You're a published author...is it everything you thought it would be?
A quick chat with NYT Bestselling author Jami Attenberg about showing up for yourself, what growth really looks like, and how to build a body of work
‘I Wonder’ is a new series where we chat with colorful creatives about the lives they’re living compared to the lives they imagined and if it’s everything they thought it would be. Because, don’t you always kind of wonder?
Today’s conversation is with Jami Attenberg, the New York Times bestselling author of nine books, including The Middlesteins, All Grown Up and a memoir, I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home. She is also the creator of the annual online group writing accountability project #1000wordsofsummer, which inspired the recently published USA Today bestseller 1000 Words:A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round. Her tenth book, publishing September 24, 2024, is A Reason to See You Again. She lives in New Orleans. You can find her online regularly at Craft Talk.
We chat about her ‘then versus now’ writing process, early expectations of being a writer, and what it really means to build a body of work.
TC: How does being a published professional writer compare to what you thought it would be like?
JA: It's been 18 years since my first book came out and I had done some freelance writing before then, and had some small press work come out, but what it meant to be an Author was a hazy dream. I had no expectations. My first book, Instant Love, was published in 2006. My sister-in-law works in publishing and, at the time, gave me a talk about what it meant to have a book come out, and told me I should try and use the book for leverage to get me other things, like magazine work or a teaching gig. So I had low expectations except that it might shift things a little bit here and there.
I can see now that books have a longer life than I anticipated and that having a career is about building a body of work, rather than any flash-in-the pan moment. But sitting down and doing the work is the same, always the same. The only way to the end is through.
TC: What did your writing practice look like when you first began? What does it look like today?
JA: Before I wrote my first book I wrote in stolen moments. I wasn't thinking about word count, I was just thinking about the feeling of done-ness. What would it take to make this story or essay or blog post feel finished? I was really just stumbling through it.
The summer I wrote the first draft of my novel was the first time I started writing 1000 words a day consciously. Like I made a decision to try and finish a first draft of a book, and I knew I had to show up for myself every day. I can still remember sitting there in this tiny house in the woods and sitting down every day and just getting the work done.
Now I am still conscious of it, but I don't question it or stress about it as much. I know it will happen. This is just me showing up for work in the morning. It is not very hard to get that part of my daily life done. In a way the harder part comes when I craft things.
TC: What work are you most proud of and why?
JA: I love all my fiction equally although with some of my books I could see how I broke new ground for myself and I feel affectionate toward them because of that. But they are all interesting projects that I learned from, and I said what I had to say in them. The artistic life is about growth, and it is fun to think about my progression over ten books.
That said, I have a strong and particular affection for Saint Mazie because it was based on a real person and I tried so hard to do her justice and write from a really specific place of love. And I love the 1000 Words book because it's not just me, it's a whole collection of voices in it.
Thank you
Be sure to check out Jami’s newest book, A Reason to See You Again, out September 24, 2024!