Equally exciting and terrifying news! My Substack is changing (part one)

Introducing Mappery: Not just for Navigation. I am relaunching my Substack after a bit of a rethink, a re-focus and a redesign.

Well, hello there!

In line with the changing seasons and transitions in my working life, I have some exciting news to share about changes here on this Substack.

I am relaunching my Substack after a bit of a re-focus and redesign.

This is a long read, so I invite you to grab your favourite beverage, get comfy and settle down to read what’s been happening!

Here’s why

When I began writing here on Substack in February 2023, I was writing nonfiction pieces about moodling. Then I got hooked on short 100 word stories and more recently, fictional 100 word stories. It’s miles away from what I used to write on my Everyday Delights WordPress blog and in my Delight Diaries Newsletter.

All of it has been an experiment accompanied by a massive learning curve. In spite of that, it has felt really good to get back into regular writing. But. If I’m honest, I haven’t felt entirely at home with my approach, or the writing.

Maybe because I’m being pulled into too many directions and my reason for being here has not been crystal clear to me. I started this Substack on the spur of the moment for what I thought would be a 100 day project, and its felt kinda in limbo since then. it feels like there is no focus. I have one foot in the slow living community, one in micro fiction and yet another in art and photography. I’m a many-footed person and it feels weird and a bit wobbly!

I’ve spent the last 6 weeks thinking deeply about what would make me feel more centred here on Substack: which has involved doing some navel gazing about my why, where that’s coming from and how it might be important to the world right now. I’ve let myself settle around the 3 core creative pursuits that I cannot live without: writing, mixed media art and photography. Those still felt way too broad, so I’ve drilled down into each to work out where each can support the other in a specific way for my Substack.

Help from the Substack community

Claire Venus’ (Sparkle on Substack) chat with

Sarah Fay

was instrumental in helping me clarify these things. Claire mentioned that it useful to work out what our “vehicle of connection” is - something I want to offer that is accessible to the community (often this is through writing, poetry, art, photography etc) - the heart concept that connects me to the said community. This vehicle is rooted in my life experiences, everything I’ve learned and my growing wisdom.

There has been a lot of poking around in the dark fog of the unknown for much of the 6 weeks whilst I’ve been desperately trying to verbalise it all. I’ve written words, then written more words. Started a fresh page. Written again.

Eventually, just as I was giving up,

Katherine May

shared a prompt that helped me through these multiple iterations: “what am I trying to say?”. I kept at it! And like tiny little jewels hidden in a treasure map, waiting for me to find them, I’ve had more than a few “aha” moments!

Ta da! Here’s the bones of my re-focus

I need to express myself both visually and through words. That, in simple words is “my why”. The visuals are often infused with or accompanied by words that reflect my experience of the real world or of an invented experience of a fantasy world!

Rootling around in my own archives, I realised that I’ve been making maps and writing about maps in one way or another for the last 6 years. For example: I wrote a draft nonfiction book called ‘Midlife without a Map’ in 2018, I did two art challenges in 2021 and 2023 where I created a map every day for 61 days, plus other maps have been popping up elsewhere in my art.

Here’s something I wrote about maps back in ‘Midlife without a Map’ in 2018:

"The magic is in becoming cartographers of our own lives. Just as cartographers commit to constantly updating maps so that they reflect the very latest changes in the world, so we too can commit to updating our maps as we experience and live the process of our lives. We change. The world changes. In this changing world, we need to arrange and rearrange our maps. Our maps need to be updated as we go along".

It’s incredible to think that I’ve been using the idea of maps to both make sense of my life but also to create new worlds in my imagination. And here’s one of the ahas: art maps are my thing, the specific thing that lights me up! Making up stories or writing my life into the maps in another thing.

Hand-made, art maps are my thing - woohoo

Yes, they may be my thing, but as a recovering perfectionist with a harsh inner critic (and I know there are many of us out there), I also want to say that my art supports my life, they aren’t products. Over the last 5 years, I’ve come to understand that being creative is an integral part of my being. A day without art/creativity has not been lived. I don’t mean Art with a capital A, but some kind of creative practice that grounds me, brings small moments of joy and helps me be more aware of the world I live in. I’m entirely self-taught and I don’t have a style. I make maps using what feels good in the moment, often without a fixed idea of where the piece will end up. Not everything turns out “well”, but there are often delightful and wonderous surprises and discoveries. It’s the process of making that feels good. I’m learning to trust this instinctual, open approach.

A heart connection: can art maps be important to the world right now?

My personal experience has led me to believe that maps are for much more than navigating our physical world (on our phones as most of us do these days). Maps are also for navigating our interior emotional and mental landscapes. They can be instrumental in telling our personal stories and a key way to support documenting both our real and imagined stories. I also like to think that they help me to pay more attention to my life and the mental meanderings that go on in my head, and to orient myself in time, place, emotions, knowledge, dreams and habits.

My hand-made art maps and their related stories are my heart connection, the way I want to connect with a community both on and off line. I want to inspire myself and others to tell their stories visually, to create a legacy of visual memoirs for ourselves and our families. To slow down and remember our lives. Oh, and have some fun too. I mustn’t forget to find time for Little Deb (my inner child) to play with art materials!

My invitation to you

I’d really love for you to be part of this brand new community that I am building. I’ve spoken to a number of people about this in real life and have had an enthusiastic response. For now, I’m calling this new space ‘Mappery: Not just for Navigation’; there will be more about names for new spaces which will come in the next letter on Friday. I’ve got loads of ideas for how we can work as a collective on this, which I’ll share in the next letter too.

Let’s just say that the stories I tell, the art maps I share and how the maps fit together will depend on decisions that we make as a collective. I also hope that you may also begin to map your own life as a way to support telling your stories and those of your family and ancestors as we “navigate on the trip that Dante called ‘our life way’” (Stephen S. Hall, in You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination by Katherine Harmon).

This letter is already long enough, so I’ll leave off. Part Two is here and gives you loads more details about the what and how. Until then, leave me a comment. I’d love to know what you think and whether you are as much of a cartophile as I am!!

PS: If you know of other curious cartophiles, then please share this letter with them. I also have a special group subscription price, where each person gets 10% off forever!

Read part two