The truth about creativity is…
It’s not the technical work that’s hard.
It’s the soul-exposing part.
The standing-naked-in-the-town-square part.
The “here’s a piece of my insides, please be gentle” part.

Finishing my book, The Patchwork Girl, took me four years.
Not because I didn’t have the drawings or ideas but because I had to become the person who could stand behind them.
Because the version of me who started wasn’t yet ready to fully share her inner world in colour, image, and shape.

Creativity asked more of me than cleverness.
She asked for blood.
For healing.
For growth.
For silence and spaciousness and sobbing on the floor.
For my own self, raw and real and radiant in her mess.

People think creativity is light.
Sweet.
Whimsical.
And she is sometimes.

But she’s also a beast.

She’ll drag you through your own underworld, then hand you back your heart and say,
Now, offer this.

I didn’t want to finish the book.
It felt safer to talk about it, to share pretty photos and cherry-picked lines.
But deep down, I knew I had to close the loop.

So I set a date.
Told people.
Booked a party.
Used my own integrity as the structure to get me across the finish line.

And last Saturday? We gathered.
We spoke. We shared. We connected.
There were artists, coaches, dancers, tech people, parents, performers — a true patchwork of my life.
And I showed up in full coherence.
Multiple people told me they could feel it — that I was standing in my power.
And I could feel it, too.

I feel different now.
Still tender. Still integrating. Still in awe.
But something landed. Something anchored.
The truth is becoming clearer.

✨
I’d love to hear — what has your creativity asked of you?