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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?