I’m not sure what that will look like yet, but I know this is the last post for this stint. Making happens in seasons, I think. Everything happens in seasons. My only rule is to make something every day and share it. For the longest time the thing I made every day without fail was this, and the place I shared it was right here. Maybe it’ll come back, maybe not.

It’s weird to feel indebted to something you made. I think that making and writing can be like that. You don’t know where it’ll take you. You’re just tip-tapping words into existence without many expectations. I’m reminded again and again that writing can have such an outsized impact on your life—in how it makes you feel and how it connects you with others.

Making begets making, and I don’t think I’d be working on the next thing if I hadn’t turned up here every day. I wouldn’t have written here without morning pages. The advice is true that you simply have to start, and then the rest will come. You have to start, and then you have to not stop. The second part is harder than it sounds. Catch you in the next season.

I’m feeling pretty indebted to this place though. It’s helped me to build community, to build discipline, to express something that I hadn’t been, and to work on something I love. It still seems absolutely mad that a goofy blog could do all of that, but it has. Surely, surely I should carry on.

I’m listening to a podcast in the background while I write this called Strangers on a Bench, and it occurs to me again how powerful words are. How powerful story is, and especially the personal stories of regular folks. I want to tell more of those stories. I want to tell more audio stories. I really just feel so much from audio. I love writing and reading, but man.

One thing I want to stop writing is all of this meta, or perhaps to write about it so seriously that I come out the other side. The power of morning pages is boring or annoying yourself into action, so maybe I could do that here too. On that note though, signing off and coming back with something more interesting—whether that something is meta or not.

I was struck by a thought this week that made me feel a sort of way: I always assume I’m going to do a bad job, and I mostly think that I’ve done a bad job, even if evidence points to the contrary. I should probably speak to a therapist about that rather than write about it on the internet, but what’s that internet meme again? I approve of therapy, to be clear. I spent months in therapy. I think most people probably should.

The small project I kicked off felt pretty good immediately, though. I felt like I was doing a pretty good job. I didn’t totally hate the results. Maybe because it’s new. Maybe because I made the stakes intentionally low. I wonder how I could feel like that about everything? I think I’ve felt that way before. Maybe I’m just going through a moment. I should note that it’s not a very dramatic moment. Too familiar for that.

This is a bit of an experiment I think of writing morning-pages style stuff here. I didn’t plan to write what I’m writing. I’m not sure why I’m still typing, other than inertia. It feels good-bad, but maybe I’ll carry on. Today I felt like this, tomorrow I might feel elated. Such is the human experience (I think). I’ll wrap it up here. Good enough for now.

Writing, like reading, can be a lumpy sort of practice. Every day, then nothing for weeks. Months on end, then nothing for a year. I really do notice when I’m not writing though. My brain fills up with everything I haven’t written down. I’m missing morning pages again, actually. There’s something about having a truly private, feral practice of writing anything.

Maybe this will morph into something else, as it’s morphed before. Perhaps I’ll write my morning pages here, and let the internet see how completely nonsensical I can be. I could go the other way, too, by choosing to be something specific; someone specific. That’s the least interesting to me, personally. Who wants to be anyone but themselves? I mean… huh.

I’m starting to write about wedging clay. I know something about it. I don’t know a lot about it. That’s why I’m writing about it. I need to order some clay and wedge it. I’m not one for writing fiction, but even if you do write fiction I think that you should try to get as close to the real thing as possible. Maybe don’t commit too many crimes if you want to write about crime, but… clay? You can wedge some clay, surely.

On that note, I have to go. I’ve got to pick up pizza. It won’t be long, and I like to drive to pick it up. It feels strange getting things delivered when you have a car. I didn’t have a car before we lived in California. I couldn’t drive until we lived in the country. I didn’t think I’d ever drive, at one point, and now I drive all the time. Mixed feelings about that, actually, but at least I’m rewarded with the destinations.

I’ve spent a lot of the day with clay on my mind for reasons that will become clear at some point. Types of clay, types of wedging, tools. The things you make with clay end up so, so different to the material you start with. A lump of mud can turns into something strong, architectural. I thought about how meditative it can be to wedge clay. How satisfying it can feel to pull the wire through it and see that it’s so smooth.

I’ve also had story on my mind a lot. Writing stories. Speaking stories aloud. Telling a story to bring people along, or to give yourself some sort of energy. How many stories do we tell ourselves to even get out of bed in the morning? Which ones do we tell ourselves that lead us to fall in love? Which do we tell others to help them fall in love with us? Life is stories all the way down; all sorts of stories, all the time.

I’ve been thinking about the audio stories I want to make, and I really think I’m starting to land on something good. I’m going to let it cook for a while before I say much about it, but I’m feeling good about it. I can see it in a way that I couldn’t see my other stories, and I’m excited to get started.

You know you’re onto something when you can’t stop thinking about it. Like, if there was any lull in my day—and there weren’t many today—my mind immediately filled up with ideas and excitement for this thing. When I finished work for the day, it came roaring back too. It felt good; feels good.

I felt a switch flip in me over the past couple of days. I don’t know if it’s out of inspiration or irritation, but I’m done procrastinating on the projects that I’ve been kicking around forever. I told myself that this project was just “intentionally slow” but in the end I think that was just an excuse.

One thing I will say is that a big part of this whole thing is about the art of noticing—of paying attention, and being curious, and following that curiosity. A life and livelihood built around following your curiosity and paying attention would be a life well spent, I think. I’ll try to spend it that way.

I like reading letters, and I like the idea of writing to someone familiar. Not to the entire internet, and not only to myself. To someone I know, and care for. A proxy for myself maybe, or my family, or all of my friends (or all of the above). An audience that wouldn’t humor excessive navel-gazing and who I wouldn’t want to burden with too much moping around.

I’ll start from tomorrow, but I came back today to draw a new line in the sand. To say that I’m here, to state why I’m here, and to articulate to myself what that means to me; for me. I don’t know if anyone reads this, and to the extent that anyone does I’m not sure if I know you, but I hope that you—whoever you are—receive these letters and feel a little something.

It’s a disorder called dermatillomania, and it’s sort of embarrassing to talk about. I don’t know why I’m talking about it now, other than the fact I couldn’t stop thinking about it when I sat down to write. I’d just applied lip balm, and I knew that I didn’t want to do it, yet there I was (yet again).

These moments are the weakest I ever feel, apparently powerless to this act that I’m performing myself—to myself; on myself. I’ll add it to the list of things I should speak with a therapist about. Humans are so amazing and so capable (and so capable of change), but I suspect many of us have something like this that holds a strange power over us.

Procrastinating at precisely the wrong time.

Staying up late when you’re exhausted.

Replaying an embarrassing moment.

Doomscrolling when you’re sad.

Picking at your cuticles.

You know you’re not supposed to do it, and yet you do it. You know it will cause you some future pain, and yet here you are. They might not be all-the-time things, they might just be sometimes things, but I suspect that many of us experience this moment of apparent powerlessness.

I’m writing this when I should be doing something else, in fact, and on that note I’ll stop and I’ll start doing the other thing instead. Occasionally your mind will let you choose, even when it doesn’t necessarily want to. I’ll take those moments when I can find them; I’ll take this one right now.