I had a whole thing written for this month’s newsletter, but I scrapped it. It was a piece dripping with criticism, but I threw it out because, honestly, who wants one more thing in their inbox to feel mad about? I feel exhausted by all the rage around me. There is so much to fear, so much to be angry about in this world of ours.
Years ago, when I was writing 40-plus stories in a year, I used to do a big round-up of my favorite pieces I worked on. I’d unfold my year-in-writing in a multi-tweet thread, like anyone cared, promoting all these pieces I’d poured so much of myself into. I’m not going to do that here, but I am taking inspiration from those days for this edition.
In my writing classes, I often share tidbits of my weird process with my students. Like, how I’ll choose a soundtrack for each of the pieces I write, and listen to that music, and only that music, as I make whatever story I’m putting together — hoping to siphon the feeling of that music into my story. Sometimes I’ll choose inspiration from an entirely different kind of writing — like the shipwreck story I wrote a few years back, influenced by poetry.
This past year, I noticed a new trend: that every time I felt dead-ended by my writing projects, I retreated into a wholly different artistic world. I’ve written here before a little about the importance of art-making to my life, and my ceramics pursuits; this year anytime I wasn’t writing, I was probably covered in bits of dried clay. 2023 proved to me that struggling through multiple creative pursuits can enrich them all in the end.
In January, I started experimenting with sgraffito, a style of surface decoration that involves carving away at glazed pieces, which I hoped would help me establish my own voice in my ceramics. Really, I just made a couple of nice bowls ugly. I smashed those with a hammer and put the shards into the Home Depot bucket. I tell myself that one day I’ll make a mosaic.
I spent time writing on the Washington state coast that month, where I sat for days in a cabin over a pile of papers and two bags of hardcover books and a package of cookies, trying to make sense of an idea I couldn’t seem to get my arms around. I took breaks to walk into the wind on the beach, the cold air biting my face. Inside, captive with my ideas and research, I finally broke through. I couldn’t help but think about the feeling of sitting at a ceramic wheel, wrangling a huge hunk of wildly spinning clay, calming it so it can become a new shape.
In February I snapped a photo of a big purple bowl I made, sitting in several inches of snow on our porch. It was the color of mountain lupine, and looked like summer. I drove to do book research in a small remote library in California, where I sat for eight hours straight, and the librarians were so pleased I’d come so far to look at their collections when no one else seemed to. Sometimes I get a sense from some people in my life that the things that interest me are twisted, or sad. That I’m no fun, too serious. Here were strangers affirming the opposite.
In March I made a beautiful new bowl, but when it emerged from the kiln, a huge lightning-bolt crack had splintered across the bottom. I threw it away.
I wrote for a few days on the banks of the Clackamas River, where I lost hours of my life to age-old court transcripts and years, maybe, to another box of cookies. I took a long walk, got lost, shivered that night and came home early. The vibrating feeling I often get while writing never came.
In April, I had a realization: that by not envisioning what my clay projects would look like in the end, I never really knew what I was making. And that applied to my writing, too. In all my pursuits, I was wandering around in darkness with my hands out in front, hoping to collide with an answer. But that wasn’t happening. Instead, I needed to picture what the pot would look like at the very end, and then work backward. My writing jumped forward when I realized this.
In the spring I tapped away at my laptop while dog-sitting for my parents. I drank coffee out of a mug I made my dad one morning. It was far too big, like one of those silly mugs from Friends: a beautiful form, but functionally absurd.
In summer, I sculpted some planters that reminded me of my dogs — stubby legs, goofy personalities. I made a fruit salad of cherries and nectarines and some basil from my garden and ate it out of a nice white bowl. I wrote for five days in a lodge room overlooking a campground, where every morning I could smell bacon and hear people starting their summer vacation. One late night in a fit of energy, I opened up a fresh notebook page and hand-wrote a full outline for the project I’d been struggling with for months.
In the fall, I made a pristine white bowl. It came out of the kiln with a burned black spot on it. I didn’t have the heart to throw out six weeks of work. Another perfect bowl — coated in a cream-colored glaze — experienced similar issues. Now it holds rocks.
I finished my book manuscript. I started new writing projects.
After that I decided to give the wheel the cold shoulder and instead started slapping hunks of clay around until they flattened. Sometimes I’d throw a big chunk at the floor with all my strength, and peel it off the cement, then pushed those slices of clay through a slab roller until they came out smooth. The process of hand-building new pots felt exciting and new.
One day I went to a tea store with a friend, and imagined all the spouts I could make out of clay. Big spouts, little spouts, square spouts. I made a giant teapot, and in the kiln, a strange blister emerged on one side. My teacher took one look and realized I must have mistakenly gotten part of a bad batch of clay that the studio had thrown out. That same clay had caused other students’ work to break out in boils and scars, and most of what they made had been completely ruined. My big teapot now has a goiter. Nothing is perfect.
Making things masterfully is undeniably satisfying, but stumbling clumsily through a creative pursuit can be even more gratifying when you start to figure out your way, your path. With clay, I can create something I love, put it into the kiln and have it come out totally different than I envisioned. If you take it personally, ceramics will be very painful. There is only so much you can control.
Writing this year often felt like I was dragging myself over all those broken shards of ideas. Worry plagued me, made me doubt myself in ways I didn’t know possible. But clay showed me a way through. Both practices are about managing your material, and not letting it manage you. Both need time. Both require walking away, coming back with fresh eyes. There are bad clay days, and bad writing days.
I have learned that in clay and in writing, sometimes the right thing to do is smash an idea you’ve put time and energy into with a hammer. Let it go. Try again. You have to know that no pursuit is worthless.
A few links before we say goodbye to 2023:
For the journalism-y, crime-y person on your holiday shopping list this year, consider a paperback copy of When the Moon Turns to Blood. Or a subscription to this newsletter!
If you enjoyed this Q&A a couple of months back with David Neiwert, you’ll be pleased to know he’s on Substack now writing about whales and far-right extremists. Subscribe to The Spyhop!
Speaking of former “Good Talk” subjects, Kathleen McLaughlin wrote a brilliant essay, called “What Became of Your Local Newspaper?” about what happens to local newspaper buildings.
Bethany Kaylor, a brilliant writer I got to know through my “Writing Weird and Wonderful” class, published a great essay called “Who Wants to Live on Women’s Land?” about the lesbian separatist communities in Southern Oregon. It was a joy to watch Bethany work through this piece. You can also go to her Substack to purchase one of her hand-drawn dog calendars for 2024.
A long time ago I played guitar in rock and roll bands in the Seattle area. I left that and pursued various marketing careers. Now, I've returned to music as am amateur and it's been a fascinating experience. Despite the years, my guitar playing changed unbidden, from all those years of listening and thinking about it. Now, I am an occasional song-writer. Most of the time, it starts with some simple progresion or riff or just an idea. The best ones seem to come from nowhere, as Dylan might say, "blowing in the wind." It's almost mystical in nature. But writing lyrics is a whole different story for some reason I cannot undertand or explain. I once had a conversation with the author John Irving about writing. Interestingly to me, we both used a similar "trick" to stay on track. We both wrote the last line or the last paragraph first. And the idea was to know where we were going, so that we did not get lost in the process, so that we did not wander aimlessly. With that last line in mind, we could abandon the shards along the way.
I am haunted by the question of whether or not the cookies were good cookies.