Writing – Helen M. Pugsley

Make Sure People Can Google You

My guy, you’ve just put a piece of yourself, bare, in front of the whole world. People need to be able to find you now. Some of the people want to be your friend, some of the people think you’re cool and want to silently watch your progress, some liked the one book of yours, and wanna see about getting more, some are even small town librarians, trying to invite every author in the state of Wyoming, to an event. *Ehem*

So I’m going to split this post in two. The point of view of someone who works in book world, and the point of view of someone who reads.

We’ll start with book world. I feel like it’s more straightforward. If I can’t find you on Google, I don’t really want to work with you. Simple as that. And I don’t mean that in a snobby way. I mean, I cannot find you to contact you. I don’t have time to rent a mule and trek up to your house. Look, I totally get it if you wanna live that J.D. Salinger life. Just vibe out in your hard to reach cabin in the mountains, and refuse to do interviews with the press. Buuuut you’re not going to get far in your career. These days, the modern author needs to invite the world into their office, make Tik Tok videos, and send thank you notes when the newspaper bothers to even look at you. You do need to be accessible, if you want to stay relevant.

Not only that, but if I’m the one hosting a giant author event, (not my M.O. these days, but you get the gist,) then you need to be able to tell people where to find your books when they get paid again. Are they on Amazon? Only on your website? Your publisher’s website? This proposes a unique challenge to authors who used vanity publishers. The kind of publisher where you buy 1,000 copies of your own book straight from a printing press, and then distribute them as you see fit. That’s a great option if you want to share, say, family recipes, and/or family history! My great grandmother did it with her auto-biography! It’s not going to go great if you want to share a fantasy novel with the world. By the way, if some snob tells you that that’s not “real published” smack them with your paperback. That wasn’t real assault!

Anyway, when you’re not using your books as weapons, where do you keep the mother cache? Can people access it without contacting you first? Some folks feel weird about that. Sincerely, publishing houses shouldn’t be doing the lion’s share of your of your advertising. Whether it’s traditional, self publishing, hybrid. That’s you. They need to do some of the advertising. Especially since with a traditional house, you’re getting, like 20% royalties, best case scenario! But it’s not right for you to lay back and wait for money to come either. It’s a partnership.

So secondly, as a reader: When I find your book in a trade-cache (like a Little Free Library) and it rips out my still beating heart, while I’m tipsy, after dinner, I wanna go nose around in everything else you’ve put out there! And let’s be honest, I will absolutely wine and prime books, especially if I’m still crying from reading the first one you wrote. Take advantage of stupid heads like me! Stupid heads like me want taken advantage of! Now if I have to email you for copies, even if they are free, because that’s what you want to give to the world, Immuna feel weird about it. What if I don’t like your work as much when I’m sober? What if you had a sophomore slump? Now you know where to find me, and you know I probably read your book. Feels weird, fam. Legit, Goodreads is your friend. Stupid heads like me can say “Wait, I’m mildly intoxicated. Maybe I shouldn’t buy thirty-two books of poetry by one human. I’ll just add it to my TBR, and maybe buy one a month.” I use Goodreads to keep me organized while I read. Even if you did use a janky vanity publisher (because most of them kinda suck for promotion) you can add your books, and yourself to Goodreads. I’ve had to do it with books I didn’t write so I can count them towards my 300 books in a year goal.

Anyway, this is me telling you to go get out there! Post some pictures to Instagram, click the toggles and send it to Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr! Tell people about the dumb thing your cat did while he was jealous you were paying more attention to the laptop than him! I.e. Mine made me wear his tail as a mustache. Don’t worry about your social media presence, and hire me to do it for you! Post stupid updates about the book you’re not sure you’re ever going to finish before you freeze to death in one of these spring storms. Show us your wedding photos! People love wedding photos! Find a nice little start-up like Shepherd and put yourself out there even more! Make sure people can Google you!

So to recap: You need to be out there. At least a little. The more you’re out there, the more your books will be out there. The more your books are out there, the more your career will succeed. Go, fight, win!

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I Write Everything by Hand First. Here’s Why:

It’s my birthday. We’re talking about me. I don’t write everything everything by hand. These days it’s mostly just the novels I write by hand first. Also some poetry. Not often much you see on the internet, some of which you can see on Patreon. Let’s not forget ye olde daily journal entry. This blog post isn’t saying you should go to the dollar store and get you a super funk cool notebook. I’m saying, everyone enjoys reading about unknown author’s writing regimen.

It’s the way I was taught in school.
That’s right. I’m that old, and my school was that underfunded, I guess. I was born in the 90’s. I wasn’t allowed to approach a computer, much less it’s word processor, until I had the second draft of a report hammered out. That only changed when I hit high school. By that point in time, my father took our family laptop to work, so I preferred to write my reports, once in a notebook in pencil, then once on college rule, three hole punch, paper, in red ink, in cursive. It was a bear, and it was especially challenging because my hand writing is terrible. I remember there being tears on at least one occasion, because I had to rewrite a report, by hand, because my teacher said he couldn’t read it. He was trying to set me up for survival and success once I left high school. I don’t resent him. I was just frustrated. Anyway, I’ve been writing by hand, since I learned to write. Why stop now?

            It’s free plagiarism protection.
            None of ya’ll can read my hand writing, so you can’t read it over my shoulder when I work in public! Mahaha!!
            …Every now and then one of you surprises me when I post an aesthetic pic from a café, on Insta. Then ya’ll walk up to me like “What happened to the princess once she left the castle?” Like, you were super in to the three sentences you got from translating it from some sort of elvish.

            No one wants to steal a notebook.
            Laptop? Boom. Gone.
            Half used notebook? Can’t give it away, if you tried. It’s right up there with sweaty gym socks… That being said, please don’t steal my notebook just to prove me wrong. I too, am a spiteful creature. Still not cool, George!

People keep buying me really cool notebooks.
All the close homies know I write by hand. So all of them get me journals. Like, I’ve had a problem with “I need to take bullcrap notes, during Stupid Adult Time, where I Have To Learn Things™, and I don’t have a notebook I’m not emotionally attached to…” Like, I would be distraught if I lost one while it was empty, kinda notebooks. They’re also beautiful. Like “Nice journal!” “Thanks, it has pockets!” kinda beautiful, with the gold trim. I’ve remedied this by buying a pot load from the dollar store. Cash me rolling up with a rainbow kitty unicorn notebook, boi!

The notebooks are treasure.

“My wealth and treasures? If you want it, you can have it! Search for it! I left it all at that place!”[1] – Gold Rodger, One Piece (2006)

Like I said, my friends buy me nice notebooks, and I’d be distraught if I lost one. They become even more valuable to me once they’re filled with my literal life’s work. I put them all in a little safe that holds up my dual VCR/DVD player.

They weigh a ton less than my laptop.

Even my heftiest notebook weighs less than my laptop.

Typing it up gives me time to take an unbiased look at it fresh eyes.
By the time I finish off a novel, and start transcribing it from paper, to digital madness, I’ve forgotten what I wrote. Now I get to see it as if it’s the first time. I can look at it like a fresh novel from a stranger, and if it’s trash, I can pop it with the .22 behind the gas shed. Usually I don’t, and just make a note the beginning sucks, and I was bored to tears reading it, thus I need to change it.

By the time I make it back to the end, I forgot how it ends! So if I’m running around my apartment screaming “NO! Zoey and Chloe were meant to be together!” I’m less married to the way I had it, and am willing to change it.

Pen feel good. Paper go scritch.

Dude. We gotta be real. There’s a weird tactile pleasure to this too. I also enjoy the ink stains on my hands when I’m finished.

I can take so many cool aesthetic pictures with my notebooks.

That one where I have them lined out on a fence, that one where I have them on my stairs in my apartment, those pictures of towering stacks of notebooks. Dope, and bangin’. I enjoy doing that, and you enjoy looking at it with your face. Not to mention, here’s the park over the edge of my book, here’s the café, here’s the library, here’s the ocean. All of it. Ya’ll have seen about every cool zoomed in angle of my laptop I can get.

I can see my notebook in the sunlight.

I can write outside and I don’t need an outlet. Nuff said.

It keeps me from taking myself too seriously.

In 2016, when I was writing full time, I got heavily into social media. Suddenly, it was like I had the voices of 1,000 strangers in my ear: “Are your characters diverse enough? Are you including people of color? Are your portrayals of people of color offensive? Are you including gay representation? Do your female characters have lives outside of your male characters? You write YA. Are you putting a child in a problematic situation? Do you really want your character to swear that much? Now, not swearing at all is unrealistic.” It was so much pressure.(Even though that vetting is necessary, just after the first draft!)

When I write in a notebook, I can convince myself no one is going to read it. When I’m ready to pull it out, and make sure my book meets all of those standards, I line it out on ye olde laptop.

Anyway, here’s the question no one asked answered. I hope you enjoyed the ride anyway. By the way, while we’re on the subject, Clive Barker writes all of his manuscripts out by hand, three times, before typing them out. I really hope there’s a handwritten copy of Kry Rising somewhere. My father and I are anxious to see it.

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[1] Once Piece, Gold Rodger. “Opening Narration.” One Piece Wiki, Wikipedia, 2006, https://onepiece.fandom.com/wiki/Opening_Narration#:~:text=Narrator%3A%20Wealth%2C%20fame%2C%20power,entered%20a%20Great%20Pirate%20Era!

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‘My Will Not Thy Will’ Now Available on Patreon

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Writer’s Block? Try My One Sentence Method!

Years ago, one of my buddies approached me and asked “What’s a plausible goal for words written in a day? 1,000? 10,000?” She wanted to write a devotional book. (She blogs instead, check her out.)

“I mean, if that’s what you want. I do one sentence.”

She was like “Whaaaa?”

Yeah, straight out. So far I’ve written at least five books, three of which are published, by forcing myself to write one sentence per day.

And you’re probably thinking, much like my home girl, how in the fresh, Kentucky Fried, Heck did I get by only writing one sentence per day? That’s the real trick. I didn’t. I fooled myself…

You see, one sentence sounds manageable to your addled brain. You can do that on the train on your way home (aaah, glorious public transit. This is America! Buy a car, you bum!), you can do that while cooking dinner instead of trying to watch a pot of water boil, you can do that while pooping. You say “I want to write a thousand words” and you’re like “A thousand is a lot! You ever lose $1,000? So many! You ever gain $1,000 unexpectedly? Also so many… I’m too tired for this junk.” You’re not too tired or too busy for one sentence.

If you saw this Instagram post, well, first of all, here is the promised blog post. Second, you’ll notice that, as I said, I told myself to write one sentence… Then an entire paragraph came tumbling out! Yes, everything in red fell out of my head, and on to the page. That’s what I’m trying to tell you you could have.

If you stop fricking beating yourself up for not being good enough, and not writing 10,000 words like some highfalutin author who’s already made it. The one that makes so much money off of their series, they can afford to live on their writing, writing will be easier for you. That’s not you, and that’s not me either. Let’s stop beating ourselves up for it. Chances are, we’re gunna be broke blue collars for the rest of our lives. Let’s stop thinking like victims, and start thinking like survivors. Let’s make goals we can manage.

I believe in you. I know you were writing in that bunker, in quarantine, in that hospital waiting room. You’ve already been here, and you already know what you need to do. Now you just need to break it down in to manageable pieces. Write one sentence a day.

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Writer’s Block isn’t A Writing Problem

Okay. We’re doing another writer’s block post because it’s happening again! I am full of funny Tik Toks, advertisements, I have energy for editing, I can still make poetry, I’m writing this blog post right now! But the thing of it is, I don’t know where to take the book I’m writing now. Should I just scrap it and start a new one?

I’m currently writing Book 2 of The Tooth Fairy. Krysathia, her boyfreind, and Marlene all share one brain cell in Yuma. Marlene’s house is haunted. There’s a witch somewhere in there, with a massive garden in the desert. The city can’t pin excessive water usage on her. Marlene gets someone special. All these components, a story does not make.

The second is a very rough idea. It’s another Gishlan book. There’s a prince. He is the younger brother of the beautiful princess. Where she is dark and beautiful, he is pale and ugly. Where she’s tall and thin, he’s short and fat. Oh, and she’s 3/4 mermaid, while he’s 3/4 human. Genetics! They’re each going to inherit one half of Gishlan. Because no one ever notices him, he goes around playing super hero (vigilante?) until the little dude gets way over his head. I feel like we don’t have enough awkward boys with chub and stutters in literature. I want to make a human human-merman.

Anyway, I’ve been sitting here like “Huh…” for a few weeks. But you know what? It’s not a writing problem.

If attacking your writer’s block on the page isn’t working for you, try this advice instead: Fix your day to day life! Figure out how to work smarter at your day job! Eat a whole pie at three in the morning! Wear your favorite dress for absolutely no reason! (Yes, even you people’s who be like “BuT i’M a MaN” Go find your favorite dress!) Go to the movies in furs and diamonds like it’s 1940! Fall in love with a lovely mistake with brown eyes. Bring the brown eyed lovely one of those giant roses from Hobby Lobby! Join an underground art club!… Suddenly leave that underground art club because commitment is terrifying! Get a tattoo to prove you’re not afraid of commitment. Go hiking, and take a bunch of pictures for the Insta of Gram so you can look cool. And ope. Look. A book just fell out of you during your potty break.

My solution to writer’s block is to start living life out loud. Honestly, I am just busier than a cat on a hot tin roof, and I’m about to make myself late to work trying to finish this blog post, which is also work. ADIOS, MIS AMIGOS!

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Author Requests Privacy but Fans Aren’t Having It…

Ha! You fell for my click bate! This was a trap to attempt to show you how to set boundaries between your writing career and your personal life. Bamboozled again! I want to show you how to set firm boundaries and keep your private life private. This is something I’ve been asked through the years, and I have two big methods you can apply to various aspects of your life.

Just say “no”. This is what I did at first. Because I’m a mean and scary cowgirl. “I’m a fan of your work. Can I add you on Snapchat?” “No, but thank you.”, “I literally just met you 10 minutes ago. You wanna go cruising tonight?” “No, thank you.” “I wanna see your family’s ranch.” “No.” You can just do that. You can just say “No”. But politely. “Can I meet your kids?”, “Can I have your discarded tissues?”, “Can I read your WIP?” No, no, no.

It’s all about misdirection. Completely different than “No.”, you can just have two of everything. Like, a personal social media account, and a business one. You can easily get a PO Box for about $60/yr so you don’t have to tell everyone where you sleep. I did that because I come from a village of 20, and if someone road tripped, walked into town and said “Where’s Helen?” to one of my neighbors, they’d be like “Oh, she’s up the tree out back. Go on over!” because that’s our culture. Not telling people where I lived cut down on unpleasant confrontations like “Helen, I’ve come to kick you like an old pair of clown shoes.”

“Say when, you scoundrel.”
What’re they gunna do? Wait at my PO Box, in the next town over where I went to school, until I show up?

Anyway, I’ve been doing this more and more. Things like having one social media account for the people who love me and want to know how I’m really doing, and the other I just use to be obnoxious and talk about my career. I don’t really want “I feel like a giant blood blister” to come up when someone Googles me, because I had strong opinions about getting a normal, healthy, period; But I do want all three of my books that are in print to come up instead! The thing I love about this method though, is that it’s helped me stop putting up so many walls between my heart and new friends. We have time to get to know each other, and talk, and actually build a relationship, before we plunge into the depths of my full-lilt crazy… Or you know, garden variety vulnerability.

Anyway, you’re going to have months like “Two of my close friends died, and while I’m grieving I’m also waiting for the other shoe to drop, because Grandma told me death comes in threes, but now I have to go on tour and act like I’m the happiest person alive… Aaand one of my favorite cousins is on hospice.” Not showing your friends you’re struggling is a crime, because you’re isolating yourself, and cheating yourself out of deeper relationships. Particularly the devalued platonic relationships! But no one wants to break apart in public. So. Two accounts.

~*~

Those are my two methods of, well, keeping people at arm’s length. (Totally healthy!) The biggest thing I think you need to watch as an entertainer, is exactly how much information you put out there. I.e. If you don’t want strangers asking about your cousin’s cancer diagnosis, don’t put it out there. You’re allowed to be a private person.

Yes, there will always be some vulnerability in writing and putting your work out there. It’s your baby, and it’s going to have a little of you in it. My friend told me she saw straight through Marlene, and saw me ranting about my situation at the time when I wrote about The Tooth Fairy. There is a margin, where, like it or not, you’re going to be exposed through your work. (Which, I would like to take this time to point out that all of my friends died after I got back from tour in March 2022, thankyaverymuch!) But that doesn’t mean you have to be like “Oh, my YA characters are doing stupid crap I did as a teenager.” In public. You can be cryptic and be like “Yeah, I knew some kids who did stupid crap like that as teenagers.”

Also, not every part of your life is for Instagram. Listen, and listen well, you do not owe anyone an explanation as to how your life. Unless they’re paying your bills. Which is why I specify on Patron that that money gets reinvested back into my career, my fridge, and this website, and on Kofi that I will be spending all funds on rum, unless I’m lying and I waste it on reinvesting in my career. I try to be transparent when people donate money to my cause. But outside of the bill they’re covering for me, I don’t tell them much.

Any who, back to The Gram.

You don’t have to post about where you’re going all dressed up like that. (I think my last dressy selfie was when I was headed to a classy event at my day job.) You can literally just be like “Ayyo, lookit me. I’m hawt!” and people will be like “Rad!” You don’t have to post a pic of you and your besty getting ice cream at 3am, during a heart-to-heart, every time it happens. You can just go do that, and not tell anyone. You can even be hecking cryptic with your posts. For example, I announced I will be letting go of the last semblance of sanity I posses, and posted a picture of my prayer journal, where I suggested to Jesus Christ that He put Josh Groban in my life so we can get married. Am I okay? No. Will I be elaborating further? Absolutely not. Am I at least having fun? You bet your sweet bippy. Bro. If you wanted, you could just post a picture of you gnawing on a different tree every week and make the general public think you’ve finally made good on your promises to fade into the woods and become a crypted. Or, you know. You could just only post about your writing…

As an aside, if you choose to take the cryptic crypted posting route, and you’re fairly active on social media, I firmly suggest you make a private account where your loved ones can see how you’re actually doing. Like, bro. There’s people who actually care about you. Let them in.

One of my bigger concerns is trying to keep my day to day life out of my career. Sometimes employers get touchy about, you know, you asking for strangers on the internet to buy you rum. Before you get called into the office, make sure you can actually laugh, when HR shows you your own post. *Finger guns* This problem could be solved by taking on a pen name, and that way, H.M. Pugsley has no day job. If you choose not to take on a pen name, you don’t exactly have to turn over the name of every literary journal and blog you write for. Stay wild, moon child. Run free through the valleys of the glorious internet.

You’re also allowed to say “I don’t want to work here anymore.” A couple of years ago, I had a job where the management made me so uncomfortable I buried all of my social media, which got in the way of trying to have a viable writing career. I think they were worried about me talking about the semi-legal things they were doing, online, to customers. Which, while I was looking into protections for whistle blowing employees, I wasn’t using social media to draw attention to them. I would’ve gone to the county courthouse, not the county Facebook page. I do highly recommend finding a new job before quitting the one you’d don’t like. However, Covid-19 made the whole situation a wash for me. Before “No one wants to work anymore” was a chant that ran wild through the streets, there were reports online about employers asking their employees for their social media passwords. Like everything else, you’re allowed to say “No. I sell you this part of my time. My personal life is mine.” or to your readership “No. I sell you these stories. My real life is mine.”

Anyway, I know what I’m doing all the time, and I always get it right my first try. Definitely listen to me. There is no way to have your privacy without saying “No” and meaning it. There are gentle ways to redirect people, but at the end, at the bare bones of it, you have to be good at telling people “No”. Figure out which pieces of yourself you’d like to play close to your vest before you put yourself out there. You’re more than allowed to have a private life, but you have to be willing to be firm about it.

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Writing Is Just Show Biz For Shy People

The whole quote from Lee Childs goes “Writing is just show biz for shy people. That’s how I see it.” My man’s is right! Especially when it comes to publicity. Publicity is more like show biz than any other part of writing.

For those of you who don’t know, I have a background in music I never shut up about. (Trumpet playing sopranos rarely do.) In recent years I’ve pulled back from it, severely. I talk about the why in other posts. Unimportant! But I do find it helpful to think of writing, like I do performing. In many ways, they are similar.

First of all, musicians will rehearse, and rehearse, and rehearse, until they can perform in their sleep. I for one associate my trumpet with the taste of blood. That is akin to editing. You, as a writer, need to read your piece over, and over again until it is just so. It also helps to get several other people involved before you show your work to a broader audience. See where I’m going with this? *Wink, wink* *Nudge, nudge* Hire an editor!!! Let your friends beta read! Take criticism! It helps to hear “Helen, you’re a bit bright on the high notes, and you need to open the back of your jaw a little wider.”

Another immortal quote: “If you practice like a fish, you wrestle like a fish.” That was from my 4th grade teacher, Mr. E, and it still rings in my head, even though I can’t remember what E stood for. He was a coach, and he meant “If you let people toss you around the mat like you’re a dead fish in practice, you’re going to get tossed around like a dead fish at tournaments.” I distinctly remember him applying that to our school work. So, the lesson here is: Give practices your all. I like to do silly little writing prompts when I haven’t been writing. I set a timer for five minutes and go ham. I’m bougie, so mine come from a nice book an elder in my community gave to me, to encourage me to keep writing, when I was just a wee lass. Having only five minutes to write with a prompt will also encourage you to quit editing while writing.

Okay, seriously. Did ya’ll see me do that Wyoming Arts Council Funded Tour? Because I will not be doing it again. (Just kidding. I would love the opportunity, but I was using that as an expression.) Look, I need you to understand: I am so shy when I go to practice for praise team at church, I can barely ask which stand I can use. There’s no hiding on stage though. Even when you’re one of six people. There is no hiding when you’re trying to do publicity either! I’d say using the internet for advertising is probably one of my strong points as a published author, but with the time I took off work to do my tour, I learned that most of the people I interact with daily had no idea I wrote. In my defense, at what point in conversation would it have been appropriate to bring it up? *Cue nervous chuckle* Anyway, I also treat book signings like they’re performances. I get dressed up, I pull on a not-steal toed pair of boots, I stop thinking like an introvert and start thinking like a showman. I’ve got cool stuff to show you! The book signings where I also do presentations are particularly like that. I think of it like giving a tour (I grew up in a historic town. I can do tours!), but instead of a real place, I’m showing you Gishlan. Razzle dazzle, baby! (If you’d like to learn more about me and my touring check out chapter 15 of my Kindle Vella series.)

If you want [what little] I have, you have to be willing to hustle. Travel, put your name out there, work with people, keep your finger to the pulse, put your work out there, make yourself available, join some clubs, network, be an active member of your community, and don’t forget your sparkle.

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