If you’ve not read Reached yet, this post contains minor spoilers!

Ally Condie posted a picture of her own “mud bird”, as created by her friend Brook Andreoli:

mudbird2-500x333

On her blog, Allysaid:

I’ll keep this quite spoiler-free, but basically it’s a scene where a girl makes a bird out of some materials (one of those materials is mud, and one is glass). It’s a scene about creation and making something out of what you have.

I’m working on a new mud bird right now. Several of them, actually, and boy, are my hands dirty. And I am certainly getting lots of little cuts as I work with what I have and try to repurpose new things. I’m not just talking about writing projects (though I do have some of those!). Creation can be exhilarating. It can also be painful.