I enjoy watching videos of creative people—throwing pottery on the wheel, blowing molten glass, upcycling thrifted clothing, and…collecting beach detritus. (I realize that last one requires explanation.)
On YouTube, creator “Emily Dubious” visits her mother at a picturesque Scottish fishing village. When the tide rolls out, Emily frolics down to the rocky shoreline with a trusty lidded glass jar, long tweezers, and a “handsome assistant” (her S.O.). She collects the marvelous hidden jewels of the beach: small shards of sea glass, sea pottery, and other water-worn wonders like “a goodly stick.” Emily greets the limpet “coven” clinging to the stone surf wall and then plunks her treasures into the glass jar with a satisfying plink.
Snippet from an Emily Dubious video
Special attention is given to the rarest bits, like glorious shades of pink and turquoise (which she dubs “pank” and “ah-kwah”). There are shards of floral pottery, pieces adorned with letters or even words, and oddly-shaped nubbins. When she departs the beach, her glass jar is full and her knees are moist from the encroaching sea.
But the video that has inspired me today is different from Emily’s usual fare. She welcomed followers into her art studio to share what happens to the jar of goodies after the treasure hunt. She separates bits by color, by shape (there are hearts!), by size and a host of other criteria, filing them into cardboard jewelry boxes that have been skillfully Tetris-ed into thin drawers. What doesn’t find a box home may reside in wee glass jars lining her walls so she can readily locate her favorite oddments. All this comes with a cavest—what began as chaos in a used Bonne Maman jar gets sorted in her own special order, which may then devolve into chaos again as she re-sorts and re-organizes these bits to create jewelry and art.
THAT’S WHEN IT HIT ME! Chaos to order and then back to chaos and around again is THE LIFECYCLE OF CREATIVITY!
Illustration by Nina Victor Crittenden
Think of your current writing project and how it began. Was it just bits and pieces? Small, crumpled Post-It notes dotted around the house and forgotten at the bottom of your tote bag? Containing a working title and a character quirk? A jazzy repetitive refrain that didn’t repeat yet?
Most likely, it grew out of utter chaos, scattered ideas with no obvious common denominator. But, as you began to write, you endeavored to bend those mish-mash tchotkes into some kind of order with a story beginning, middle and end. Proud of the words on the page, you shipped it off to your critique group, only to realize that you needed to tear it apart and wrench it back together again. CHAOS→ORDER→CHAOS.
The process that makes you pull your hair out is actually just sorting chaos into order over and over until it finally makes sense. All those rewrites are a method of organization. We delight in taking something haphazard and molding it into a coherent, recognizable form.
Sculpting chaos into order is how we make sense of our collective human experience and share it with others. That may be why so many creative people feel a real NEED to be creative. I believe, then, that chaos can be a good thing to shake up and inspire us.
When your manuscript feels chaotic, it is not a time to panic, but instead a time to decide how you want to bring order to tbe piece.
Thank you, Emily Dubious! Thanks to Nina Victor Crittenden for the graphic!
My 16th book, PARTY ANIMALS AND THE 100TH DAY, with art by Anna Raff, will release in January 2027 and it’s available for pre-order now. Pre-orders help librarians, booksellers and parents to find the book!
Celebrate the 100th day of school with the Party Animals! When the Party Animals learn that not every day of school is a party, they hatch a plan to have 100 parties leading up to the 100th day of school.
Beatrix, Phoebe, and Theodore can make a party out of ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. But it turns out school is not just one big party. Their solution? Have one party every day until the 100th day of school!
They have a bowling party, a thunder-and-lightning party, and a rock’n’roll party. After ninety-six parties, the Party Animals are tuckered out! Can Horace help them achieve their party dreams and get to 100?
The first book in this series, BUG ON THE RUG, developed after a bout of writer’s block, a self-inflicted writing challenge, and a late-night phone call with my little brother, whom I call BUG. The second book, BEAR AT THE FAIR, flowed easily after a family trip to the nearby annual county fair. Truthfully, I never planned to write more stories in this animal world. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I’ve found chasing ideas counterintuitive to the creative process. Instead, I have to sort of allow things to form organically. If it comes, it comes, and if not. Well then, there you go. But life, as it often does, had other plans.
Both BUG and BEAR were drafted before the pandemic and released after its peak. During those years, I often struggled with inspiration. Finding a silver lining when things are tough isn’t always easy and it’s something I thought about a lot. While I was stuck in the muck of my bubble at home, I spent many hours scrolling online. Then one day, I happened upon a beautiful image of a family traveling in their camper van…and then another picture…and another. I watched online as others explored the world with little more than a vehicle and roadmap, and I found it to be such a freeing idea. I especially loved the thought of traveling with friends, except my inner child turned the mental imagery into a van full of animals with a feathered duck at the wheel! Turns out, it was an image I just couldn’t let go of.
Sophia Gholz is a children’s book author, music lover, magic seeker, and avid reader. She enjoys writing fiction with humor and heart. When writing nonfiction, she pulls on her love of science and her strong family background in ecology. Previously, Sophia worked as an advertising copywriter and made a career managing visual artists in New York City. Sophia is the author of The Boy Who Grew a Forest, a NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book and Florida State Book Award gold medalist. This is Your World: The Story of Bob Ross, Bug on the Rug, ARLO and more. When she’s not writing from her home base in Florida, you can find Sophia reading, visiting schools or exploring the great outdoors with her family. For more, visit 
Susan Batori is a Hungarian illustrator, graphic designer and a character design addict. She studied graphic design at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary. As an art director at DDB Advertising Agency, Susan designed many print ads, websites, posters, and packages. That’s how she discovered drawing hilarious characters was much more fun. She also loves creating new digital textures, reading, watching great movies, drinking coffee, walking in a forest or pampering herself with a good salted caramel ice cream. Since 2012, Susan has been working as a freelance children’s book illustrator. For more, visit 
Ammi-Joan Paquette represents a wide range of children’s and young adult authors and illustrators, and a select list of authors writing for adults. Her clients’ books include New York Times and USA Today bestsellers, winners and finalists for the National Book Award, the Carnegie medal, the Kirkus Prize, the LA Times Book Award, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Printz Award, the Pura Belpre Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, the Walter Award, Ireland’s Great Reads Award, and many more. She represented Jeanne Ryan’s NYT bestselling YA novel Nerve, which was made into a major motion picture starring Emma Roberts and Dave Franco; and Michelle Ray’s Falling for Hamlet, which was made into the TV series “The Royals,” starring Elizabeth Hurley.
Sean McCarthy founded his own full-service literary agency in 2013 after working at Overlook Press and Sheldon Fogelman Agency, and represents authors and illustrators across all age ranges in children’s publishing. His clients include Hyewon Yum, Heather Ayris Burnell, Dana Wulfekotte, Ariel Bernstein, Margaret Chiu Greanias, and Junghwa Park, among others. Sean graduated from Macalester College with a degree in English-Creative Writing, and is grateful that he no longer has to spend his winters in Minnesota. He currently lives in Westchester County with his wife and two pet rabbits (who aren’t much help when it comes to reading manuscripts, though they are excellent at shredding them).
Stephen Fraser has been a literary agent with The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency for 21 years, after working for more than twenty-five years at seven major publishers including HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Scholastic. His clients have won the Newbery Honor, both the Edgar and PEN awards, and received multiple starred reviews.
Kathleen represents NYT bestselling and award-winning authors for picture books, chapter books, middle grade, YA, and adult novels. When it comes to novels, Kathleen loves both contemporary and fantasy as well as the spooky and unexpected. She loves multi-generational stories, matrilineal magic, and is always happy to see high-concept contemporary romance. She also enjoys darker suspenseful reads and loves atmospheric settings that feel like a character.
Ginger Harris-Dontzin, with her business partner Liza Fleissig, opened the Liza Royce Associates (LRA) in early 2011. A cross-platform company providing development and strategic career management for clients in all media, their goal is to represent clients in every stage of their careers, from the most established to those honing their craft. Both former partners in NYC based litigation law firms, Liza and Ginger bring a combined 50 years of negotiating experience to the field. This background, along with connections rooted in film, television, and publishing, allow them to focus and build on a referral-based clientele, providing bespoke services on a multi-dimensional level.
I love the quality of quiet found in nature. I must have thought and spoken those very words a thousand times, over the years, without every stopping to notice the story possibilities nestled inside of them. But then, a couple of years ago, I finally did. On that day, I started digging, and that meant asking questions.
New York Times bestselling author 
Johanna Peyton is a proudly neurodivergent author who writes with playfulness and poignancy. She holds a BBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurial Management and an MPH in Health Promotion and Behavioral Science. When she isn’t writing, Johanna works as a literacy and dyslexia advocate with local nonprofits. She lives in Austin, TX, with her husband, their three kids, and their dog, cat, horse, and bees! To learn more about Johanna and her work, visit 
Alexandra Hinrichs is the Children’s Book Editor at 
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 