Where the writing begins
Hi, friends!
As I write this, we're emerging from a snowstorm that socked us in for the better part of a week. It's gray and misty outside, finally warm enough for most of the snow to have melted away. We were fortunate enough not to lose power or experience any frozen pipes during the week. Felicia's been making us all lattes and mochas and things; we're well cared for.
I'm reading two books currently: Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Jami Attenberg's craft book 1000 Words: A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round.
This is my first time reading Parable; it's one of those books that I've always meant to read, and just never got around to. I'm remedying that now. And it's so interesting to read it with Butler's voice in my head, encouraging herself:
I shall be a bestselling writer. ... (E)ach of my books will be on the bestseller lists of LAT, NYT, PW, WP, etc. My novels will go onto the above lists whether publishers push them or not, whether I'm paid a high advance or not, whether I ever win another award or not.
Her encouragement went beyond the books themselves, too; she wrote her dreams of what her life would become as a result of her hard work and success:
My books will be read by millions of people! I will buy a beautiful home in an excellent neighborhood. I will help poor black youngsters broaden their horizons. I will get the best of health care for my mother and myself. I will travel whenever and wherever in the world that I choose.
She gave herself these orders:
So be it! See to it!
I love holding all of that in my head while I read this book. It's a gorgeous book, and harrowing, and terribly reflective of the era we're living through right now. Beautifully written, though, even the painful, ugly parts.
(If you enjoy reading about writers motivating themselves, I suggest checking out this post by Austin Kleon, who gathers up not only Butler's notes to herself, but others by James Salter and Sidney Lumet.)
I'm juxtaposing this read with Attenberg's book, which is also all about writing encouragement. If you're a writer who spends any time online, you may have heard about Attenberg's "1,000 Words of Summer" project, begun several years ago. That's the source of this book's motivation. Attenberg, feeling the struggle to write, partnered with a friend and promised to write a thousand words every day during the summer. When she mentioned this personal challenge online, many people asked if they could participate, and the challenge became a minor movement.
Attenberg collects encouragement, advice, motivation, and real talk from authors known and unknown, and shares them in this book, interspersed with her own guidance.
My favorite bit of advice so far is from two different writers, Rebecca Carroll and Ada Limón. Their words are positioned on opposite pages, facing one another. Each of them is saying the opposite thing of the other; the two pages are clearly designed to be in conversation with one another, and I love that Attenberg took the care to place them in exactly this location.
Carroll writes:
I write at the kitchen table, which is as the center of our apartment. It's attached to the living room, where the TV is, and the apartment is small to begin with.
Limón writes:
I think one of the things that helps me write is, simply, silence. It's boring, I know. But we are never quiet anymore. When was the last time you went for a walk and didn't listen to music or a podcast or a book or decide to call your mother.
Chaos, or isolation? These two authors made me reflect a bit on my own needs as a writer. Once, I required the space and quiet of isolation in order to think; now, with a family, I work to be able to write whenever and wherever I can. Do I always succeed? No. There are some kinds of writing that thrive with a bit of chaos beneath them, others that depend on a too-delicate string of thoughts. The former are easy to dip in and out of; the latter impossible to hang onto when threatened.
Carroll says:
I guess I've always written and created within a certain measure of chaos—emotional, psychological, logistical. My overall approach in everything I do is and has always been collagist. I find inspiration in the elegant clutter of things. The art on our walls, the books on our shelves, the sound of trap music that spills from my son's headphones. My writing is in conversation with the tenor of our lives.
Limón says:
Silence is where the writing comes from, that voice underneath the voice that we try our best to tamp down and gag with distractions and anxiety-inducing self-loathing. I f we are really listening, though, the world opens up in a way that it doesn't do to everyone all the time. It opens as a way of being generous to us, a reward for listening.
Neither, of course, is solely right. A person who can write only in silence is limiting themselves; someone who can write under any circumstance can write anywhere.
Still, when you can reduce the world down to just you and the idea, and thoroughly explore the idea without distraction, something magical can happen.
As Limón concludes:
If you can allow yourself that space, a shift will happen; underneath the buzz of the world, there's a story starting, a poem beginning, a deep noticing that at once feels surreal and more real than anything else. That's where the writing begins.
✏️Until next time,
Jg
Thanks for subscribing to Letters from Hill House! You're reading the free edition.
- The Edge of Sleep is out now! Get a copy here!
- If you'd like to also receive The Dark Age letters, here's how to do so
- If you're enjoying the newsletter and would like to buy me a coffee, here's how to do that
- My web site has more writing, and info about my books
- I'm designing book covers again, and I'd love to design yours! I'm also selling ready-to-go covers!
- I'm back on Instagram, too
- If you just want to say hello, just click Reply, or email me
Note: This newsletter may contain affiliate links for which I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.