The Awe-manac & Other Badonsky Antics

Blog Tour Stop #2 The Slacker Method Site.

Jacques from www.slackermethod.com sent these interview questions for the second stop on The Awe-manac Blog Tour: Take a look at his site... there's lots of fun, interesting and practical pieces of wisdom there and today's Awe-manac page is posted there. (It may be up this evening as Jacques is a busy Slacking).

Jacques: Thank you for your time in doing this interview.

1. The first question I want to ask is, who does all the cool artwork on your website?!

Hi Jacques. I do the art work at www.themuseisin.com . My friend, Jeff Kahn, animated the illustration on the front page with Flash. Thanks for calling it cool. The Awe-manac has over 400 of my llustrations in it.

2. Let's address this book you have out in stores, The Awe-manac. Why do we want it, and Where do we get it?
Well, in Slacker terms, this would be a one-stop read for people who want a convenient place to get a dose of daily humor, a creativity prompt, a glimpse of history for the day, a little inspiration, a view of some art that was sometimes done on the fly, and a book heavy enough to press flowers when you're not reading it.

The reports I'm getting from the people who HAVE bought The Awe-manac is that it is a lot of fun and they are having a hard time reading just one page at a time, but don't take my word. There are some great testimonials at www.amazon.com

You can conveniently and inexpensively get The Awe-manac at amazon.com . at most Barnes and Nobles, and other bookstores.

3. As you know, our site is for Slackers, strange creatures with a habit for avoiding labor and clever anti-chore guerrilla tactics. In all seriousness though, if I can do a little bit of educating, I would want everyone to know that Slackers are people who have different priorities. We're intelligent, educated, creative, and we see often-times that solutions can become problematic in themselves. If you had one thing you could educate a Slacker on, what is it that you would say to them?

I would tell you about one of my favorite creativity principles and practices, one that I use frequently with clients, organizations and students called the Lull. I think Slackers would like it because it's all about how important doing nothing is in the creative process. Much to the productive society's dismay, in order to be creative we actually NEED downtime where subconscious connections can take place, where we can fill with what-if's, new data, and material that is processed, associated, collated and sent up to the conscious for those wonderful "aha" moments filled with ideas, solutions and short cuts. Zen, Gertrude, and Virginia agree with me on this one:

“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.” ~Zen Proverb quotes

“It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.” ~Gertrude Stein

“Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth comes to the top.” ~Virginia Woolf

4. Before we finish, tell us more about yourself, what you do, and your business, The Muse Is In.

I am a corporate drop-out (I worked in health care for 17 years). I saw working in the corporate world as problematic for my own Slacker lifestyle so I developed a company called The Muse is IN. I'm the boss and all the employees – our Christmas parties are quiet and low budget and I haven't embarrassed myself at the last two.
I invented and operationalized two trainings –
One that teaches people to facilitate creativity groups based on my first book: The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard): 10 Guides to Creative Inspiration;
and the second where I train people in a 14-week program called Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching to be creativity coaches. KMCC uses a non-linear approach that uses the power of small steps, play, imagination, LULLS, and in-session creative experiences to help anyone wanting to create something in their lives. We specialize in working with resistant people because the model is difficult not to enjoy and is successful in thwarting the frustration of procrastination, perfectionism, overwhelm, self-sabotage, and addictions to reality TV. Your column on actually making New Years resolutions achievable is very much along the lines of what I teach – it seems common sense, but people seem to go for the unrealistic expectation and then beat themselves up afterward.

Thanks for these great questions, Jacques. Your website is now a regular read and I will be practicing some of your Slacker methods today as a matter of fact.

Jill