One Small Thing: C L Taylor

This is Bear. He was 'born' in the first week of Lockdown. He sits on my mantelpiece, resting against a pot I made last year.

As a child there wasn't a Christmas or birthday when my presents didn't include a Beatrix Potter plaster of Paris kit, twine and beads for macrame or a variety of scratchboards with golden animals hidden beneath the matt black sheets. As a teen I'd stay late in the art room to finish making a ceramic mouse or a pot with a frog perched on the edge. At university I wrote terrible poetry on the walls of my room after one too many pints of snakebite and black. In my twenties I drew with a pencil on sheets of A4 that I'd stolen from work because I was too skint to buy art supplies. In my thirties I started knitting, a skill my grandmother taught me when I was ten. I made dolls and animals for my friend's babies. I joined a life drawing class and a ceramic sculpture workshop. Then I started a novel, writing every evening after work and almost every weekend. It consumed me and I didn't have the time, or the energy, for anything else. 

I continued to write when I fell pregnant in my late thirties but I didn't craft. I'd always imagined that I'd knit clothes and cross-stitch nursery decorations for my child but everything I started was abandoned. What little energy I had went on writing, the day job, and growing my son. When he turned two I ditched the job. It felt risky, but something had to give.

It's now been nearly six years since writing became my full time job and, although I still love what I do, the act of creation has become loaded. What I write pays my bills. I can't switch genres just because I feel like writing something different. I have freedom, but that freedom is constrained. A few years ago I decided that I needed to do something creative that wouldn't be judged or edited, reviewed or sold. I wanted to make something, to learn, to play, to have fun. So I signed up for a pottery class. I made pots and dishes, coasters and tiles and I'd lose myself in smoothing, shaping, scraping and scratching. I brought home my creations and arranged them in my house; something I'd made, just for me. I haven't stopped crafting since. I've weaved baskets, stabbed felt birds, cross-stitched skulls, knitted scarves, crocheted robots and painted watercolours of dogs. Crafting doesn't just give me joy, it brings me peace.

Bear was born in the first week of Lockdown when I put down my phone and my fear and my anxiety and, instead, I picked up my scissors, felt and thread. 

C L Taylor's latest novel Strangers was published 2nd April 2020 and is available at her favourite independent book store, Max Minerva's. If you order a hardback from them Cally will send out a signed bookplate, notecard and bookmark to you. Her books are also available at Amazon and Waterstones. You can find out more about her work here.

‘This masterfully woven story comes together in a thrilling and unexpected climax. I could not put it down.’
Fiona Cummins

‘Her best yet. Expertly woven and so pacy my heart was banging at the end!’
Holly Seddon

‘This is REALLY good. Read it in a day.’
Jane Fallon

‘Stayed up to finish Strangers, unable to put it down. It’s her best one yet. A joy to read, full of living, breathing characters, a compelling plot, humour and a killer twist. Very very highly recommended.’
Mark Edwards

‘Brilliant characters and a jaw-dropping denouement. I swear I hardly breathed for the last 100 pages. This one is going to be HUGE in 2020.’
Claire Allan