Day 3, Winter 2025, Mini 1000

Halfway home.

Hi friends.

Today we will write 1000 words. Together. Because we are in search of that electric feeling when all the words come together on the page and do something interesting or revealing or brand fucking new. Making things, writing things, these creative moments, it’s unlike any other part of our lives. We need that feeling. When we write, this is us tending to our needs. When we write, this is us looking out for ourselves.

Let’s all write those 1000 words right now. Let’s take care of ourselves today.

My personal update: I started with a juicy to-write list sitting here acquired after weeks of packing and moving, me wishing I had even an ounce of energy to make something good happen on the page. Every day I’m just tackling as many as of them as I need to hit that magical 1000 number. I’ve been hungry to have this moment to write because I’ve been so busy, and I’m really savoring it. I hope you’re enjoying your time, too.

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Today’s guest letter is from one of my favorite people on the planet, Maris Kreizman, who has a lifelong commitment to supporting literature, criticism, and freedom of speech, amongst other important topics and issues of the modern era. Catch her on the board of Authors Against Book Bans, trying to save our future. Read her work all over the place, including, lately, this bi-weekly column at Lit Hub. And don’t forget to look out for her brilliant new essay collection, I Want to Burn This Place Down, coming out next summer. It will transform you. (Pre-order it here.)

Here, Maris writes to us about the joy of routine and showing up for yourself:

“I love the idea of a vacation; I know I’m not alone. Maybe in the final days of 2024 you were like me, in love with the thought that some time off would be all I needed to feel refreshed and restored, physically and spiritually. Relaxation would come easily; creative juices (ew!) would be restored.

Maybe, just maybe, it didn’t happen like that. Maybe you ended up lying on your couch under a Target blanket covered in cheese crumbs watching your fourth episode in a row of Drag Race, season 13. Maybe you got stressed because you weren’t able to relax as deeply as you’d liked. Maybe you wanted to do nothing as an act of resistance to the attention economy a la Jenny Odell, but instead you stared at the wall a lot but still checked social media too much and constantly had a shopping cart open at some online retailer or another.

But for me, at least, true happiness is in the routine that comes when the vacation has ended. It’s not about being productive, about churning out a bunch of stuff like a good little capitalist. That’s not what brings me satisfaction. It’s having a shape to my day, it’s about having goals, and making the time and space to try to achieve them. It’s about waking up at the regular time and having that first cup of coffee just the way I like it, and trying to put all of the words that have been percolating in my brain onto paper (or laptop).

Even better is to participate in 1000 Words and to feel a collective joy in resuming my routine with so many other people doing the same. I hope you feel it too.”

And now it’s time to write.

Good luck today,

Jami

You are reading Mini 1000, an infrequent newsletter encouraging you to write from Jami Attenberg. My main newsletter is Craft Talk. I’m also on bluesky and instagram.