Today, in this week’s installment of my series dedicated to sharing some things I’ve found that help me to feel a little more comfortable when Im having a Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good Day, I am OVER THE MOON excited to be hosting author Isabel Joely Black, creator of the world of Amnar, who has currently published three books in the Amnar series: “The Execution“, “The Expulsion“, and “The Inheritor“.

I first discovered Joely and her work about two years ago which was great for me, because it was shortly before that that I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. So I DEFINITELY needed as many soothing things I could find, since that diagnosis pretty much turned my entire life upside down and then shook out all the different parts until there was no possible way of putting them back together again.

I feel like anything I could say about these characters and their stories and this world just pales in comparison to the experience of actually reading the books for yourself. But I’ll give it my best shot before I let Joely take over.

The first thing that is so captivating about this series is the world of Amnar itself. Before she focused all her energies on fiction writing, Joely earned a Ph.D. in geography. So Amnar itself is a character, with continents and civilization and history and cultures and races of people, drawn with just the right amount of detail to make it exceptionally vivid for the reader, without it being overwhelming or tedious (Tom Clancy and Robert Jordan, I’m looking at you).

The second thing I like so much about the series is how the characters are portrayed. They’re very realistic as human beings. I think it’s safe to say that there are some people who are truly evil in these stories. And there are definitely heroes and heroines. But they are believable in those roles because they are just like us-some virtues, some flaws, some knowing exactly what to do, some big mistakes. So, at least for me, it makes it easier for me to believe that I can be brave, virtuous, contributing to the world, too, because they are just like me. Or maybe I am just like them. I definitely know I can (and frequently do) do boneheaded things,but reading about these characters reminds me to remember that, oh yeah, I do a lot of good things too.

So, without any further ado, let me turn things over Joely.

1.Welcome, Joely. I’m so, so excited that you’re here. And I’m so glad I get to pump you for some more information about Amnar, as well as let all my readers know how great the Amnar books are. So for my first question I was wondering-how would you introduce a new reader to the world of Amnar?

You know, I was telling somebody last night that I really struggle with this bit. I don’t have a good “elevator speech” for Amnar worked out, and I fumble around with words whenever somebody asks me. Where do I start with a world I’m so engrossed in, that’s so huge and complex? I think ideally, they would go away and read Amnar: The Inheritor first, and discover it without me actually saying anything, because I think that’s the best way. They wouldn’t have any preconceptions and could allow it to speak for itself.

Usually, that’s not possible, because Amnar isn’t something people just come across unless they know me first. I usually do the traditional pitch thing, where you relate the story to authors already popular in the genre. It has the political complexity of a lot of China Mieville’s work, although not his writing style, and much of the spiritual interest and the fascination with physics and the power of consciousness of Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials series. It’s also got many of the aspects of Ursula le Guin’s sociological perspectives, and the social structure is so different it’s probably a bit like Iain M Banks’s Culture novels.

Or, I could say it’s about a girl – a young woman – working out who she is and whether she agrees with the horrific things she sees going on around her. She makes a choice to take action and save a life, and finds herself swept up in a complex story of destiny, fate and politics. Oh yes, and there are occasionally dragons.

2. You write about some very heavy topics in your current web serial (in addition to being available on Amazon, “The Expulsion” is also being release as a web serial on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays)-rape, torture, despots, persecution and oppression of a marginalized people, etc. What kind of a toll does that take on you? Are there things you do that help balance that out, or help you recover from the time you spend in the dark places?

It can be horrible, I’ll be honest. It’s been hard enough reading about it, especially when I’ve studied experiences from people who lived in China during the Cultural Revolution, or survived the death camps or Stalinism. Writing it is something else altogether, because I’m there being the characters, going through what they’re going through, and I really hurt for them.

Writing much of it has been very tough indeed, and I get very tired after it. When I get through something very tough, like writing scenes with Nenja in them, or the fight scenes, I’ll have to go out for a walk to clear my head. It doesn’t have to be very far, but I really have to get away from the computer when I’ve done something like that, to get back into the real world. Whatever I do, there has to be some moving around.

3.Are you still learning about the Amnar world as you go along, or is it all already mapped out in your head?

I think the whole publishing side of it has been the frustrating part, because that’s made me feel bad toward Amnar itself, and at times I’ve wished I never thought it up. If I talk about Amnar, people inevitably want to know why I’m publishing it this way instead of that, and it’s very tiring having to go through the whole thirteen-year thing with everybody new. I could just not talk about it, but because it’s a big part of my life, it’s not as though I can pretend it’s not there. I’ve been held up by being ill for two years with a long history of difficulties, and it annoys me when that gets in the way of being able to write.

7.Is there a question you would LIKE to be asked about Amnar or your work that no one ever asks, or something you would like to talk about that never comes up in any interviews?

Today, in this week’s installment of my series dedicated to sharing some things I’ve found that help me to feel a little more comfortable when I”m having a Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good Day, I am REALLY excited to be hosting Lynne Morrell, EFT Practitioner and Personal Life Coach.

Lynne might already be familiar to you, as I have worked with her for almost 7 years now as my coach/mentor/energy worker/older sister/the one who busts me when I slip into being “a lying sack of shit”/person who gives me a good kick in the ass when I need it/and very, very dear friend, and have mentioned her approximately 8 billion times here on this blog.

Besides being incredibly, amazingly awesome at her job, wonderfully irreverent, and deeply compassionate, Lynne has also been dealing with a chronic illness for the past few years. So when I tell her that I feel like I’ve been dragged over asphalt, and then run over by a truck all night and that the pain is so bad that I expect flames to burst from my skin at any moment, she actually understands, all the way down to her bones, EXACTLY HOW I FEEL. There are no words that can express what a gift that is.

She has also helped me deal with the mental and emotional consequences of living with chronic pain and illness, and to shift the thoughts and stories I’ve been telling myself into new thoughts and stories that are more supportive and gentle.

For example, one of the things she reminds me of (even though it makes me want to punch her in the face when she says it :P) whenever I’m in a place like I just described is, “This is what having a chronic illness looks like.”

She also talks about how things like LOA, Abraham-Hicks, all that kind of stuff really can’t even be in the same conversation with me when I’m really sick. Instead, she talks about bridging the little gaps that are available to me at that time with question like, “What would make you feel a little bit more comfortable right now?  and, “What would feel just a little bit more soothing and gentle?”

And one of the most helpful things I’ve learned from her is the fact that  “Healing looks like a lot of different things.”

She wrote a fantastic post on this subject, and that is what I’d like to share as today’s Little Bit Of Soothing. I hope it helps things feel just a little bit gentler and softer as it has for me.

Healing Looks Like Many Things!

I am back from our fabulous vacation. My fella and I went to Carmel for a beautiful wedding and visited with many old friends. Then we cruised on up the road and stopped to play on our favorite beaches. We had a great time. The most amazing part of all of this, besides seeing old friends and being by the ocean, was that I was out of pain. No pain. None. Nada. All gone!!!

I was able to sit, walk, twirl, cartwheel, be in the sun, be in the heat, pick up luggage, put luggage down…oh my…the list goes on and on…it was fantastic.

*Note to self: Send surgeon a bouquet of flowers and my first born son as a thank you!

I am in awe that this nightmare is over. 5 years of pain. 5 YEARS!!!!! All gone…in a blink of an eye. Well, not really a blink of an eye….if so, that was a L-O-N-G blink!

But, I must say here…that I am one of the lucky ones…not everyone gets out of pain. How come me? and not all of the other folks I know and work with that have chronic pain? I don’t have the answer to that…all I can say is that healing looks like many things.

During my journey…healing took on many forms. During that 5 years, healing did not look like “no symptoms”. Just the opposite. Healing looked like many symptoms. Healing looked like despair. Healing looked like fear. Healing looked like hope. Healing looked like peace. Healing looked like watching a hellava lotta decorating shows. Healing looked like watching a ton of movies. Healing looked like tears and laughter.

It was resistance and it was being in the flow.

It was everything and nothing.

Healing takes on many forms.

It can be a very bumpy ride.

I am not just talking about healing physical blips. I am also talking about emotional wounds and traumas. Our lives are not linear and neither is our healing. So, where ever you are on this journey called life, I want to give you permission to find peace with where you are right now. This is not the same as staying where you are in your life. It is more about releasing the resistance to where you are….peace and resistance can’t live in the same place. If you have some peace…you have released some resistance. If you have much peace…you have released much resistance.

Once resistance has been softened, there is more room for your body and your heart to do what it does best.

What does it do best?

Heal!

And remember….healing looks like many things.

(Copyright 2008, Lynne Morrell)

Today, in this week’s installment of my series dedicated to sharing some things I’ve found that help me to feel a little more comfortable when I”m having a Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good Day, I am REALLY excited to be hosting Cairene MacDonald of Third Hand Works.

Specifically, I asked her to talk about her program, “Bite The Candy“, which has helped me FINALLY make progress on whatever icky, blech things that are currently on my To Do list, things on which I am absolutely no progress whatsoever on my own. Welcome, Cairene!

1. You know I am a raving fan of Bite the Candy ever since I signed up for my first one last year, and now I just want to be a Bite the Candy Missionary so that everyone can receive the help and support that I have with those extra-sticky projects.

Can you tell us where the idea came from, and explain the metaphor behind the title?

The idea for Bite the Candy came from an event that was hosted by a virtual assistance organization in which I was a member way back when I first became self-employed. It was called the “If I Only Had an Hour” Game and its basic structure was much the same as BTC. It sounded like a ton of fun, and people got great results, but I never got around to participating because it lasted for five hours. On Friday afternoon. Not my idea of a great transition into the weekend.

After I shifted from support services to teaching, I wanted to offer a way to help people learn to work through their procrastination and complete tasks they’ve put off. Inspired by what I imagined the Game to be like, and other superb examples like Jen Hofmann’s Office Spa Days, Bite the Candy was born.

Except it wasn’t called Bite the Candy back then. It was called Get in Gear Fridays.

lesson-learned #1: Three hours on a Friday morning isn’t any better than five hours on a Friday afternoon.

lesson-learned #2: It’s not about getting yourself in gear.

Besides the timing being off, the name sounded much too naggy – like your mom asking you for the umpteenth time to clean your room.

And it didn’t at all describe what I discovered to be the key to finishing the sorts of odious chores that tend to drop to the bottom of our to-do lists.

I noticed what makes doing these sorts of tasks so difficult is not the work itself – these jobs are often quite straightforward – it’s coping with the excessive chatter of one’s Hurried-Worried Mind Hamster while trying to do that work.

The longer I’ve put something off, the more stories my hamster has to distract me with. There are layers and layers and layers of stories: my excuses for not doing it in the first place, guilt about not having done it long ago, and so forth. Yet at the center remains the inherent goodness of doing the thing.

That reminded me of tootsie pops.

And we all know there are two ways to eat a tootsie pop: you can slowly lick your way to the center or you can just bite the candy and enjoy it now.

It turns out the key to moving through procrastination is being able to move through your stories. It’s not enough to say “now is the moment” because when you show up to do the thing, all the ick about doing it is there to meet you. But if you know techniques for navigating that resistance, you can set aside those stories and just get the thing done already – without willpower or navel-gazing – and have fun doing it.

2. Do you participate in the sessions too, or just host them? What kinds of things have you worked on during BTC?

As you know, finishing something you’re not thrilled to be doing requires skillful management of your energy. Leading the group also requires energy, but of a contrasting type. So I’ve had to learn over time which sorts of tasks don’t interfere with my ability to create a positive experience for participants.

After a lot of experimentation, I’ve found the best way for me to use sessions is to work on the administration of BTC itself and make sure all the little backend details have been taken care of for future sessions.

If that work is already finished, tasks on my to-do list right now that I’d bring to the party are things like…

• deleting and archiving files on my old computer in prep for moving only what I need to my new computer
• cleaning up my web hosting account and domain registrations
• completing the paperwork for local taxes
• processing the random/non-urgent personal mail that needs a response
• filing the piles of paper that have accumulated in my office

Reducing and organizing paper piles and clearing other forms of clutter are always popular choices. You could work on getting your inbox to zero (or just to less than 100). This is also a great opportunity to document or update your systems.

I award a million points (in a game where the points don’t matter) to anyone who takes on anything involving a financial institution, government agency, insurance company or technological help desk.

It’s also becoming more common for people to bring project work, like updating web copy or writing a chapter of an ebook – not necessarily because they’ve been procrastinating on doing it, but because they want the extra structure and support to complete a challenging task.

Really, there’s no limit to what you can bring to Bite the Candy.

3. I know that another part of your work is helping create systems and organization with clients who you refer to as “right-brained.” What kind of people are you talking about here?

By “right-brained” (which is something of an archaic term – we all use our whole brains – it’s just a handy way to refer to a set of traits), I’m talking about people who generally prefer…

• imagery and words over numbers and lists
• connections and relationships over sorting and ranking
• synergy over compartmentalization
• intuition over logic and analysis
• rhythm and pattern over rote repetition and routine
• flexibility and spontaneity over rigid structures

If you are such a person, most readily available time-management and organizational systems aren’t much help because they are designed for more linear thinkers.

I’m in the business of helping right-brainers discover and develop alternative organizational systems that work the way their brains work – so they can get the important things that need doing done without wasting time and energy trying to be someone they’re not.

4. As everyone knows, there are about a billion “experts” out there who claim to have the latest, one-size-fits-all, magic bullet program to help us with our organizational problems. But unfortunately we also all know how a lot of those programs tend to be bossy and yell-ey and judgmental, and how they actually end up making us feel worse because we blame ourselves when they don’t work for us.

In keeping with the soothing theme, how do you help soothe a client who comes to you from this beaten-up, self-hating place?

It’s heartbreaking to me that people end up feeling like such failures for not being able to work or live in ways that are incompatible with their innate preferences and tendencies.

If you’re in that beaten-up, self-hating place, here’s what I want you to know:

• There are as many valid ways of being and doing as there are people in the world. One-size-fits-all is total BS.

• There isn’t anything about the way you are wired that will prevent you from finding a way of organizing yourself that feels natural and allows you to be successful.

• Making desired changes in your life does not require violence, force or any form of so-called “ass kicking.” You’ll get better results more quickly from lovin’ yourself up as much as you can.

It’s much easier to figure out what actually works for you when you start from a place of self-acceptance – though that isn’t always easy to remember. I have to remind myself all the time that I don’t need change myself, only the way I’m doing things.

5. Are there any new products or special events happening at Third Hand Works that you’d like to tell us about?

Of course, your readers are warmly invited to bring their own extra-sticky projects to BTC and try it for themselves. Bite the Candy sessions are held the last Thursday of each month and you can register here.

Also, from now through June, I’m working in my Incubator to revise and update my library of systems and techniques, including a program with the working title of How to Finish Anything. It explains, well, how to finish anything – from small tasks to big projects, ordinary or extra-sticky. Look for that this summer. Or, if that’s too long a wait, folks can still join the Incubator and get in on the beta goodness until April 8. Details and registration are here.

Cairene loves helping people like you find the right-relationship with the administrative side of their creative businesses.