I wanted to share what I’ve been up to creatively over the last month. Partly as an insight into my creative process, and partly as a place to store all the random thoughts that rattle around in my brain before some of them get lost under the sofa.
I’ve been thinking about…
Love
I wrote about love this month - about the difference between love and passion, and the gap between fantasy and reality. But since then, I’ve been wondering how to celebrate the deeper, but maybe less dramatic and exciting, kind of love in fiction. How to explore the magic of the mundane every day in a relationship. If I get anywhere with that, I’ll let you know!
I also turned one of my daughter’s quotes (if you follow me on Notes, you’ll know that my five-year-old is quite the mindset guru) into an artwork:
Rage
Possibly connected - because no one has the power to anger you like someone you love - I’ve become fascinated by rage. Anger is something you come to know in a whole new way during motherhood, and it can be quite scary, because you find yourself feeling deep rage towards the small beings that you love more than anything in the world, and that you are desperate to protect. I spent some time on a breathwork course specifically focused on anger, which I found really helpful to get in touch with my anger and begin to understand and process it.
Another time where rage consumes you in new and frightening ways is menopause, and that’s a freight train that’s bearing down on me right now. In
’s wonderful book Hagitude, she talks about righteous rage - about how, as we enter this time of intense feeling that menopause brings, we can lay claim to an emotion that, as women, has often been denied to us. We’re told not to be angry, we must be nice, pleasant, amenable. But, now that there’s nowhere to hide, now that our anger can no longer be contained, we can harness and channel a rage that is actually both warranted and potentially virtuous, even sacred. I had the privilege to ask Dr Blackie, at Alnwick Story Fest, more about his, about how you can channel this anger, and how you know the difference between righteous rage and just being pissed off because your kids won’t put their shoes on when you’ve asked them 16 times. She said that simply sitting with anger, allowing it and accepting it, can often be a big step for women who haven’t before had permission to be angry. You might not know, in the moment, where that anger will take you, but, if you sit with it and get curious about it, then it has the transformative potential of an alchemical fire. When you allow that fire to strip you down to the bone, to burn everything else away, you are left with the core, the very essence, of who you are. Powerful stuff. I plan to write more about that soon!I’ve also been wrestling with a story about revenge. I have a character who is consumed with a desire to destroy a man who devastated her life, and she will do it even if it destroys her in the process. But I can’t figure out what she’s going to do. Suggestions welcome!
A potential rebrand
Regular subscribers will already be aware, and will have an idea of where I’m going with it, but I’ve been considering rebranding my Substack. The original idea was for the name “I Am Happy” to be a bit tongue-in-cheek - my name means “happy” in Italian, yet I’ve always struggled with my mental health. But I’m not sure the joke came across, and I’ve been wondering if there’s another identity that better expresses what I’m trying to do here. So, when I get brave enough, you’ll see some changes around here very soon…
I’ve been working on…
Building my own creative oracle deck
I put the first of these posts out a couple of weeks ago, and there’s another one coming next week. I’m building a deck of oracle-cards-meet-creative-prompts. The idea being to allow us to find prompts for work in our creative practice that will connect with what our soul needs to discover and express in that moment. It’s a work in progress:
Knitting a jumper
I love knitting, but usually I’m making things for my kids or as gifts for other people. For the first time in ages, I’m making something for me!! As you can see, I’m a way away from the full jumper yet, but I love this wool!
Submissions
I have a few deadlines to work towards over the next few weeks, including a submission to
- a new initiative that I’m really excited about, because it showcases the creative work of neurodivergent people, and is curated by the incredible .Taking lots of photos
As always. As usual, they mostly feature the sea, but we did get inland a bit this month as part of our UK road trip through Yorkshire, Northumberland, Edinburgh, and Derbyshire.
Creative wins
Book news
My first book, The Inclusion Journey, which I co-authored with my utterly brilliant business partner
(she’s on Substack!! Check out !), is going to be published an entire MONTH early! Our publication date has been moved forward from 3rd September to 3rd August. This is, according to our wonderful development editor at our publisher, Kogan Page, because we have got everything submitted in such a timely fashion. They do not know that this is nothing short of a miracle for both of us. We are, as we explain to the people we work with, highly deadline motivated people. Which essentially means, if you ask either of us to do something, we will start it the day before you need it. So how this has happened, I have no idea, but you can now preorder your practical guide to developing, implementing and measuring an inclusion strategy for your organisation ready for dispatch on 3rd August!Potential book news
I’ve spent most of my spare time this month working on a book proposal, and, before it’s even finished, thanks to an agent event hosted by Mslexia, two agents have asked to see it! Eep! Better get it finished quick then…
Newspaper news
I also have two articles coming out in i News this month. One of which follows on from a piece I wrote here about why I gave up on gentle parenting. I was absolutely staggered by the response to this piece - thank you all for your incredibly kind words! - and knowing that there are so many other people feeling a similar way spurred me on to take it to a national publication. Here’s to messy but authentic freehand parenting!
That was my February. How was yours? What creative sparks have you been working on?
I still don't understand how we wrote it early. We've never done anything early!
Congrats on the book news. Love your child's art. And curious to see how things shift around here.