Inspiration from Jami Attenberg...and Ants

a writing prompt + May Writing Hour

Welcome to Writing in Company. Each week I share some words and a writing prompt, meant to be jumping-off points for you to write about what matters. Use the prompts however you like—to journal, to draft thoughts for your own writing project, as meditation or prayer ideas, or for another creative endeavor. You can always look back through the archive for more ideas. Grab your pen and paper, and let your words loose on the page.

If you want to write, you need to know about Jami Attenberg, the New York Times bestselling author of fiction, memoir, and now a writing craft book called 1000 Words: A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round. I just got the book and it has Jami’s ideas plus contributions from at least fifty other writers about how to write, what to write about, and why writing matters. Jami also writes Craft Talk here on Substack—a popular weekly newsletter “on writing & publishing & living a creative life.”

Over the weekend, I got to hear and write with her in person during a local literary festival. I sat on the back row with a writer and friend I’ve known since we were barely adults, both scribbling in our notebooks as Jami shared a couple prompts and dropped wisdom worth quoting, like a kind and bossy big sister. She was absolutely convinced that every person there has words and stories worth writing down—maybe even a book that only we can write. All we need is a little kick-in the-pants motivation, and a community of support.

That’s what her generous and generative project #1000WordsofSummer is all about. Here’s how it started:

In 2018, novelist Jami Attenberg, faced with a looming deadline, needed writing inspiration. Using a bootcamp model, she and a friend set out to write one thousand words daily for two weeks straight. They opened this practice to Attenberg's online community and soon hundreds then thousands of people started using the #1000WordsofSummer hashtag to track their work and support one another. What began as a simple challenge between two friends has become a literary movement--write 1,000 words per day without judgment, or bias, or concerns about writer's block, and see what comes of it.¹

Six years later, and more than 40,000 people are signed up to write 1000 words a day this summer and encourage each other through it. Beginning June 1st, I’ll be one of them. It’s not a great time for me. I have three million boxes to pack for our move at the end of June. But I have words to write, and sanity to keep, and I already know I write better in company with others. Will you join in? Let me know and maybe we can schedule some Writing in Company 1000 word community write-togethers. I’m working on a book about grief and writing (there, I said it out loud!)² You can work on whatever you like, so long as you are writing words.

One of the workshop participants asked Jami where to find writing prompts. (My friend nudged me. Yes, here! Every week!) In answer, Jami said, “I think the whole world is a writing prompt.” Yes to that too! There is no end to inspiration if you keep your eyes, ears, and notebook open.

For example: our laundry room has a mild ant problem right now. We just had a new water heater installed in there, and it’s been raining a lot, so there were unhooked dripping pipes and damp and an open window and ant situational whatnot. They found a way in and only lavender-scented but still-yucky bug spray is stopping them. Every day, multiple times, I open the door and peek in to see if they’ve returned and need another dose. They will stop eventually, but right now I have ants on my brain and my floor. That right there is enough of a writing prompt.

Still, I went searching through the digital notebook I keep in OneNote, dropping in scraps I find that might become a prompt someday. I had a vague memory of a poem by Jane Hirshfield. My search term was “ants” but the poem never surfaced³. Instead, I got bits of poetry and quotes I’ve saved with longer words ending in “ants.” I started a list, then realized the words themselves make a kind of poem:

descendants

participants

inhabitants

wants

stimulants

antidepressants

restaurants

plants

currants

In addition to the word “ants” any one of those longer words could be a way to start writing. Put together into a list, they make me want to combine and play around with “wants” and the other words.

What are the wants of ants? What are the wants of descendants? Who wants currants? Wants, antidepressants, plants—these go together somehow. I’ll keep my pen moving and see what happens.

a writing prompt

Write about ants. Or…

Take the —ants words from my list and see if any of those give you a place to start. You can check out this scrabble word-finder for hundreds more: https://wordfind.com/contains/ants/

Or, choose your own short word from your day or week, then develop a list of words that include it. What combinations of words give you a question or thought or idea to start writing? You don’t have to know where your writing is going. Just get started and see what comes.

May Writing Hour - Saturday, May 25 | 4-5 pm Eastern

My next live writing hour on Zoom for paid subscribers is this week! If you want to write in company with others, you are welcome to join in. You can upgrade your subscription for a month ($7) just to try it. A separate email to paid subscribers will go out with the link, or you can find it on my Substack tab called Writing Hours. Let’s write together.

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Here's what I got when I asked AI to generate images of ants in a laundry room with a woman spraying them. They don't seem to care, do they? Threes arms would come in handy, though, especially if the ants are that big....

And here’s a photo of some ants in the wild, which is where they belong.

Photo by Prabir Kashyap on Unsplash

1. https://bookshop.org/a/90522/9781668023600

2. I’m trying to say things I want out loud, so others hear me say it: I want to write this book about grief and writing. Also, (after we move) I want to learn to play the banjo.

3. I found it later: Today, When I Could Do Nothing in which Hirshfield is more generous to her singular ant than I have been to mine.