Photo by Earl Wilcox on Unsplash

Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round

Without a pause, without a sound:

So spins the flying world away!

This clay, well mixed with marl and sand,

Follows the motion of my hand;

For some must follow, and some command,

Though all are made of clay!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Many moons ago, when I was an undergraduate student, I took a ceramics course. Our professor invited a guest speaker, a potter in residence. The artist explained her mentor’s unique approach for developing her talent. He told her that during her first year, she would throw a pot every day, but never fire anything. She would throw a ball of clay on the center of her potters wheel and press and stretch it into a pot, learning to play with proportions, to balance curves against collapse, to pull up clay into delicate but even walls. Then she would have to crush it back into a ball and throw it into a bucket of workable clay.

The artist explained that her mentored wanted her to know that she could do it, that she could form raw clay into a beautiful work of art, over and over again. He wanted her to let go of the precious attachment that sometimes develops between an artist and their art. He wanted her to have faith in herself, not faith in the pot. In his opinion, the proof of great artistry was not in the product but in the consistent ability to produce. It was a story that had a profound effect on me. It would also be a story that would shape my writing process.

I view words like clay. They begin in a mass, formless and without meaning, and with just the right amount of pressure, we can manipulate them into beautiful vessels that can hold memories and imagination. We can shape words into records of the past or images of the future. The best wordsmiths speak the truth even as they write fiction. They have the magic of manifesting reality out of nothingness.

The story of the resident artist taught me an important lesson about my work. I learned to step back from my writing and see it as a product. It released me from my emotional attachment to my work. Nothing was too precious to be criticized, revised, or thrown back into the bucket. The next day, I would get up and write again.

This blog is like that potters wheel. Each time I sit down to write, I am refining my technique, shaping paragraphs into vessels that hold ideas. I am not here to become a social influencer. I am here to throw pots in a studio full of other artists. If you are a professional or aspiring writer or artist, I invite you to join the conversation. Drop a link to your blog in the comments below. I would love to see what your up to.