Welcome to the Gathering Pod, the audio version of my weekly gathering room broadcast. I'm Martha Beck.

So today's topic is writing the maelstrom. And I decided to talk about this because someone, well,

actually many people have asked me when, and I am going to write the sequel to my first

non-fiction, my first fiction book, which was called, it was not, I didn't think of it as a novel.

It's called an allegory.

And the title is Diana herself.

And if you haven't read it, it's about a woman and a pig and their adventures.

That's all I'm going to say. But the point is, is actually an allegory. And I'm going to tell you

why I wrote that book or will, at least one of the main reasons I wrote it and why I decided to make it a trilogy.

So I am not a person who goes to psychics. Twice in my life, have I gone to a psychic?

The first one, maybe more, but only two were any good. So maybe I've run into a few along the way.

But the first one I was writing,

Finding Your Own North Star,

which was my first self-help book.

And I hated it.

I hated the book.

I thought it was stupid.

I thought everybody already knew it.

And I was like,

oh, I want to please my editor so much,

but I'm so bad at this.

So I was stalling and procrastinating. and I walked into the office of someone at the TV station where I was working gave me a free session with her psychic.

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