Yesterday afternoon, my daughter and I took a Shibori class at a local art studio. If you haven't heard of it, Shibori is an old Japanese tie-dyeing technique (that has been around since the Edo period!) that uses folding, blocking, and binding to create different patterns and effects with natural indigo dyes (we just used plain old Rit).

Everyone in the class made the same thing--- two tea towels and a tote bag--- following the same directions from the same instructor, using the same basic concepts and same materials. Yet, literally none of our projects came out the same (my daughter's is on top in the photo above, while mine is on the bottom). And, it would be hard to reproduce the same results a second time, even if we loved them, if any of us wanted to.

This got me thinking about publishing, and when multiple picture books come out on the same subject in any given year--- biographies of Ada Lovelace, for example, or a lot of beautiful books about trees (or even Make Way, my forthcoming book with Claire Keane, and Emma Bland Smith and Becca Stadtlander's recently-released Mr. McCloskey's Marvelous Mallards). The structures, the textures, the colorways are all slightly different, even when we're drawing from similar material. Where do our ideas come from? How do we decide what to do with them? And how do we know when we're done? I think these are questions any writer is pondering, all the time?

The three-hour workshop and my dye-covered hands also helped me put down my damn phone, something I've been trying to do more of lately (again). I've taken social media breaks before, and they've been great, and then I usually return to old habits and patterns a few months later (which is not great). I am coming to recognize--- and apparently this is a lesson I need to learn repeatedly--- that opening up my Twitter feed on any given day, encountering the horrible new or hot take of the hour, and staying stuck in a cycle of worry or outrage is extremely not good for my brain or for making things.

Which, bizarrely enough, really showed up in this morning's Wordle while I was drafting this newsletter. IF YOU HAVE NOT DONE WORDLE YET, SCROLL NO FURTHER. This is what my Wordle looked like:

I don't want to put dread before dream, and yet there it is (and as my husband, who is way better at Wordle than I am, pointed out that I should have already known there wasn't a 'D' at the end). "Dread before dream" has felt like my general state of being since 2016 or 2020 at least. One way to disrupt that has been deleting Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram from my phone, locking them down, and logging out. I don't need all of this information in my brain all of the time. I don't know what to do with it! And so, for now, I'm taking a break.

I'm hoping to return to things I love and used to do more often, like knitting. I'm making new sourdough starter so I can bake bread again this winter. I'm growing herbs indoors. I just want to, I don't know, do things that take time, that are slow and meditative and give my brain some room, that don't involve scrolling my big thumb on a little screen. Maybe all of this will help me finish a verse novel I've been working on, or give me a new picture book idea. Or maybe it won't! I honestly have no idea. Even if it doesn't, that would be fine too, because the overall feeling of calm during these breaks is worth it in and of itself. Even if I'm folding cloth into little squares and dying it, or kneading bread, or smelling basil, instead of FANCY AND IMPORTANT WRITING (sarcasm font), it's still satisfying and still what I need right here, right now. I feel like I'm making friends with my brain again, someone I haven't said hello to in a very long time. It's nice to see them.

(If any of this resonates with you in some way, I'd really recommend the audiobook I'm listening to now, Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, and Julie Falatko's Substack, Do the Work.)

Random Wonderful Things

• This how-to guide on shibori.

• This stunning new bookshop in Boston, Beacon Hill Books.

• This essay, "Is This How We All Think Now?" from Julie Falatko.

• This interview with George Saunders on The Active Voice.

• This WesAndersongs playlist.

• These tiny and adorable washi stickers. (I using the chipmunks in my planner to track the days I've written in November.)

• This Beet Quinoa Salad with Butternut Squash, Kale, and Pecans from Daisybeet.

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Thanks for Reading!