do.

00:25:57.040 I'm a novelist.

00:25:58.360 So this is different for you.

00:26:00.380 It's really different. I mean, I have one memoir, but that's not the same thing as this at all.

00:26:05.780 This has always been kind of my side project, you know?

00:26:09.120 And so what I did was I took all the letters that had been written by all these amazing

00:26:14.460 authors over the years, and I just dumped them all into a Word document. And I was like, let me

00:26:19.220 just see what we have here. And is this a book or is this the beginning of a book? And I went

00:26:25.580 through and I read, because it's different than reading it in an email or reading it online.

00:26:30.380 you know? Yeah, it's totally different. And I went through and I read them all and I felt

00:26:34.760 supercharged by it. I mean, genuinely was so motivated after I read all of these letters

00:26:40.360 and really felt like if it helped me and I'm the cheerleader, you know what I mean? I'm the

00:26:44.520 motivator. Like who motivates the motivator? It's like these letters motivated me, you know?

00:26:49.940 And, uh, and I was like, this is, this should be a book. I just wanted it to make something

00:26:53.780 that would be really helpful. And then when I was writing the book, I had far less me in it.

00:26:58.340 And then my editor was like, put a little, put more you in it.

00:27:01.500 So I did put more me in it, but I really, so it sort of started out as like, oh, it's

00:27:06.180 really going to be an anthology.

00:27:07.380 And then it evolved into something more.

00:27:10.800 But it's, it's really about these letters.

00:27:12.560 I think they're very special.

00:27:14.420 Well, I think the great thing, and this is, this is the kind of self-help book that I

00:27:17.760 love.

00:27:18.400 It's, it's a book that I can put it down and I can pick it up wherever I am and open it

00:27:24.180 to any page, any page.

00:27:26.200 and maybe i only have time to read one line and that line is gonna gonna rattle around in my head

00:27:32.640 and do something for me like i just i mean i've got this on my lap right now i've got a thousand

00:27:36.160 words on my lap and just randomly opened it to lauren groff who i love i just finished faster

00:27:42.340 wilds uh it was so intense yeah but you know and the first line of what lauren wrote in here

00:27:50.100 what i would like for you to remember today is that your work is a living thing it exists outside

00:27:55.820 of you it has hungers and fears and joys and lusts of its own there's so much more in there but i

00:28:02.440 could also shut that shut the book right now and be like you know what yep i just i got what i

00:28:07.720 needed i got i i only had a couple of minutes and i could have scrolled instagram or i could have

00:28:12.260 read that and now i feel really good about going back to my work yeah that's really not well and

00:28:17.220 she was so generous like she she had written the letter the first year that i had this because she

00:28:22.000 if you ask her to do anything, she will say yes. And, and then when I was like, all right,

00:28:26.280 I'm going to put this letter in the book. She said, I'm going to rewrite it. So it's actually

00:28:29.240 new, it's new material. Cause she's like, no, no, no, for this book, we need to, you know,

00:28:33.180 because she'd sort of casually thrown it off the first time around. And she was like, no,

00:28:36.460 we have to make this like really special. So yeah, they're all really, they're really great.

00:28:41.780 They're really great people. They're great members of the community. They're great literary citizens.

00:28:46.180 there's some there's a little bit in the book about being um a literary citizen you know a

00:28:52.400 literary citizen and being um asking for favors giving favors so i think it's it's a really

00:28:59.560 well-rounded look at like how you know being right writing and being focused and all those

00:29:05.520 kinds of things but again like how to be a positive member of this community and what it can do for

00:29:10.320 you yeah yeah yeah absolutely my my one last question and this is that you might not be able

00:29:16.740 to answer this is there any any advice in this book that you just like really personally took

00:29:23.180 to heart I know it's like saying do you have a favorite child which I do actually I mean I won't

00:29:27.560 say which one it is but I like one of them better than the other ones um let's see well the favorite

00:29:34.560 thing that i wrote um was this chap this section called the ship which i'd never i didn't realize

00:29:41.600 how i felt about it until i wrote it and it was new for this book and so i so that's for me my

00:29:47.240 my favorite child for me um it is hard for me to really pick which one is the best one i will tell

00:29:54.580 you that every year there is one letter at least one letter that comes in from the you know the

00:30:01.760 contributing authors that changes something in my writing that is like a game changer for me

00:30:07.620 and I I know that um Morgan Parker's letter which she actually type wrote for us um and it shows up

00:30:15.420 type right in the book and it's it really makes it feels like this artifact which is wonderful

00:30:19.520 that I remember that letter that that year um there was a line in it about D um

00:30:26.240 something about like re-centralizing her writing you know like really like instead of like making

00:30:34.420 it like so cerebral but instead just making it sort of sexy and fun and playful and and that

00:30:41.020 it was like I needed that to be or I needed to be reminded of that to have to have more fun with my

00:30:46.040 writing so I like that letter but I really like all of them they're all so cool and they're all

00:30:49.600 so different and um and and all of them are full of heart they are they are and i love it well you

00:30:57.760 tell people where they can find you on the social medias yes let's see so uh i there is if you search

00:31:07.160 for craft talk and my name jamie attenberg you can find the news newsletter very easily you can

00:31:12.220 sign up for it it's free um letters usually go out once a week uh year round and then i don't know

00:31:18.800 yet what the date is going to be this summer for it um it's usually either last week of may first

00:31:25.460 week of june or first two weeks of june the reason why i don't know is because i am working on doing

00:31:31.640 this right along of another right along in new york to launch a thousand words of summer

00:31:37.080 this year where hopefully we can have a couple hundred people come and write together on the

00:31:41.780 very first day of it that is my dream oh my god fun i want to come i'm kind of i'm coming you have

00:31:47.800 to come it's my dream I'm doing a lot I'm I'm doing a lot of managed growth with this project

00:31:54.040 because I don't really want it to be like uh something that's it's already so like so many

00:31:59.980 people and I'm just trying to try things out very slowly and organically and I've never done anything

00:32:06.580 like this before on this like sort of grand scale I'm a little bit nervous about it but I know it's

00:32:11.520 going to be great so um so yeah but that's something that I really want to do like I really

00:32:17.160 want to like um invite people in in a in a big way at least for the first day uh so anyway you

00:32:24.100 can go on sign up for craft talk um that's sort of the hub of information and then you know i'm

00:32:29.760 on instagram and twitter my name if you want to find me you can say hi great and you can buy the

00:32:35.880 and you can buy the book anywhere you can buy the book anywhere the book is everywhere it's

00:32:39.520 in all of the places all of the places where books live yes yes but we love the indie bookstores

00:32:46.080 sweet so you know go to the indies they've done a very nice job for me the indie bookstores and

00:32:51.160 i love them and support them forever and ever and it's a big love affair me and the indies

00:32:55.800 that is all we've got for today follow jamie in all of the places buy her book a thousand words

00:33:03.820 while you're at it pre-order the sicilian inheritance you will not be disappointed

00:33:08.960 you won't promise and now i would love all of you to go do something nice for yourself 1.00

00:33:14.740 you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna block all of the ballerina farm stands who are sending me

00:33:22.200 about 10 nasty notes per hour they send they send me the nastiest things I I put some of them on 0.99

00:33:32.240 social media but I can't put all of them and and to be honest they actually make me feel feel pretty

00:33:38.140 bad. It's like, I think she has an entire, maybe a barn filled with her fans that just send nasty

00:33:46.860 stuff to anyone who writes about her. I do. I do. So I'm going to block all those people,

00:33:51.440 but you do whatever nice thing will make you feel happy today. Talk to you soon.

00:34:08.140 We'll see you next time.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - January 30, 2024

How to Start Writing with Jami Attenberg

Episode Stats

Transcript