In this week’s newsletter, I shared these notes for my chat with Sarah Ruhl and how I prepare for an interview.
Intentionally spiraling out
spiral (verb) 1. to move in the shape of a spiral 2. to continuously become worse, more, or less
I began the month joking that I was just “trying not to spiral out,” and I’m winding down the month by intentionally spiraling out with a new little exercise for my morning pages in my diary.
Here’s how you do it:
1. Set aside 10 minutes and start with a fresh page in your notebook. Follow Lynda Barry’s instructions for drawing a spiral: Start in the very center of the page, and make the tightest spiral you can manage, trying to get the lines as close as you can without touching. (More in her wonderful book, Syllabus, and check out another version over at Wendy MacNaughton’s Draw Together.) You’ll know when you’re done.
2. Once you have your spiral, start annotating it with your feelings and thoughts, everything weighing on you or bothering you. (Wendy calls this “inside weather.”) Catalog what’s on the surface, towards the outside of the spiral, and what’s deep, on the inside.
3. Go about your day.
I can’t claim that it’s solved anything for me, but it has helped me feel a little less anxious, a little more calm.
(See also: “Spin art.”)
Analog Ctrl-Z
In today’s newsletter, I demonstrate how I use a dry erase marker and a transparency sheet to make poems like this one:
Interview with Sarah Ruhl
I am was delighted to be interviewing writer Sarah Ruhl about her work and her memoir Smile: The Story of a Face this on Wednesday. You can set a reminder to watch on YouTube:
Cartoonist Lucy Bellwood drew and wrote about talk here.
Road trip Q&A
When we were driving back from Florida last week, I took some questions on my Instagram. They’re all still up in my Stories, but I thought I’d share some of them here, too.
Q&A sessions like this are often a reminder of how many people who follow me on social media don’t necessarily know my books all that well.
Q&As can also be a way of kind of summarizing mood and what folks are dealing with and what I might want to write about next. A lot of the questions were about depression and anxiety. (Here is more on my “very simple rule” for dealing with “sundowning.”)
This list is from Keep Going.
I really want to write about this in a book.
My favorite thing to say about stuff I don’t like.
Almost every answer in a Q&A is some form of “one day you’ll be dead” and “keep going.” (This, on obituaries, is from Show Your Work!)
I get a lot of questions about making art with kids. I should probably write a book on the subject, but until then, see my post, “The Pram in the Hall” and my “parenting” tag.
I miss movies.
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