Tag: #1000 Words of Summer

Big Magic

Do you believe in magic……???

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, an inspirational book by Elizabeth Gilbert, was published in 2015 and instantly became a bestseller. This was nine years after her breakout bestseller Eat, Pray, Love. After hearing writing group friends talk about it in my presence, I broke down and bought a copy in 2021. I think I read two chapters. Since I have just finished reading the entire thing today (July 2024), I cannot tell you why I wasn’t interested back in the pandemic years when being able to read for long periods of time wasn’t such a luxury. Maybe I considered it airy-fairy and that approach wasn’t going to improve my writing. Whatever the reason, I put it in the Living Room closet next to some books on the Writing of Memoir, and there it has sat ever since. In fact, it is still sitting there. I listened to Elizabeth Gilbert read the audiobook while I walked the trails and beaches of Saint Jean de Luz in the Pays Basque region of southwest France.

The book can be summed up as EG taking every possible fear and rationale we writers have to not write and shows us why it is poppycock. She claims she was the most fearful of children, scared of everything, scared of waves, scared of snow. She lists at least two pages of fears to not write. “I’m too old”, “I’m not old enough”. I found myself laughing as I remembered almost each and every fear she mentioned.

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She says something very interesting. Something that goes against one of the blurbs of her book: which said something to the effect ‘how to learn to have a creative life.’ My words. Gilbert says we don’t learn anything. We already are creative. We either use our creativity in living or we don’t. But it’s always there. 

I enjoyed listening to the book. I enjoyed it because I’m on the other side of a lot of the fears she’s talking about. So I was nodding my head as she talked, agreeing with her on many points. I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t been writing for eight years, hadn’t had a book published, hadn’t talked about some of my fears with my coach and editor, I would have had a hard time groking what she was saying. It was a bit like the huge Nike poster I had scotch taped to the back of my toilet door years ago. JUST DO IT!

Gilbert seems to think if she could do it, anyone can. So she talks about courage, persistence, trust, enchantment and how she met each one head on. What she doesn’t say is that, in fact, she is an exceptional person. She has a huge personality, she’s probably impulsive and when she gets into something, she jumps in 110%. She takes risks—introducing herself to Ann Patchett at a conference by telling her how much she loved her. I recognise this. In my 70s, I have much the same personality. But it took sixty-five years to be born. I think I might have cried reading this book in my 30s. Of course, I have no way of knowing. Looking at that Nike poster every day actually drove home the sentiment – forget all your excuses, Sara, just do it! And sometimes I did!

I think my take away from the book and one I want to pass on is: love what you do. If you love to write, write. Don’t think about the end result. Will it get published? Do I need an agent? etc, etc, etc. Just write because you love it. I need to say that I’m in a very lucky and enviable situation. I am retired from my first profession, have savings, and am in a position that many writers are not. I don’t have to depend on my writing for income, to make ends meet. I get to write because I love to write. I am discovering that more and more. I find on-line challenges and things like Jamie Attenberg’s #1000 Words of Summer that encourage me to write every day and account to someone, even in the virtual world. Writing every day makes it easier to write every day. Yes, that’s English and it’s true. And getting prompts from people like mary g.’s substack What Now? has led to interesting stories—ones I wouldn’t have thought up just sitting on my butt at the dining room table hoping for inspiration.

I have a hard time getting through any book on writing. Some craft books are written by smart and wiley people. They give you a teaching then two or three short stories that use the very thing the writer hopes you will learn. For instance: Tell It Slant (Miller and Paola, 3rd edition 2019). I was finished the book before I had time to give up on it. There were fascinating stories, most I hadn’t read. I may have learned something also. My writing teacher, Jennifer Lauck, refers to it often.

So if you, like me, like to listen to audio books while you walk, and you want some inspiration to take a next step or do a high five because you’ve already figured out something Elizabeth Gilbert writes about, then you will probably enjoy this book. EG’s voice is extremely pleasant to listen to. Since she wrote the book, she can emphasize words and points she wants emphasized. 

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A bientôt,

Sara

An Evening with Jami Attenberg

When I was in Oakland this winter, I had a computer crash. Not a real computer. The one in my brain that, on a daily basis works just fine, usually brings up the right things at the right time, shuts down to ‘sleep’ at night, wakes up at the appointed time ready to hit the day running. In January, it just burned to a crisp—nothing left to make it work. Sissssssssssssss! It’s called Burn Out. I don’t remember how I stumbled onto Jami Attenberg’s Substack newsletter. I had first discovered Substack when my sister wrote me about George Saunders’ Story Club with George Saunders. I immediately became a paying member. Comments were invited and I loved reading them. Wanting to know what that person read on Substack, I soon realized how many writers I respected had Substacks, and found ones that I didn’t know who wrote about the craft of writing. I found Jami and her #1000 Words of Summer Challenge.

https://www.pw.org/content/1000_words_of_summer_how_an_accountability_project_opened_up_my_writing_life

At the bottom of her Substack, she mentioned she’d written a memoir. I took the memoir, I Came all this way to meet you- Writing Myself Home, out of the library. First I read it. To say I loved it would be an understatement. I felt like she had me in mind when she wrote it. I, then, got the audio version and listened. Feeling exactly the same way as I had after the first reading, I bought the book and added All Grown Up (2017 First Mariner Books). What spoke to me? Jami writes in an intimate, conversationally (is that a word?) way that feels as if she is talking to ME. Writer to writer. She throws in comments about writing, about the craft of writing, about the love of writing, and how to grapple with certain problems, and many things that authors think about and only other writers and authors really relate to. This all while she is telling us about her life in often funny, self-deprecating ways. She is wise and knows herself well. She said eloquently what I felt but had not yet found words for. Writers, both ones she knows and ones she has yet to meet, are her friends. She roots for us. The memoir is one of those books that expands your world, makes you want to create because you can, and she is your cheerleader.

Jami Attenberg, American writer, Milano, Italy, 8th September 2016. (Photo by Leonardo Cendamo/Getty Images)

Recently, her weekly newsletter led off with dates that she would be reading or would be interviewed in various cities. There was the word PARIS. She was going to speak at the American Library. I immediately wrote her (you can do that on Substack. Write a comment). Jami responds to almost every comment. I told her I’d bring as many of my writer friends and book club friends as possible. She was up against some big competition. The American Library has had a pledge that would probably bring in quite a bit of money. For the first time, they can have two events on the same night. So, the next day, I learned that the second event was the San Francisco Theatre group, Word for Word, putting on George Saunders’ play HOME. This did not feel at all fair. I wanted to complain (I think I did). But the dates were set and I really really wanted to support Jami. So I put the play out of my mind.

Tuesday evening, I went early to the Library to listen to Jami being interviewed by the wonderful Lauren Collins (staff writer, New Yorker). I brought both of her books hoping to get them autographed. The reading room in the library was packed and it was on Zoom. She told us that she was far enough away from the memoir – it was published January 2022 – that she could discuss it without too much emotion. She told us how she wrote and wrote until she knew what her focus was: being a writer. She explained how she structured the chapters in the book.

Jami and Lauren, reading room of the American Library in Paris

Structure is something that is often a stumbling block for me. It feels like the AP class in creative writing. Jami chose ten of the most important periods of her life for chapters. These events didn’t necessarily happen consecutively. So she didn’t write them that way. In my stories, I’m still learning the architecture of a really good story. What do you say when? When do you bring in backstory? What do you start with? And those last two sentences where in a short story, as my Stanford professor told us, they’d better be a knock-out punch.

I’m not the only one grateful to her and the way she writes, the way she tells us about her writing life. She manages to be be inclusive, her challenges are so often our challenges. Her #1000 Words of Summer, in its sixth year, has almost 30,000 subscribers. Most of these people she’ll never meet. Yet, she has had the experience of finding herself mentioned in the acknowledgments of a book as both the inspiration and the kick in the pants push the author needed to get going. I can just barely imagine what that must be like—a thought, an idea she has had and put into action, growing to such a degree that authors around the world express their gratitude in black and white on the acknowedgment page for getting them to the finish line.

Part of my writing group: Gwen, Sara, Pamela, Kit, Lori, out for drinks after listening to Jami at the American Library

Thank you, Jami Attenberg. May you enjoy your Italian vacation!!

For more information on #1000 Words of Summer, go to Jami’s substack Craft Talk

A bientôt,

Sara

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