All I want to do right now is draw bugs.
Nearly everyone who’s talked to me in the last few months has heard me say this, partly because it’s the least-upsetting honest answer I can give to “How’ve you been?”
I’ve been drawing bugs. Every day. Because I am burned out, and writing feels inconceivable. Because I am sick and fogged and often can’t even focus on a TV show. Because it feels like otherwise my entire life is scraping by at my day job, keeping up with laundry and dishes and doctor’s appointments and errands, and lying, inert, out of order, blank and drained.
And because bugs are fun to draw. Because, with the right attitude, it’s impossible to draw a bad worm. Any squiggle is a worm if you want it to be. Slap a half-dozen legs on there and you’ve got yourself a caterpillar. There are no rules, and there’s no way to fail. Most bugs are essentially 1–3 squiggles or shapes and as many little lines as you feel like adding.
My initial low-bar approach was to draw one earthworm per day in highlighter and pen. Once the worms began annexing the margins of my meeting notes and obscuring items on my to-do list, I folded a sheet of printer paper into a tiny worm-zoo zine.
Loved ones started telling me about good worms they’d seen. One day, Tye said, Do you know about velvet worms? and I said, My god, yes. I’d forgotten.
The drawings grew more detailed. I got into a rhythm, which became a habit, and then a lifeline. Drawing bugs offered a creative outlet, a focus, a puzzle, stress relief. Delight. Joy, even.
I drew a muppety David Lynch sandworm in love with the moon, and one of the poor venomous fireworms who had the misfortune of washing up on Texan shores.
As my skills improved and my confidence grew, I branched out to other creatures: a judgmental ant, a hopeful crow. A happy eggplant at the beach. Pom-pom crabs who love Chappell Roan.
Once in a while, despite my “all worms are good worms” ethos, every mark I make on the paper is absolute garbage. This tends to happen in cycles: one, two, three days will pass, the bin filling with sketchbook pages shredded and crumpled or blacked out with permanent marker. But, as a friend reminded me last week, this has nothing to do with the drawings.
You are way too tired right now to enjoy anything, she said. It’s miserable, and unfair, and it sucks. But if you look at those drawings again in a few days, I bet you’ll think they’re fine.
And they always are. Of course they are.
Dear one, if you are tired, please rest. If you hate what you make, set it down, and rest. And if you feel adrift, uninspired, or despondent—
maybe try drawing a worm.
tenderness toward existence days
Note to new subscribers: 1. Hello! 2. This is the part of the newsletter where I offer a curated roundup of tiny, weird, and often confusing holidays you can celebrate over the next few weeks.
For me, every single day in October is ample cause to feel tender toward existence. If you need a few more prompts:
Nautilus Night (9)
Fall Astronomy Day (12)
Treat Yo’Self Day (13)
national lowercase day (14)
National Make a Dog’s Day Day (22)
Pumpkin Day/Howl at the Moon Night (26)
Thanks for reading all the way to the end. I am so, so glad you’re here.
The HOTTOGO crabs giving me life
Yr artwork is so delightful. Still fantasizing about some oracular bug collab with you...