Jami Attenberg on her book ‘1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round’

CHICAGO — Writing this sentence was hard.

There were so many other things I could have gone with. That set of words seemed right at the time, roughly 90 seconds ago. Now I’m not so sure. Joan Didion once said that writing the first sentence of anything is difficult but by the time you’ve written two, you’re committed and should just keep plowing ahead. The problem is, self-doubt is part of the process. If you began January certain this would be the year you finally wrote a book, and now it’s April and you’re still frozen in fear, you understand. You need motivation. You need someone like Jami Attenberg, of Buffalo Grove, Illinois, in your head. She has this new book, “1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused and Productive All Year Round,” which is sort of the advice book equivalent of that friend who cheers beside a marathon route, tossing out enthusiasm and Gatorade.

It’s intended that way, Attenberg