Backward but forward.

Itching to create in every direction.

I’m doing this backwards. I intended to send this—my October newsletter—and within it announce my new “Low-Stakes Creating” feature.

But I knew this newsletter would take forever years weeks to write because I’m so slow at my craft. (In fact, back in my Twitter days, I was an active torpid member of a “Turtle Writers” group.) Writing doesn’t come easily to me. It’s laborious. I revise and rewrite and strike out a gazillion thousand (who’s counting?) times to make it sound good.

Meanwhile, my hands are itching to leave the keyboard and get dirty.

My hands want to fold and cut fabric and feed it into my sewing machine. They yearn to paint and draw, hammer and drill. They’re most satisfied when repurposing, restoring, and renewing, a description my writer friend Kathryn Evans so aptly captured.

Lately, the itch has been intense. In part, it’s driven by my recent recovery from a long bout of sciatica over the summer. On October 1, I finally received a cortisone shot in my spine (no fun) and within three days, I felt like a new young-ish woman.

Now, after months of being sedentary, in pain, and depressed, I feel like I can’t create fast enough. I’m even a little obsessed, which is good motivation. Yesterday, I didn’t let myself finish an upcycling t-shirt until I cleaned the house and performed my back exercises (and knee exercises—a story for another day).

So for now, I’m going with it. I’m not going to fight what my soul (and hands) seem to need. If When! writing calls to me again, my craft will be better for the break.

Right now, this 66-year-old (okay, 67 in a week, but who’s counting?) girl just wants to have fun.

Going forward, I’ll be writing less and sharing more photos. Here’s the first low-stakes project I shared earlier this month.

More to come…

Thank you for being here.

Karen

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Book news

I am so grateful for every reader who takes the time to post a review. If you’ve done that, a sincere thank you. If you haven’t yet, would you take a few minutes to add your thoughts? Reviews beget more readers in the Amazon algorithm universe.

Don’t know how to do an Amazon review? No problem, I gotcha! See my simple directions here.

Growth: A Mother, Her Son, and the Brain Tumor They Survived.

Medical gaslighting and a mother’s people-pleasing converge, shattering her expectations of motherhood and threatening the survival of her young son.

Click here for purchase links

Karen is a happily married, slightly frazzled working mother of two when her eight-year-old son, Matthew, develops a strange eye-rolling tic. Gradually, her high-energy kid becomes clumsy and lethargic, her “Little Einstein” a gifted program dropout. Karen knows something is wrong. But she can't get anyone to listen and lacks the backbone to crack the resistance. After three exhausting, desperate years, finally, an MRI reveals the truth: a brain tumor, squishing Matthew's brain into a sliver against his skull. Following a delicate surgery, doctors predict a complete recovery. But the damage from the delayed diagnosis prolongs Matthew's recovery, challenging Karen to grow in ways she never imagined.

A fast-paced page-turner told with candor, insight, and wit, Growth takes you on a rollercoaster of painful truths and hard-won transformations.

Available where books are sold, or see purchase links here. Also available on audiobook wherever you listen to audiobooks!