
Jami Attenberg on Writing a Book, 1,000 Words at a Time
“If I didn’t write this book now, then when would it happen?”
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Before I wrote my first book twenty years ago, I had a vague idea that I would eventually write one. I was writing all the time, stolen moments in cafés or on the subway, early in the morning, late in the evening, constantly churning out words. I couldn’t quite see that I was in the process of writing something that would eventually become a book. I was occasionally getting essays published, and I had put out a few zines of short stories, one with a small press. I had words bursting out of me. I only needed a place to put them.
A friend of mine said to me, “Why aren’t you writing a book yet? It’s time.” And then she offered me an opportunity: a place to live for the summer, a small cottage in Northern California on her boyfriend’s land. He had a dog that needed long walks — a big dog, a Tibetan mastiff. I saved up enough money from all my freelance jobs and headed west.
Every day I walked the big dog and I wrote 1,000 words. I also drank a lot of cheap, cold white wine and ate too much pasta and read dozens of books, and I had several miniature nervous breakdowns because I was by myself so much, and also because I was getting rid of all this emotional stuff by writing this book, stuff I hadn’t known was there but now it was out, and it was on the page, 1,000 words at a time.
I got up every morning and did it. I figured I would never have this amazing gift of time and space again. If I didn’t write this book now, then when would it happen? In the fall I would go back east, where I would crash on a friend’s couch for a while and return to work, to a contract job I hated. What if I had nothing to show for this summer?
At the end of the three months, I had an extremely rough first draft of a book. Whatever was going to happen next, at least I had done it. I had no idea what I was doing after that moment. But I had made this thing that was all mine.
Eight books later, I’ve learned a few things. You don’t need it to be summer, and you don’t need to be in a cottage in the woods. You can be anywhere and write those words. You just have to want it.
You can create a sense of isolation in your mind. You can tap into that hunger and desire to make something new. It’s all sitting right there. A pen, some paper, and your brain.
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Excerpted from 1000 WORDS: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round. Copyright @ 2024 by Jami Attenberg. Reproduced by permission of Simon Element, and imprint of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved.

Jami Attenberg
Jami Attenberg has written about sex, technology, design, books, television, and urban life for The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Lenny Letter and others. In March 2017, HMH Books will release her novel All Grown Up. Her fourth book, The Middlesteins, was published in October 2012. It appeared on The New York Times bestseller list, and was published in ten countries in 2013. A fifth book, Saint Mazie, was published in 2015 in the U.S. and the UK, and in Italy, France and Germany in 2016, and has been optioned by Fable Pictures. She divides her time between New Orleans, LA and Brooklyn, NY. She's @jamiattenberg.