Shelley Moench-Kelly | The Importance of Self Advocacy

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And now your host, Joel Mark Harris.

Joel: Hello and welcome to the publishing for profit podcast. This is your host, Joel Mark Harris. Today we’re interviewing ghostwriter, Shelley Moench-Kelly, who just wrote her memoir called Here’s Your Pill, Kitten! which details her time spent in two nursing homes after she broke her femur. And what goes on in those nursing homes is quite surprising. So we talk a lot about nursing care for the elderly and why it’s important to make sure that you’re your own advocate. We of course also talk about writing, Shelley’s career as a ghostwriter, and how she got into the trade. So without further ado here is Shelley. Thank you so much for being on the show!

Shelley: How are you today? I’m doing well. Thank you so much for having me.

Joel: So I think I want to start at your…you wrote a memoir called Here’s Your Pill, Kitten! I should get that right. Can you tell us a little bit about that and, and why you decided to write it?

Shelley: Yeah, of course. I’m a ghostwriter. That’s what I do. I don’t write my own books. I write books for other people and writing projects for other people. And about two years ago, my husband and I were in Manhattan and in a freak accident, I broke my left femur. I’m an old Gen X-er and I never expected to land in a nursing home for any reason for at least, knock on wood, 20 or 30 more years. I thought to myself when I had the accident, “I can’t…my leg is kind of flopping around and I can’t get up and…what’s happening? And it was around 10:00 in the morning. And, I thought, well, we have dinner reservations at Butter, which is Alex Guarnaschelli’s restaurant in Manhattan and an eight o’clock showing of Kinky Boots.

So I’m thinking in my mind, Okay. I go to the hospital, I’ve travelled. I probably tore all the ligaments in my leg, which is why it’s flopping around the way it is. And, you know, adrenaline sets in and there’s no pain. There’s just kind of burning going. What, why can’t I get up? So I figured we could still make dinner and the show.

And when I landed in the hospital and the ortho team walked in, said, “Well, you’ve broken your femur and you’re not going anywhere for a long time.” And I thought, well, who does that? We were due home the next day, and I had just started a new job two weeks before…and I didn’t really comprehend what that meant.

So I had a four hour-plus surgery and a nine-inch titanium plate and seven pins installed with the directive from my surgeon of no weight bearing for 90 days. “You’re going to be in a nursing home for 90 days away from home, away from your family, and if you put any weight on that foot, it’s the end.

And he didn’t explain what “the end” meant. Does it mean that I’ll just vaporize, is life over? What do you mean?

Joel: Yeah. Typical doctor communication, right?

Shelley: Yeah, yeah! And he assumed that. I mean, we’re originally from, from L.A., We live in this tiny shire in Vermont now, and since he only knew Vermont, He assumed that we were uninformed.

And so he was treating us as you would kind of coddle to people who don’t understand surgical terms and, and all of that. So we had to say, “wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We’re from the big city, we’re grownups, you can explain these things to us and we will take you for your word, but don’t insult our intelligence.”

And then he kind of backed off and realized “Oh, OK, they’re one of the more serious patients who get it.” So that’s how I ended up in two different nursing homes. And I was the youngest patient in each of them, and I wrote the book because of the experiences that I witnessed and, kind of endured too. It was really shocking and surprising as well.

Joel: So why a nursing home? That doesn’t seem like your typical place to recoup after surgery?

Shelley: You wouldn’t think so, you know, you…the assumption is (certainly in this country, and some others as well) that a nursing home is for old people and you put them there when they can’t really live independently on their own anymore. But they don’t want to live in a 55 plus-year-old community. Right. They might need some medical help from time to time, but they’ll have their own little apartments and there’s a cafeteria and it’s like a big dormitory. That’s only partially true. So the reason I ended up there was because there was no way my husband could take care of me at home because, when I first got out of surgery, it took three adults to help me from my bed, take one step on my good leg and land in a chair. Hmm, because I was again…”You even touch your toe to the floor and it’s over again, not knowing ‘what’s’ over meant, I didn’t want to tempt fate. I didn’t want to vaporize. No, I did not want to live around a parallel universe somewhere. As a turtle or something.

So, the safest place for me to convalesce and to learn how to walk again because I needed daily physical therapy was, what they call the skilled nursing facility, which was a nursing home. And I was the, I was in two different nursing homes, and the, like I said, the youngest patient in each and most of the patients there were at least 70 to 75 years old and older and many different levels of infirm. You know, they’re the ones who couldn’t care for themselves physically, but were sharp. There were ones who were strong and able bodied but were mentally incapacitated in some way, and then there were the ones who had checked out either because of mental illness or Alzheimer’s other dementia, psychosis, all of, all of those mental, issues that families either cannot or don’t want to deal with.

So they throw their loved ones into a nursing home thinking, Oh, it’s going to be a resort for grandma, you know? And it’s, it’s really not.

Joel: So what do you observe in the nursing homes was that w was that kind of like the, was there a point where you’re like, okay, this needs to be in a book. I need to tell my story. Was it just a combination of several events?

Shelley: It was sparked…and here’s also this explains the name of the book Here’s Your Pill, Kitten!.

Joel:  That was my follow-up question.

Shelley: I was in the hospital for about two weeks post-surgery before a vacancy was found at the closest nursing home to the hospital.

And so during that time, I was kind of in a, not a stupor, but the lights were always low and, I wasn’t sedated per se, but they were giving me pain medication. and, and they would just say, you know, “Here you go, and, and here’s your meal and try to get some sleep because the more you sleep, the more your body will have a chance to heal from the immediate trauma.”

But once I got into the nursing homes, the first one, especially, one of the first nurses that was in charge of my care, because there were, there were. Vitals checks and different checks throughout the day and night of at least 10 to 12 times a day interrupting your day. And I was working full time in both nursing homes at my new job remotely.

So I was constantly having to scream at nurses and say, “Don’t you realize I have a job? Can you just come back later, because every time you come in, I’m interrupted for five or 10 minutes!” Anyway, one of the first nurses there. was from Jamaica that I met and she said, “Oh, darlin, here’s your pill kitten.”

And she’d just bring in the opioids like they were Skittles, you know, “You must be in pain, look at your leg!” and I’m going well, sorry. All of a sudden I’m launching into an Irish accent. That wasn’t it at all. It was pretty, it was pretty gruesome. The scar is like nine inches long and yeah, so they were instructed by their superiors to make sure the patients were comfortable. It’s all they knew, you know? And so that’s, that’s when I first thought, wait a minute, I didn’t know this even happened because in offering those opioids, you are not only sedating a patient. You’re stopping that patient from regular elimination and it literally, they stop you up. So that means less work for the nursing staff.

Because when you consider—and I put these statistics in the book—if you consider there are 150 patients in this one nursing home, and maybe an understaffed group of 20 caregivers spread that out. Even if those 20 people made their rounds in one day, checking on each patient one time, that’s a lot of time.

But then in checking on those patients, there are some patients who can’t make it to the bathroom, some patients that need adult diapers. Let’s face it. If you can’t move, I couldn’t for a while, this is embarrassing to admit, but it’s reality and if you’re not allowed to move, “no toe to the floor,” there’s no way you can get to the bathroom.

And so that was cause for great emotional and mental trauma on my part, I think even more than the accident itself because I’m a strong, able-bodied person, and I can’t even do this for myself and it was, it was humbling and traumatizing and gave me great respect for anybody who lives in one of these facilities longer than I did, you know because you’ve got to either just accept it and realize that, okay, this is what I have to tolerate for the time being, or you’ll go mad.

And, yeah, I’m glad I didn’t do that. But the book started because of the “here’s your pill, kitten, offer and the constant offer. What’s your pain level. Do you want a pill? And. I took opioids for the first 10 days or so, but then I wanted to feel the pain and discomfort, you know, to see if it was normal. And I stuck to pretty much two extra-strength Tylenol after that, but that’s how the book came about.

I thought I can’t believe I’m witnessing what I’m witnessing in terms of the amazing healthcare work that also, made up. The entire constituent of healthcare workers that I would say 99.8% of them were amazing and excellent, and this was their vocation in life. Right? The other fraction of 1% where the Nurse Ratched of the facilities, you know, you think, Oh crap.

She could kill me in my sleep. Right. I look at her the wrong way. I say the wrong thing and she’s got needles and drugs and, you know, an air bubble in a vein and talk about that’s it, that’s it. So, It was a fascinating kind of expose to miss what was going on to witness the challenges that healthcare workers endure from their patients.

Some patients are on so much medication in some, not just opioids, but also, medication for schizophrenia, psychosis, all of these things. And if those, if those, prescriptions are not optimal then you’ll get violent patients, patients that are completely unpredictable, patients with whom the opioids interact with their medication.

And so that’s also very frightening because when you find patients that even if they’re older, are unbalanced because of their medical cocktails. Many of them are very strong and you know, don’t let the frail 80-year-old farmer in a wheelchair fool you because he’ll take you out. It’s true.

Yeah. So, anyway, go ahead.

Joel: I was just going to say, so the nickname, if I can call it that “kitten” was that just something completely random or is there a backstory to that?

Shelley: You know what I suspect the nurse that called me kitten was using it as a term of endearment. You know, like a grandmother would to her granddaughter.

And, she was very motherly toward me, although I would probably was older than she was. She felt akin to me and just all kitten, don’t worry about this and here’s your pill, kitten, that type of thing. So, that struck me because it seemed very sweet and, she was one of the special people for whom this job was her vocation. And so she inspired me to call the book that, which I did.

Joel: So with COVID, I feel like there’s a lot of, exposure to the nursing homes and what’s going on in, in those, yeah, in the, in the nursing homes and. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. For, you know, like you said, kind of some good, some bad, is, you know, does there need to be some sort of in your opinion or your experience, some sort of reform in how nursing homes are run?

Because I, I think that’s, what’s happening a lot in, well, that’s the dialogue in the news right now is. You know, with a lot of the COVID deaths being in nursing homes, you know, I don’t think it’s really any one person’s fault per se. It’s just, you know, I think it’s a systematic problem.

Shelley: I don’t have direct statistics on this, but from the nursing staff that I’ve spoken to, certainly in the two nursing homes I was in…and then as I’ve been writing the book and publishing it and getting to know more people, the consensus has been, and it’s not really surprising when you think about it, that many nursing homes, if not, most of them are run by big corporations and big pharma them it’s “what’s the bottom line?”

You know, you see, especially with the COVID pandemic, that hospitals, nursing facilities, other, fringe, you know, affiliations with hospitals and the medical industry, healthcare industry, don’t have enough of any supplies, whether it’s PPE, beds for people to, to be put in, you know, any facilities, because it all affects the bottom line, you know?

And so in a voting year, it’s important to do your research and vote on everything. Don’t just vote for the president and senators. You know, it’s important that you understand the issues, not just across the board, but especially with healthcare. The entire industry, excuse me, is, guided again by big corporations and big pharma and the FDA.

And, to my finding, it’s less about patient care than it is about the bottom line. So the way the average layperson like me can help is, twofold. Four-fold, in multiple ways that you wouldn’t even think you can start volunteering time or money or care packages for the staff. Right? You can drop off gift cards. You can start a Kickstarter or crowdfunding campaign saying, “Hey, we have this local hospital. We know there are some COVID deaths. We know there are people that are suffering both on the patient side and the healthcare givers side. “Let’s see what we can do to help them.” You know, again, whether it’s gift cards, volunteering of some time buying them, buying the staff, you know, 10 minutes with a misuse, that type of thing.

It may not help immediately the conditions under which they are forced to operate, but it can make their days a little bit better. And I know that sounds kind of Mr. Roger-ish, you know, just, Oh, be nice and everything will be fine, but it’s got to start somewhere. You know, I learned a long time ago, you can complain and whine and catterwall about any topic until you’re blue in the face, but that won’t change it.

You know, and how often do you see on Facebook, Let’s pray for this cause or let’s hope and think good things for that cause, or that person that doesn’t change that person’s plight, whether it’s a person, a movement, a bill, legislation, whatever it is. So it’s great to feel those things and I’m not discounting them at all and the thought behind them, the good intentions. but you have to take proactive action. And additionally, you’ve got to do that as a patient as well. If you end up in a nursing home, don’t just assume that everybody knows how to treat you, ask what the protocols are. If somebody offers you an opioid, ask them why they’re offering it to you.

Is it just because of pain or are they trying to sedate you? You might not get a perfectly honest response. Right. Because some people might fear for their jobs. but it’s important to push back and be proactive for your loved ones. And for yourself, this is what I’ve found anyway.

Joel: No, I think that’s very important advice because often I think we just assume that yeah, they’re going to take care of you or that they.

are going to give you the right treatment because it’s just the right thing to do. And by pushing back and just asking a couple, I think, you know, if you asked us a couple of basic questions, you kind of gauge where they’re coming from and if it’s correct, if it’s the right thing to do to take these drugs or not.

Shelley: And, I mean, I remembering an instance, I wrote about this in the book, where in the first nursing home I was in. again, it was very soon after the surgery and so I was, I was a sitting duck, you know, and there were, this is going to sound bad, but it was factual. I’m too old to not be transparent.

There was…two Sicilian men across the hall that were mobile. And they were roommates and they hated each other. And, my first boyfriend was a Sicilian cop from Boston. So I learned some of the language and I understood what they were saying. And I thought if their fight spills over into my room, how am I going to defend myself?

And the only thing I had was an old school landline phone. I could throw it, but I’m not a good pitcher. I guess I could roll out a bed on top of one of them, but then I could break the other leg. Again, that would be weight bearing and what would happen to me in trying to save my own life? But anyway,

Joel: it sounds like it does sound like something out of the movie where you’re, you’re secretly spying and on this Sicilian, like, I’ve got, of course like mobsters come to mind and I’m sure that wasn’t the case, but, it just seems like a very cinematic moment.

Shelley: in the book, there were many cinematic moments. Very definitely. And in fact, at the second. facility, one of the night nurses, found out that I was a writer very early on and that’s because I’m an insomniac, I think a lot of writers are, I’d be up at all hours of the day and night I’d work my full-time job, and then I do my freelance writing.

Right. When I couldn’t sleep, which was basically every night. And, this one nurse, I heard a hissing at a junior, nursing assistant saying “Shut up. She’s a writer and she hears everything.” And, yeah, because the, the assistant was just complaining about some situation and about some patients and, and the more senior nurse was saying, “You just, you know what, if you want to talk, let’s do it somewhere else.”

And, and yet none of them had inside voices. So it didn’t matter if they were 50 feet away. I could still hear them.

Joel: So I think that’s a perfect segue into how did you get into ghostwriting by complete accident?

Shelley: By complete accident! I started off life. my first career was in accounting and I hated it. I became a CFO by the time I was 32. And by the time I was 35, I thought I can’t do this. For the rest of my life, it’s just too soul killing. And I had too many, CEO’s asking me to cook the books. Oh, wow.

Joel: It sounds like a book in itself.

Shelley: Yeah. That’s another thing. Yeah. And they didn’t care that I would end up in federal prison as long as they had their Porsche next quarter.

But look, not all of them were that way just to anyway. So I left that field and went to work for McGraw-Hill in Los Angeles, who at the time was looking for consultants and business it, personnel or human resources, accounting, marketing, and, to edit its college and high school textbooks on all of these categories.

And that’s how I literally fell into publishing. So I was there for several years and then for 10 years started working at a trade magazine publisher in LA, produced and, printed and distributed, trade magazines for the beauty industry for the, as the Titian and plastic surgery industry, nail polish, hair, color, beauty.

And, I did that for 10 years and in my last five years there, I thought, what is this thing about ghostwriting? But I heard, you know, from one of my writers who is the person that we know in common. And, she said, yeah, I’ve been doing this for a while and it’s pretty fun once you look into it. And so I did, and by the time I left that company five years ago to become a full-time freelancer, I thought, you know, I’ll just take on gigs that seem interesting to me. So at first started as smaller freelance writing gigs, and then I got several ghost writing clients, and I’ve been doing that ever since. Will I be doing this 20 years from now? I don’t know. I’m kind of just trying to roll with it. and that seems to have been, a good tactic for me to follow.

It’s been really enjoyable. It’s very different than accounting and I love it. Yeah. Quite, quite different. Yes, exactly.

Joel: It sounds like you’ve had quite, interesting life. You are originally born in Tokyo, moved to L.A., then New York, and now you’re in Vermont. Why the transition?

Shelley: How the hell did that happen is what you’re saying?

Joel: Pretty much. Yes.

Shelley: From a metropolis, such as LA to a little tiny Hobbit shire of 4,500 people. Well, my parents died 12 and six years ago and, I have no other family that’s close. And, Mike, my husband and I lived in Los Angeles since well, he was born and lived there. He’s a Boomer anyway, not one of the bad ones.

So he’s not one of the ones that’s ruining the world for Millennials and Zoomers, he’s a cool guy anyway. Sorry, just had to get that in there because you know how young ‘uns hate boomers. anyway. Yeah. Sorry. So after my parents died, we thought, well, do we really want to stay in California? No, because there’s a drought.

It’s expensive. We’re spending each two hours plus a day commuting to our desk jobs and we want a better life. So we literally took some darts and threw them, you know, the spinning globe and they landed in New England. And our point in moving here was to have a house that was paid for, which was never going to happen in L.A.

Even if you earn half a million dollars a year, it’s not going to happen. You’re going to end up in some, half million dollar, 1,200 square foot pre-war house in Burbank on a 6,000 square foot lot. And who wants that? Some people do, but not us. So that’s how we ended up in Vermont. And we were before COVID hit planning on moving to New York and that’s been postponed for about a year now…so, we’re not done moving.

Joel: So why New York?

Shelley: Fascinatingly enough or maybe it’s not fascinating to some people when potential clients find out I live in Vermont, they think, Oh, look, it’s Bob Newhart, Bob Newhart’s retired. And he owns a BnB and he writes just on the side for fun.

And that’s what people assume. And no amount of explaining that I do to them is going to completely clear them of that first assumption. You know, they eventually understand, but it’s amazing that potential clients will look at where you’re from and judge you because of it, right or wrong. So that’s, what’s happened here in Vermont.

I can’t handle it anymore and I need a Starbucks. We, we even lost no, the nearest Starbucks is in Burlington, which is two hours away by car. No,  I’m not a hipster, but I do like a good latte from time to time. And there’s nothing.

Joel: Yeah, me too.

Shelley: We love the people and I love the quaintness of the town, but for my career, for my husband’s career, he’s also a writer,

it helps to at least be in the state of New York because people see New York and granted, you’re kind of allowing potential clients to assume that, Oh, you live right in Manhattan and whatever picture of success…They have that goes with that assumption. I’m not going to correct them, but it’s a career move.

And also we’ll be closer to some services. We have one stoplight in town.

Joel: Have you always enjoyed writing? Has that always been something that you’ve been passionate about or is it something that you’ve kind of fell into later in life?

Shelley: It’s…it’s both. The first time I wrote anything was in ninth grade and it was a short story about a Yorkshire terrier, private eye called Lord Morris of Royal Tunbridge Wells. And, my teacher didn’t know what to say, except this is… I don’t know if this is psychotic or you’re brilliant. And I thought, well, I guess I’ll take that as a compliment. She gave me an “A” on it. So I was happy about that. And then, I did no more writing until my last year of college when I took a film class and, we were assigned.to write a screenplay and my screenplay at the time, this is ageing me, but I was in college in the late eighties. And at the time Moonlighting with Cybil Shepherd and Bruce Willis was a big thing. The cars were a big thing. And so my main characters were Rick Okasic and, Cybil Shepherd as a kind of, antiwar heroes that were also, you know, Rick was the bad guy and he was creating a nuclear weapon to blow up the world and it was going to be, you know, it was called I think, the apocalypse of dry, which is the apocalypse volume three and, Anyway, I know I’m really rambling.

So two really bizarre screenplay, short stories are written. I don’t know what is that? Six, seven years apart. And then that’s all I did until I got into my mid-thirties and started working from McGraw Hill, but it’s always been something that’s come quite easy for me. Accounting was not. So, and yet bizarrely, I have been, hired to do some, freelance gigs in the last five years that blend accounting and writing, which I haven’t said no to yet, but I’m getting very close to turning down more of those jobs because I frankly hate numbers and accounting and I don’t ever want to have to deal with it again.

Joel: This is interesting. So why did he go into a career in accounting if you hated it so much?

Shelley: I thought I would like it and I was clearly wrong, but you know what? It seemed very, stable, you know?

Well, you’ll always have work. My dad told me, and I didn’t have any brothers or sisters to use as not use as examples. Right. Of what a great career could be. And, you know, I reached the top of what I could do and, decided, well, okay, I know I can do it. Do I want to do it for the rest of my career? No. So, it’s fine for some people. And my hat’s off to them, but, you know, and, and I know how to balance our chequebook. So there you go. We don’t overdraw bank accounts. That’s about all I remember…don’t ask me what amortized payments are or anything like that. I, I have an idea, but I blocked most of it out.

Joel: So what, what makes up a good ghostwriter?

Shelley: You know, that’s, it’s not just the ability to write. Most people would say you’ve got to go through journalism school, get a degree in journalism or communications or something. I don’t have that. So if you ask me to, to do, to deconstruct a sentence and tell you what the noun is and the verb is, and a gerund and a dangling participle and the present PLU-perfect. Whatever. I don’t know what these things mean. I just know something looks right or looks wrong and I will correct it that way. What do they call that idiot savant? Maybe that I am, I’m an idiot savant, but I know what looks correct. And I know what looks wrong and that’s how I write. So to answer your question, what makes a good ghostwriter?

Not necessarily the degree or the pedigree. Okay. I’ve worked for a firm in the past that, that flaunts it’s New York Times bestselling writers, right. That doesn’t mean they’re good. Right? That could mean the client has a ton of money and paid for that position on the New York Times bestseller list.

Right? How many awful books have you read that have been on the bestseller list? People just assume that because it is, it’s great. So what makes a good writer, in my opinion, a good ghostwriter, are patience good listening skills? the ability to be a hundred percent transparent with your client. And by that, I mean, clients will come to a ghostwriter and I’ve had this happen to me with the assumption that is, Oh, I’m paying you this money to write my book.

It’s going to be a success. And it’s heartbreaking to have to blow them off their pedestals, but it’s what you have to do because the publishing world is very different than it used to be even five and 10 years ago. It used to be that the brass ring was reaching for one of what are called the Big Five publishing houses, right?

Simon and Schuster, Random House, Penguin, and so forth. And to do that, you’d have to have a perfect manuscript presented to an agent at the perfect time when that agent had. The ears of the editors and the publishers at the Big Five. And that’s not so much the case now, you know, there’s hybrid publishing their self-publishing.

And of course the brass ring for all of us would be to have a hardcover bestseller on the New York Times published by, you know, Harcourt Brace or Simon and Schuster or Random House, but that’s not the norm. Okay. In this company that I worked in, excuse me, at any given time, we’d have 120 projects that are open-book projects that are currently, you know, being, written and moving forward.

In the year that I was there, there were not more than five that got published in traditional publishers, you know, brick-and-mortar publishing houses and, of those five, one [made it] to a Big Five publisher. So…and there were many good transcripts, not transcripts, manuscripts, that to my mind, would have been great as a traditionally published manuscripts, but that’s not how the industry works.

Joel: I one of the recent books that you go throughout was Detached: A memoir. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience?

Shelley: That was an amazing experience. Now everybody thinks they have a memoir and that they have a story, and many stories are really meant to just be shared with your family or your spouse because they don’t equate to a compelling book.

Right? In this case, my client had a unique story in that she was the product of an unwed teenage mother who became, who struggled, To maintain a job while raising a baby on her own, the father was not involved and she became, despondent to the point where she started abusing drugs and alcohol and everything and had really destructive relationships.

So my client at four or five years old was accompanying her 21-year-old mother, to Frat parties, parties, you know, party hearty. And she knew at that age that “I don’t like this and I don’t ever want to be this.” So by the time she was 13 years old, she emancipated herself from her mother. And you don’t even hear about that happening today that often, but this was 30-plus years ago.

So for her to have had the forward-looking mentality to say, “this is wrong. I’m not judging it, but I can’t live my life in the same way that my mother is living hers.” Anyway, it was, it really grabbed my heartstrings, and working with the client was amazing. She is not, she was not only an amazing client, but she’s become a very dear friend and a very supportive of my work and has referred me to other clients, even though I haven’t asked for that, all I wanted was for her to be happy. And we had probably the deepest collaboration that I’ve ever had with a ghostwriting client in that you know, her story gripped me so much that, I would wake up often in the middle of the night, just drenched in sweat and weeping, because I had gone to bed the night before thinking, how am I going to write about this one component?

And it would come to me and I’d wake up with the answer, but it also wake up, not just with the answer, but I’d wake up just a wretched hot mess, because it was subconsciously tearing at me. You know, and, it was just the easiest collaboration I’ve ever been a part of, and it was just, it was humbling.

It was…easy and yet emotionally difficult and, something that I would hope other writers would have a chance to experience in their writing careers too because it spoils you, you also always have to keep that in mind, like, “Wow, this was great, but I can never assume that all my other clients are going to be this great.”

There’s always some hitch, you know, But it was a fantastic experience overall. It took about a year and a half from start to finish. And, initially, I was rewriting, excuse me. I was writing half the book and the first half had been written by someone else. And when we finished the second half of the book, the client looked at the first half and said, “We need to start over, because I hate this first half.” So we did, I ended up writing the whole book. but it was, it was definitely a real kismet like experience and, again, very humbling to be drawn so intimately into her life and to be entrusted with her story, you know, and she was writing it not to be, To become the New York Times bestselling, you know, famous author, but in a way as self-therapy and to get the story out there to her own children.

So, you know, she’s been very successful in her life, despite her difficult upbringing and the losses that she suffered and, Her mother is homeless to this day, but apparently wants no part of her current life, and the children know their grandmother, but they also know that, “Okay, it’s never going to be, you know, Aunt Bea from Mayberry. It’s just not going to be, you know, it is what it is, and we love her and she loves us, but she’s not going to be a part of our life. As normal grandparents are,” you know, in the Norman Rockwell Picture…painting…but it was an amazing experience and one that I’ll never forget.

Joel: Can you tell us a little bit about your writing process?

Shelley: I don’t have a writing process, but I’ll try. The first thing I do, if it’s a short thing, I’ll just look at the deadline and go, I need to finish this now. And, because I don’t just go straight. I do take on other gigs to mix it up a little bit. So if there’s web content or, you know, blogging or interview articles, feature articles, that type of thing.

I get started on them right away. And, I guess I’m kind of old school, whether I’m doing book proposals or memoirs or how-to books, whatever I use, a whole school index cards, and I will literally write on them, you know, what I’m thinking of for different chapters and then I’ll build them that way, because I’ve found that, you know, when I first started writing, I, I subscribed to the idea that you have to write every day, you know, and just write stuff down all the time, carry a pad of paper with you. And always, always, always. I found that doing one, my first book, that way, my first ghostwritten book gave me a lot of, stress because, I felt this looming, kind of self-imposed mantra of, I have to write something every day… and that works for some writers, it just doesn’t work for me because then the result is forced. In my opinion. And in my experience, some people do wonderfully with setting goals for themselves to write 2,000 words a day or 500 words a day. I find, I have to piece things together as I’m inspired, because then that makes the process more authentic.

Again, to me, other writers might have different methods. But that’s what I do. I, you know, and the same with it’s the same for short-form, as well as books, I’ve got the coloured index cards out and my Sharpie, eventually I put it in word, but that’s how I started.

Joel: You mentioned that you’re a bit of an insomniac. Do you write late at night?

Shelley: I’ve always been a night owl, but since I became a writer that night owl tendency has turned into complete insomnia and, a normal night is that I’ll go to bed between 1:30 and 3:00 in the morning. And that doesn’t mean that I’ve been writing all day, but I do find my most, relaxed, mental state to happen when it’s dark outside and it’s quiet.

And whether it’s summer, winter doesn’t matter. I don’t know if it’s a psychic thing or, circadian rhythms, you know, whatever. It seems to work best for me to write very, very late at night.

Joel: Is it worth it to even publish a book with like a Big Five publisher these days? Or do you recommend that most people go the self-publishing route?

Shelley: You know, I’m biased. Let me just start off with that caveat, that disclaimer. I’m biased because I’ve tried both traditional publishing and self-publishing. Now the traditional publishing was. A nightmare. and I have to, again, with a caveat that I didn’t go through with it, because the two agents that I submitted the book to the first one said she loved it.

I submitted her a book proposal of “Here’s your Pill, Kitten! Oh my God. I love this. It could be a film. How soon can you get me the manuscript? So I wrote the entire book in six weeks and I messed up. My shoulder is a full-length book. It’s like 280 pages. Right. And I wrote the whole thing. In six weeks and I got it to her.

I don’t even know if she read it or she just woke up on the wrong side of the bed one day and said, “Hmm, it’s not really what I was thinking.” Sorry. And then the next one, the next literary agent loved it, gave it to her boss and her boss said, well, okay, I don’t know that we can really place this because, and she wouldn’t say this, but I know this was the case you’re not famous.

And the publishers I work with really don’t publish this type of, kind of specific genre, but I love it. And I want to be your friend. I thought, well, that doesn’t do me any good. And so I found out later when I finally pulled the manuscript back from the agent initially, who referred it to her boss, the owner of the agency, I said: I can’t wait anymore on this.

It was something like six months between the time the agent gave it to her boss and the time I followed up to say, Hey, what’s happening. I don’t want to rush you. We’re in COVID. I realized that, but, if you’re not going to do anything with this, I need to pull it in self publish it because, from what I found, traditional publishing still kind of remains again, the brass ring, the goal that every writer wants on their resume, but it’s generally not realistic.

So. If you look at it from the standpoint of fame and prestige and all of that, if you were, for example, let’s talk politics, right? If you’re Hillary Clinton and you got the greatest tell-all book and the history of politics and you’re with Simon and Schuster and your book is, is her book is scheduled to drop on December 20th.

Right. It’s all ready, the marketing team is out there. They’re kind of pre-sale release things and there’s all this press junket stuff. My book’s dropping on December 20th. If somebody comes out of the blue and writes about something, that’s sexier more trendy. Guess what? Hillary gets pushed to the back of the line.

And that’s Hillary Clinton. Again, I’m not saying this is actually what has happened, but I’m just picking, you know, famous people. That’s the way traditional publishing works. And, with self-publishing, it used to be considered, “Oh, that’s like, if you’re like a loser. And you can’t get the big publishing contract with a big five firm.

That’s not so true anymore. In fact, it’s not true at all. The agent, in fact, with this firm who loved my book said, “Look, I’m glad you’re self-publishing because truth be told, even without the pandemic, if we repped your book, it would get to a publisher, a Big Five publisher, or at least, you know, the second tier under that, but it could take two to three years to even get published.”

I don’t have time for that. I wouldn’t have time for that if I was 20. You know, and so I thought, “Well with self-publishing—and I did it through an independent book publisher in Tennessee who’s also a dear friend and—you know, it costs a couple of thousand of dollars to help, you know, put the book together, do the graphic art, all of that, and do a little bit of marketing and promotion.

To me, it’s worth it because, you know, you’d have to make sure that you maintain content control, which you kind of lose, depending on the contract that you signed with a traditional publisher, which means that they can do whatever they want to your book. Even if they have a day with it, right. That you don’t have control, they can change whatever they want, and then it doesn’t become your book anymore.

Right because they want to tweak something to make sure it sells better in this market niche. So that’s been my experience with traditional publishers, and in fact, I know someone now who’s a famous stylist in the entertainment industry and his book has been with an agent in Manhattan since January of this year with promises that, Oh, that’ll be no problem to help

You know, to, to place with a Big Five publisher, it’s now December and nothing has happened and you could blame part of that on COVID, but you could also blame it on the fact that, again, my experience with traditional publishing and agents is that, agents seek manuscripts that need very little, if any alteration so that they can go, “Oh, look, this is a memoir by Joe Smith, and Random House needs a memoir by a guy named Joe. Oh, well, Oh, I’ll just move this over here. And it’s perfect. Next!” right? They don’t want to have to re-edit your book or, or put in any more time than is necessary to perfect it for the Big Five publisher. So self-publishing has been good for me and I’ve referred other potential clients to my publisher because she does incredible work and.

She had my book out there, so to speak within a month, you know, we had to go back and forth on some graphics and then there was some, I love the graphics by the

Joel:  I’m really amazed.

Shelley: Yeah. I told her what I wanted and she did it, you know, I said, I wanted to have this feel, and she was kind of hesitant about the colors, you know, and she thought I’m just going to go for it.

And, and I love what she did. It’s if I had the programs, I would have done exactly the same thing as she did. but anyway, that’s all part of the whole marketing scheme as well. So I guess what I’m trying to tell writers and potential writers is that. Don’t feel in any way of failure or lacking in talent, if you don’t get picked up by an agent or a traditional publisher, because to me it’s like a paper tiger, you know?

Sure. It’s what everybody wants. But is that really going to benefit you as the writer, as the creative? No, you’re just a pawn, you know, I mean, look at Hollywood. I know I’m getting into, into delicate. Subjects here, but in Hollywood, if you’re not 20 years old, wrinkle-free and a size double zero, you’re nobody.

And think of all the amazing actors and entertainers that don’t fit that mold. Who in spite of it have made successes of their lives. And so it’s the same thing with writing, and I think almost any industry, I’m very much a rebel and just go against it. And you know, you do you and do what you have to do to get your message out there.

…because for the most part, I think people who, who put their hearts in it and who work from a place of love, not fear, will be a success. And whether that starts as a tiny grassroots thing or some big Michael Jackson blowout, Superbowl halftime gala remains to be seen. But you know, it’s just get your work out there in whatever way.

Like I’ve, I’m sold 80 books since October 6th. Is that a ton? No, but it’s what, it’s a book a day. So I feel happy. You know, and if it spreads from there. So be it. Netflix, if you’re listening, I haven’t signed contracts with anyone yet, and I’d love Melissa McCarthy to play me. Just putting that out there,

Joel: Putting out into the universe, right?

Shelley: Exactly.

Joel: I’m going to wrap it up with one last question. And I think this is, this is a tough one and I’m realizing it’s an unfair question, because I ask it to all my guests and that is, do you have a favourite book?

Shelley: I have two favourite books. Can I give you both of them? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. the first is Good Omens by Neil Gaiman.

Joel: Good one. Yeah.

Shelley: It was actually was made into a, a series, with David Tennant and, crime. Any what’s the other guy’s name? Michael Sheen. Yeah, she’s amazing. Amazing. So that’s my very first favourite book. Secondly, is Brideshead Revisited by evil and wall and, surprisingly they both deal with religion, one from a tongue and cheek perspective and the other from a tragic Catholic and atheist perspective, which probably is fodder for another podcast episode, but those are my two favourites. And, I love reading as, as does every writer that I know. And, those are ones that I go back to every couple of years because I find too that as you grow older and gain more perspective and experience with life, the messages that you find in the books you love and even books that are new to you shift and they morph and some things that meant a lot to you at 20 mean nothing to you in your fifties and beyond. And the reverse is true too, but those are my top two favourite books. Well, thank you.

Joel: So for people who want to reach out to you, where can they find you?

Shelley: Oh, two places. my main writer’s website is www.SMKwriter.com.

It’s S like in Shelley, M like in Michael, K as in Kelly. Writer…w R I T E r.com. And the second is the book’s website, and it’s all one word: www.Heresyourpillkitten.com, and on there, readers will find links to Amazon where they can buy both the Kindle version and the paperback version. Please read, leave reviews, and the check is in the mail. And it also lists frequently updated resources for readers to do their due diligence; articles and statistics and, and links to support and organizations so they can do their due diligence for themselves and for their loved ones should they end up in nursing facilities, the questions to ask the experiences by healthcare personnel, you know, here’s how I’m living during COVID. for example, one of the ones I posted, or actually earlier this week was of the nurse in South Dakota, who said, “I have patients that are dying in fury and upset that they don’t have COVID,” you know, I don’t know if you’ve seen the viral video.

And she said, “I told them that, yeah, you have COVID and you’re dying and you should be spending this time. Facetiming or Skyping with your loved ones, not screaming at me because I’m telling you something you don’t want to hear.” And so it’s experiencing such as those that I’m adding to the website to just educate people, you know, what people decide to do on their end once they get that advice is certainly up to them.

But I just mean to educate, I would have loved to be educated before I ended up in a nursing home. You know, it was kind of trial by fire, but if I can just help one person, you know, sure, I’d love my book to be picked up by Simon and Schuster and ended up at Barnes and Noble. You know, hardcover doing book signings and everything, but that’s not the most realistic dream, but it happens.

But if I could help one person or 10 people or even, help people that are already in nursing homes or their families, here’s what you can expect. Here’s what you should ask about. You know, don’t be scared to push back and just get the best care that’s possible for you and your loved ones. That’s all.

Joel: Well, I think Shelley kind of on a separate note here, I think it’s a good thing that you didn’t wait two years because your book is very timely with what’s happening with COVID and what is happening around, nursing care homes.

Shelley: Yeah, thank you for that. I, and one last thing too, my dad passed in a nursing home about 12 years ago and we really lucked out with him.

It was an excellent facility. The nurses were attentive and professional and we didn’t, he was there for three months and he was 91 when he passed and it was very peaceful for him. And he was taken care of like a king, like. We really lucked out. And so that was the only thing I knew about nursing homes.

You’d see reports on 48 hours or 20/20 about, Oh, look at this ex-con, that’s working in this nursing home and he beat up a patient and you think, well, they’re just doing that because this is TV and they right. But then when I experienced it myself, six years later, 12 years later, you know, 10 years later, it was a very, very different experience than what my dad endured and he didn’t have to endure anything other than the discomfort of his disease.

He had Alzheimer’s, but anyway, yeah, they’re very, very different, facilities out there and just do your research and be well and be safe and care about others because, you know, they’re…not all nurses are wealthy and not all of them, you know, drive up and show up for eight hours and go home and just, you know, punch the clock and leave they’re risking their lives and their wellbeing and their family’s lives by taking care of us as patients. And certainly in this pandemic that couldn’t be more truthful.

Joel: Well, Shelley, I think that’s a great place to end it. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for spending the time here with us today and, have a great rest of the day.

Shelley: Thank you so much. You too. I appreciate the opportunity, Joel. Bye for now. Thank you.

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