Latest / No Mess, No Magic / The Writing Lessons Hidden in Hard Seasons
Transcript
- Monica Hay: Hello and welcome to the No Mess No Magic podcast with Monica Hay, a podcast for writers. Today we have Laurie Puma to talk with us. Welcome, Laurie. Lori Puma: Hey, Monica, did I tell you that I also do dancing during these things? Monica Hay: Love the dancing. It's such a vibe. I mean, yeah, if you're watching on YouTube, hello, the dancing. If you're listening on Spotify, you can go look at YouTube dancing. So Lori Puma helps experienced indie authors write novels that make readers skip bathroom breaks and ignore their smartphones. That is such a good pitch, girl. She invited her career publishing. She started her career publishing scientific papers and spent years helping data. tell stories. Wait, then spent years helping data tell stories. Nice! And now she's a visual story scientist and developmental editor who uses infographics and science to help genre fiction authors write novels that aren't just addictive, but they're unforgettable. I love this bio. That might be my favorite I've seen so far. Lori Puma: stories with data maybe? Monica Hay: So we're going to talk about something I think will really resonate with people, and it's a topic that you brought up, which was your time away from writing is not wasted. you that you took a You had some of surgery. Do you want to tell me or tell the audience a bit about what happened? ⁓ Lori Puma: Yeah, so I didn't just have some kind of surgery, I had brain surgery because I had a brain tumor. And maybe I could start back at the beginning of like, so... Monica Hay: Yeah. Lori Puma: In 2018, I was having these really bizarre visual symptoms. I was hypersensitive to light. I started wearing sunglasses all the time, even indoors. And eventually, I made it to a primary care doctor. And I went from that appointment Monica Hay: Mmm. Lori Puma: to the hospital and a few days later I had an eight hour surgery to remove a tumor. my tumor was not cancerous, it was benign, ⁓ just means not cancerous. ⁓ had an enormous impact on my life, which I would not describe ⁓ benign. So for the first couple of years, ⁓ could do about 30 minutes of activity a day, ⁓ that means any activity. Conversations, ⁓ ⁓ Monica Hay: Yeah. Wow. Lori Puma: Prepping food, going to the doctor, doing any of the physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, all of the things. All of that was 30 minutes a day, and if I went over that budget, my words broke down and I would have a really hard time getting sentences out. It was very intense. Monica Hay: Mmm. Yeah. Lori Puma: And just for years, I attended no parties, I celebrated no holidays. ⁓ I was pretty isolated because I just really didn't have the capacity to participate in regular life. ⁓ Now we're eight years later and really about a year ago, like things through. Monica Hay: Right. eight years. Lori Puma: 8 years. So I have lot to share about this topic because I spent some time away from... Monica Hay: can't believe it's been eight years since 2018. I'm sorry, I'm shook right now. What time of year was the surgery and when it all happened? Okay. Yeah. Wow. okay. So you had, how long were you unable, I mean, you had these 30 minutes. So how long did that last that you had about 30 minutes of an activity? Lori Puma: Yes. It was in August. Yeah, beginning of August. ⁓ Well, every year, like, I would increase a little bit, so now I can do, like, somewhere in the neighborhood of six to eight hours worth of stuff. So, like, you know, stretch that out over time. And it wasn't exactly linear, but, you know. Monica Hay: Yeah. For sure. Lori Puma: close enough for our purposes. But that wasn't the only thing that was happening. My life was also really chaotic. I ended up needing to move seven times in those first seven years. So, and for about a year, I thought I was going to need a second brain surgery. ⁓ Which, like, ⁓ my gosh, like that was Monica Hay: Mmm. Lori Puma: So after my first one, my prognosis for my life was really good. But if I needed a second one, that was not going to be very good, to the point where I wrote a will and I talked with my friends who I wanted to execute that will. Monica Hay: Yeah, I'm curious. So you were a writer before this all happened. Lori Puma: So I was in the first group of people that got certified in the Story Grid method, so I was primarily an editor. So that happened 11 months before my diagnosis. Monica Hay: Bye ⁓ goodness. Lori Puma: I've told stories and had communication-based roles for several decades, but I hadn't written fiction since I was a child. But I discovered Sean Coyne, was doing this method of editing with spreadsheets, and I was like... I could really rock that, given my background. so, you know, that's how I kind of got into it. I was, before I got my diagnosis, I was working on a historical fantasy. But ⁓ yeah, that's something that we can kind of explore more, because I had to give up that project, because it was too much. But now I write fiction as well. Monica Hay: Yeah. Okay, so I'm, yeah, I'm very curious. There's so many things to chat about here. And I think, okay, where do I start? I think my first question is how did your life change from before and after with the surgery? with your creative work, you know, before you had. surgery and then how has it shifted since? Lori Puma: Yeah, I mean, so I can kind of give you a couple of examples. So one was the, you know, I was writing. I was preparing and kind of in the planning and plotting phase of a historical fantasy novel set in 18th century France, and specifically Paris and Versailles. I had dozens of handwritten notes and like, you know, I had read like some ridiculous number of books about that period, the process of reading that note made me nauseous because... One of the lasting impacts is that I have this really bizarre visual impairment. I can see and pass all the eye doctor tests with flying colors, but my brain has a really hard time integrating movement. ⁓ And my handwriting is decent, but not good enough for this. The lines were kind of wavy. I have a whole bunch of adaptations about that. Monica Hay: Mm. Lori Puma: that I've done, I now use dictation a little bit as well. that's kind of like ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ mean, ⁓ I can kind of, ⁓ of what all of them have in common is that I used to do everything as like a normal person. And then I had to take this gigantic step back ⁓ kind of do like much, ⁓ much smaller. Monica Hay: Yeah. Lori Puma: things. And I went super micro, I actually took a comedy class on writing one-liners. That was kind how I got back into writing things for the fun of it. And yeah, it was so fun. Monica Hay: I love that Love that. When did you take that? Lori Puma: Probably in year 3 or 4, that would have been... It was during the pandemic, so like 2020, 2021, somewhere in there. Yeah. And even in that class, the instructor would be like, oh, you can do this in 20 minutes. If it's taking you longer, then that's a problem. And I would just laugh. Monica Hay: Nice. Yeah. Lori Puma: It was so hard because I was like, that's really funny because it's going to take me two to three days, but I'm still going to do it. So yeah, it was really fun and I was living in a house with...well, it was a 12-bedroom house, so I had many, many roommates and many people to try my jokes on. It just was really great. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Lori Puma: You know, I had to really limit conversations and this was a way for me to really, really pack a lot of value into those short periods of time. Because making people laugh is really fun and addictive. Monica Hay: love it. So when you think about waste of time, I think a lot of writers who are listening are probably like, ⁓ my god, all that like lost time that I might experience. And this is life, right? Like sometimes we go through periods of like health issues, or we go through periods of extreme change, and we have to have a fucking brain surgery, right? And hopefully not that. Lori Puma: Hopefully not that, hopefully not that. Monica Hay: But I'm really curious, because you say that time away from writing isn't wasted time. And I really wanted to ask you what your experience is on this and why you've come to that decision that it's not wasted time. And I would just love to hear your reflections on that. Lori Puma: Yeah, so I think there's kind of two main things. One is just the clarity that it gives you. I couldn't take on these giant projects and do 12 things at once. I had to be extremely selective. When I did the comedy class, that was the only thing. And it's just that repeated process of seeing what I chose and what was the best. Monica Hay: Yeah. Lori Puma: So writing fiction is about writing characters who are faced with really bad choices. They have really strong constraints on those choices. so knowing what you choose and how that works, because what I thought I might choose is totally different from what I actually chose. I just learned so much about my own self and what brought me joy and what really did it. So that's kind of like one side of it is that, you know, that clarity. Like I now am much better at choosing what projects I commit to because I've just had all this practice. And then I think the other big thing is, ⁓ so I just learned a new term, which is ⁓ dichotomous emotions. So ⁓ I don't, so. Monica Hay: Yeah. Right? Yeah. Mm. Lori Puma: Basically, I live with elementary school children who did not belong to me, they're just my roommates, but one of them was showing me a comic book strip that he wrote and it was like, oh, his character is sad and then he gets a yo-yo and he's happy. Those are simplistic emotions. But as we grow, our emotions are much more of a tangle. Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Lori Puma: we can experience two things that are completely opposite at the same time. I was so appreciative of my roommates who made all these accommodations for me and supported me in just so many different ways, like groceries, rides, money, housing. helping me move, but I was also insanely jealous that they were doing all these normal people things, you know? Like, I was so sad when we would have parties at the house after the pandemic ended and like, I couldn't participate because it was just, there were just too many people that my brain couldn't handle. So it's like, these times when things are really intense makes, it helps you identify, Monica Hay: Yeah. Lori Puma: the complexity, because when it's really intense they're lot easier to identify, and the really great fiction is reflecting the complexity of life. Most stories with growth arcs, start with the like, ⁓ I'm sad, but I got a yo-yo and now I'm happy. The character has this really black and white view of how the world should be and how they're experiencing it, and they often suppress any emotions that they don't think that they should feel. But then when they reach the end of that arc, they're able to hold that nuance and have both of those things together. Monica Hay: Yeah. Lori Puma: kind of made peace with that yourself, I think it's really hard to Monica Hay: Yeah. Lori Puma: This is just an opportunity to become more fluent in that emotional complexity which just makes your stories much richer. Everybody has their own unique little mix of how things are based on what they've experienced. These are a chance to get more practice on that front too. Monica Hay: Yeah. I love it. funny that you mentioned dichotomous emotion. that what the term is? Yeah. Lori Puma: Yeah, I just learned it from a life coach, Amy Green Smith. Highly recommend if you ever need someone like that. She has a podcast. Monica Hay: Love it. I have to look this up now. I'm gonna write a note, Amy Greensmith. Amy Greensmith. So I love that you brought this up because I'm gonna go on a tangent. So I'm very into parts work. Have you heard of parts work? Yes. Lori Puma: Oh yes, I have had all the different kinds of mental health therapy and every other kind therapy that you can imagine given what I have been through. So yes, they call it internal family systems, I believe. Monica Hay: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, IFS. And I love it because, so if anybody's listening and doesn't know what it is, it's this way of kind of holding multiple emotions, right? Like you're, get to, at least the way that my therapist has me do parts work is like you sit and you imagine inviting the parts of you into a room or a cozy space and they sit with each other. And what I love about it, and if you've ever watched the movie Inside Out, that's based on parts work for anybody listening. But what I love about it is that it does allow you to hold multiple emotions, right? Like a lot of us just think of like, I'm sad or I'm depressed or I'm really happy. But like you said, you experienced a lot of versions of human existence in those years and a lot of types of emotions and two things, multiple things to make sure at once. And it sounds like when you went through it, you realize like, ⁓ I can make, this is gonna be one of those things. You went the writer direction and you were like, how can I make this experience make me a better writer, which I love? And you're like, how can I make my trauma good for my character? It's such a writer thing to do. Because you're thinking like, ⁓ I've learned all these things about emotions and I've learned all these things about how emotions feel when I'm going through a hard time. So like, what can I do to make my characters feel more real? ⁓ Lori Puma: Well, I just want to say that I didn't start thinking about, like, oh, this is gonna make me better at writing. What I was really asking myself is, what do I actually have the physical and cognitive capacity to do? And what would bring me joy and help me survive right now? Give me something to look forward to or just help me feel like Monica Hay: Mmm. Lori Puma: I'm a participant in life even if I'm not doing that much. So that was like my priority. This is just the like fruit of that labor. Monica Hay: Yeah. the fruit of the fun brain surgery. I, no, no. So I'm curious, your experience kind of changed your perspective. How do you think that periods of, guess, illness, grief, and burnout has fundamentally changed your life and your experience as a writer? Like it sounds like it has changed things for you, but. Lori Puma: Yes. There is no food. Yeah, I mean, this isn't my only experience with illness. I've hit all of those, illness, grief, and burnout. those are times, you know, like going through those times is just really, really unpleasant. ⁓ But those are the times when your life really switches. And I think that those are Nobody starts a meditation practice or goes to yoga or signs up for restorative justice when their life is going well. We go when we're like, ⁓ my god, my life is falling apart. I need help, I need to do something differently. that's kind of the gift of these times is that they crack us open and make new things possible. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. So when, what were the ways that you got back into your writing after this time? You started a comedy class. Lori Puma: I started very small with one-liners and then after the class ended, I tried writing a couple humor pieces. It turned out that I didn't love that. So I tried it and I was like, this isn't, these aren't my crowd. ⁓ My people are fiction writers. So then I just started kind of moving. I wrote a little flash fiction, I wrote a short story that I sold, which then didn't get published because people producing the anthology... ⁓ I don't know what happened to them, but what I've... Anyways, so I just kind of built up from there, Monica Hay: fair. Lori Puma: as got I kind of got back more into doing... ⁓ So I was ⁓ pretty much the entire time. ⁓ I was just doing it in very, very small increments, like, ⁓ you know, one client at time ⁓ for a ⁓ Monica Hay: Yeah. Lori Puma: And as I got better, I restarted my newsletter and started creating content there. I went on a couple different podcasts and so I started doing that kind of stuff as well. So one other thing that we haven't talked about. pleasure activities that I did during this time was that I listened to audiobooks or I had my iPhone readme ebooks allowed with text to speech and I ended up reading over 1,000 novels. think I'm at like 1,150 or something ridiculous like that now. And I also took notes on a bunch of craft books and that kind of gave me a new perspective on how to do editing and I was like, I should write this down. So I did. And I actually wrote a free book, ⁓ What Fiction Craft Books Left Out, which I just updated recently. ⁓ And I'll make sure that you have a link to it for the show notes. Monica Hay: Mmm. Yes, please. Lori Puma: And that was like, here's what I think craft books are missing, and here's what authors actually struggle with. And I just updated it to be specific to, you know, people who've published a couple books already. Like, what are the... what's missing for you specifically? then ⁓ out of that, like, I also started ⁓ so then I had the gaps, and then I was like, what can I do to fill in these gaps? So I started... I started making things. ⁓ Yeah, and that's kind of where the infographics came from. Monica Hay: Nice. it kind of, there's a lot that shifted in that time. It sounds like when you were healing. And I have to ask you what... What got you through the hard days where you felt like frustrated that you couldn't do what you wanted? Lori Puma: Yeah, I mean I have a really strong group of friends, which is very helpful ⁓ So that was good, but and I mean I certainly did not do this alone like I've also had ⁓ you know ⁓ What do we call that? antidepressants and therapists and just like all kinds like I have accepted every kind of support that one Monica Hay: Yeah. Lori Puma: could have. And there were still days where I was like, ⁓ my god, like, I don't know. And I mean, for the time when I thought that I was going to need a second brain surgery, I was just like, well, what do I mean, the thing that I would always come back to is like, what's important to me? what, what if if I'm at the end? What do I want to have? Like, what would help me leave with no regrets? Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah, and what was the answer to that for you at the time? Lori Puma: So, yeah, I actually asked myself this question when I was in the hospital before I had the surgery. I was like, this is going to be really shitty. For probably a long time. what, you know, how hard do I want to work on, you know, getting back? And like, what is going to like give you meaning? And kind of what I came back to is that I thought that given my very Monica Hay: Yeah. Lori Puma: very unique background, I probably could... well, I felt certain that I could make some kind of contribution to the editing, writing world, know, creating some kind of something. And I was like, I'm gonna do that. I feel like that... like if I could be the Robert McKee of genre fiction, that would be worth doing. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Lori Puma: And I don't know if your audience knows Robert McKee. He's like the OG for storytelling ⁓ classes. His book story came out of a seminar that he did at UCLA for screenwriters. Monica Hay: The OG. Yeah. Is he more, I can't remember, is he more screenwriting based or is it just, okay. Lori Puma: Yeah, he is an actor and his primary thing is teaching screenwriters, but tons of fiction novelists have gone through his programs and workshops and stuff as well. And his book is great. I have reviewed it on one of my, ⁓ I have a blog post about which craft books should you read and which should you skip and ⁓ I'll send you the link to that as well. Monica Hay: Okay, yeah. Got it. Love it. Love it. Interesting. I love a spicy blog post. Yeah. So I'm curious, you mentioned difficult things and difficult seasons can turn you into a writer that no one else can imitate. Can you expand on that a little bit? Lori Puma: I guess. I mean, I think it's just about becoming more yourself, right? So I am not going to try to write things that I might have tried to write before my diagnosis, because I know that those are not a good fit for what I actually enjoy doing. And I think I just meet so many writers who are like, well, I'm nervous about using this experience of my own. And I was just like, dude. That's exactly what you should be using in this story, right? Let's add more, let's bring out. ⁓ I worked on a fantasy novel with a biologist and she had ⁓ a character that needed to have some kind of medical care and they were shapeshifters and stuff and I was just like, so you're a biologist and you know things. like those things to appear on this page, please. Monica Hay: Yes, I love it. think that's, yeah, I wonder why we are, is it because you think people worry it's too niche or people won't get it? Is that kind of what you think tends to happen? Lori Puma: I think a lot of times that is what happens. Especially for women, we've been trained to not be too much, not do too much, not go too far out of the coloring lines and everything. I ⁓ feel like the times when things are really difficult, they make you realize, ⁓ these people. Monica Hay: Yeah. Lori Puma: they are not gonna be the people that are surrounding me at the end, so maybe their opinion, I can like, leave that to the side. Doesn't mean that I still don't enjoy, you know, when people say things that are... It's still not fun to receive critical feedback, but it does give you a little bit more perspective. It's like, okay, well, that is uncomfortable, but... Monica Hay: Yeah. for sure. Lori Puma: it's not facing brain surgery, so, you know, it's not needing some seven times in seven years. It ⁓ kind of gives you that perspective of like, you know, because I also think that especially as we're online a lot, you can get really overwhelmed by all the other people's opinions and just... Monica Hay: Yeah. Lori Puma: Being through a time where other people's opinions just are so irrelevant to you, that it just kind of strengthens that muscle of like, okay, I can do this my own way and trust my own sense of what should do. Not only do you get negative feedback from other people in the community, I had to fire doctors because they were, you know, Monica Hay: Yes, seriously. Lori Puma: I ⁓ had one doctor, who I won't even tell you what, it was a specialist, who told me that I did not have a disability at all. And I was just like, so you clearly have listened to absolutely nothing that I've said in the past several years. Or your definition of disability is like completely unable to do anything and not really honoring that that is... That is only a small fraction of what the disability world is. Most of us who have disabilities are pretty functional. It's just we need some additional accommodations, some creativity on how we do stuff. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yep. Man. ⁓ man, doctors. I've been very lucky with, I've had like pretty amazing doctors, but man, the horror stories I've heard. You know. Lori Puma: Hahaha! Every single person that I know who has any kind of chronic illness has multiple horror stories of interacting with the medical system. Which, I mean, yeah. We don't need to go into that because that could be like a whole other tangent, but just sort of like the takeaway from it is like when you're putting your life in people's hands and they let you down, it's like... Monica Hay: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Lori Puma: It really, it really, it really sucks. It is incredibly painful. And it also is a chance to be like, screw you all, I'm going to do what I feel is right, because clearly I can't, you know, just put blind faith in you because obviously. Monica Hay: sure. Yeah, yeah, man. I'm curious, because we talked a bit about this over email, and I think this could be an interesting conversation, because a lot of people, and maybe you experienced this when you went through surgery. Sometimes people see it as like, like there's no path forward. They're like, ⁓ my God, like they see this like black hole of like time where they're not going to have any time for themselves, or they just like don't see a future. And they almost see it as a creative death rather than seeing it as like, this will be a period where things are going to be tougher and there will be a time when it's not as tough. And I'm curious what the difference for you is with the times that you rested and let yourself rest and actual creative death. And so many writers think, ⁓ if there's like a year where I can't be as productive. then like everything is gonna blow up versus like, that's probably not gonna happen. It's probably fine and you will have more rest now and then you can come back to more creativity in the future. But even you said that you went slowly, you you started showing up for 30 minutes, you went further and further as the years went on. And so how did the rest, I guess my question is how did the rest feel at the time? Lori Puma: Yeah. Monica Hay: and how has your relationship shifted with rest ever since? Lori Puma: Yeah, well, and I just want to acknowledge that fear that things are going to be... they aren't going to be the same. And that fear is totally valid, and ⁓ I still sometimes am like, ⁓ my god, am I going to... I have certainly gone through periods where I've been like, I don't know if this is going to continue, and that's just a normal part of doing any kind of creative thing. Monica Hay: Right. Lori Puma: anywhere, like you have times when it's like, I don't know what's going to happen, like it's, ⁓ you know, it's unknown, it's uncertainty, and I mean, think that's, that living with uncertainty is like one of those things of like, I've had a lot of practice with it, so I still have times when that anxiety kicks up, but also, I've, you know, then... Monica Hay: Yeah. Lori Puma: I do take a step back and do get a little bit of rest and I'm like, oh, but actually I have here before and I have gotten through it and it's sort of like a trust the process kind of thing, which is very easy to say and extremely difficult to do. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, think I've, sometimes I feel like I've gotten better at trusting the process, but not always. Like I think this is a good example. I was in, I don't know if you know this, but I had to apply for my visa renewal. Sorry, I'm moving around all the time. I can't help it. I had to apply for my visa renewal. Lori Puma: Well, I'm actually not looking at you, so you can move as much as you would like. Monica Hay: ⁓ I applied back in November and it was like six months of not knowing what the heck was going on. There was so much uncertainty. It's obviously not the same as a surgery. It was like a different type of uncertainty of like, I allowed to live here starting in June? know, like there's this like uncertainty of being an immigrant. It's just a strange time. And I wish I could tell you I handled it like a champ. I wish I could be like. Lori Puma: Yeah. Monica Hay: I handled the uncertainty with so much braveness, courage and bricks, all that. No, I did not. There were a lot of very stressful nights and I got very addicted to sleeping pills. And should I say that on the internet? Whatever. ⁓ My visa is renewed now and I'm allowed to stay here for another five years and I get to be a permanent resident or even a citizen in five years, which is exciting. But I think it's very... ⁓ Lori Puma: Hahaha! Monica Hay: Uncertainty is one of those things where like, I wish there was an easy answer. Lori Puma: Yeah, there just really isn't an easy answer for it. And I mean, kind of going back to your question about the difference between rest and creative death, it's like, the rest, when you rest, you feel recharged. When you are experiencing, you know, Monica Hay: really isn't. Mmm. Lori Puma: some kind of creative death and usually the anxiety about the uncertainty that you were feeling before, it continues. It doesn't really shift. rest, rest is... So a lack of sleep is one of the things that leads to a spike in anxiety. So getting rest is one of the number one ways to bring it down a bit. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, I think on the conversation of rest, I find it very interesting because a lot of people don't know how to rest. I don't even know if I necessarily know how to rest very well. And I think a lot of it has to do with our cultural discussions of what rest are. think in the US especially, I don't know necessarily as much where I live in the Netherlands is as much of a problem here because we actually have work-life balance and rights and shit. But I think in the US especially, the culture isn't, you're not really permitted depending on your work. ⁓ Lori Puma: Yeah, you're supposed to, know, workaholism is rewarded and, you know, raised up is this like beacon of like, this is what you should aspire to, which is not I've I've I Yeah, so like I was doing it was really easy to do the rest ⁓ in the first several years because like my brain would literally would be like Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Lori Puma: Peace out, we're done! I can't do this, I'd start making mistakes, the sentences wouldn't come. And now that I'm doing more and I have multiple projects happening at the same time, I'm kind of struggling with what does rest look like for me now? Because I do want to do more things, and I still need more rest than most people do. Monica Hay: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Lori Puma: Yeah, it's not something that you ever figure out and then it's perfect for the rest of your life. It's just a constant thing that you're in conversation with. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah, I love that reframe. think in the last few years, I've learned that my rest, well, okay, I think all of us have experienced that day where we're like, I'm tired and I wanna go scroll on my phone. you know, especially, okay, I have trained my Instagram real algorithm to very funny. Okay, so like, I'm not gonna lie, a little real scroll for me can be recharging, because it's fucking hilarious, because I have so much funny shit that comes up. And I love comedy. suck at my own comedy. I could not get in front of the stage and be funny ever. I... ⁓ Let me rephrase that. I have no interest in getting in front of the stage and being funny, but I love watching it. But I think something that I've learned about rest is that I legitimately have to learn to... Lori Puma: You know that that is a learnable skill. Thank you. Monica Hay: And I think everybody needs to learn this lesson, especially in 2026, year of our fucking Lord 2026, to not have something like constant input, right? I think this conversation is happening on social media, ironically, because that's the input. ⁓ But, you know, scrolling is not rest. Like looking at your phone is not rest. Like rest is like, I mean, reading a book could be rest. Meditation. Like sleeping, obviously. sleep, naps, I sleep so much. I'm a sleep queen. Taking walks, like things that the nervous system actually find restful. And that's not necessarily scrolling usually. What did you find restful when you a girl? Lori Puma: Naps? Naps. Yes. Well, I had really strict parameters on what Rest looked like, so Rest was laying down ⁓ with my eyes closed and listening to music. And for the first couple of years even, listening to an audiobook was a little bit too much, so I think I listened... I kind of had goals of like, okay, I'm gonna listen to music for three hours and then, you know, whatever. Monica Hay: Mmm, yeah. Lori Puma: extra time I will ⁓ devote to audiobooks. Monica Hay: Yeah, I love that. What kind of music? Lori Puma: ⁓ so... I'm very nervous about this. But, ⁓ yeah, so I really love James Brown and, like, 1970s, like, funk soul, so I have, like, the musical tastes of, a, ⁓ you know, boomer, black grandma. Monica Hay: I love it. No, I love this. Look, I love everybody's music taste. People are always afraid to tell me what they listen to. Especially if somebody listens to Top 40 and they're like, ⁓ my God, I'm such a basic bitch. I'm like, be a basic bitch. Fuck yeah. Love it. Love yourself. Lori Puma: Although I do, like, I really do love Bruno Mars and yeah, like there are some newer people that I'm just like, oh yeah, I'm down with that. Monica Hay: Yeah, I listen to Mumford and Sons constantly. That's like the only thing I listen to. Which is like, and I'm not, okay, they're a Christian band technically and I'm like the least Christian person. I'm not religious. But like, their shit slaps. It slaps, okay? Like, they're just such good music. It's just such good music. Okay, I'll stop. I'm going down a rabbit hole again. Lori Puma: Alright! Monica Hay: Okay, I am curious, did you find that there were any cognitive benefits for you of actually having to rest when you started writing again? Well, when I think about when you were writing before and then the cognitive benefits, you say that you learned kind of what you actually wanted and you realized this is what I actually want to write and not the other stuff. ⁓ Were there other cognitive benefits that were surprising at all after the surgery and after you started? Lori Puma: Yeah, of course! Yes. Yeah, I mean, there's times where I'm writing things now, then I'm kind of like, oh, this girl, I'd pay money for her stuff. know? Which didn't really happen to me before then, because I just felt like I was always on this edge where I was exerting all this effort to do everything, and now I just don't have that effort to give as often. Monica Hay: But. Mmm. Lori Puma: I do still ⁓ push through things and sometimes it comes back to bite me. ⁓ But there's times when I kind of just ⁓ let things ⁓ actually I another story that I could tell you about ⁓ this kind writing related about how... ⁓ So ⁓ ⁓ diagnosis, went to in-person writing groups. ⁓ And ⁓ the surgery that was... ⁓ Monica Hay: Yeah, you couldn't. Lori Puma: That was not gonna be a thing! I couldn't even do the virtual groups for the longest time. ⁓ I could do one-on-one conversations, because I also have trouble ⁓ tracking when there's multiple things happening. If there's music playing in the background and a conversation, my brain is like, this is very... You're asking a lot of us! We can only do this for so long! ⁓ But over time, as I improved, I did... ⁓ go back and start doing like shut up and do you do your people know shut up and write Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I started doing like really small ones, you know, just like a couple of people, know, less than five or fewer people showing up and that I still would ⁓ I That was still hard for quite a long time and I just kind of let myself stay there until it was easier and then my favorite group Monica Hay: Yeah, shut up and write. Yeah. Lori Puma: ended and the person that led it was like, well there's this other group that's really big ⁓ that is around the same time that is highly recommended. So I tried that group and it's one that meets every day of the year, 365 days of the year, and several dozen people come every single day. And the first time I tried it, was like, I had a really hard time with my check-in and my check-out because my brain was just like, weird. this is way too much. ⁓ But I did not, and I didn't continue with that group. I went back to doing those smaller ones until, you know, another, a few months later, I tried it again and I could do it. It was still like harder, but I could do it. And ⁓ I didn't do it every day, but I kept kind of going back to it. Cause it was at like the perfect time for my life. Monica Hay: Okay. Lori Puma: And ⁓ over time, I started making friends in their chat and it definitely got easier. And actually in the past couple of months, ⁓ I started hosting social, I started hosting a spin-off group where we just talked to each other. And I did not plan that. Like that would just... Monica Hay: love it. Lori Puma: like unfolded, because I mean, you know, I'm seeing like several dozen people repeatedly, and like they're doing all this cool stuff. And I'm like, I want to know these people and make them my friends. And it turned out that a bunch of them also had the same idea. And so yeah, like about a dozen people have come to both of the ones that I've hosted and the people, I get all these messages from people that missed it that are like, Monica Hay: Okay. Lori Puma: I'm so sad I missed it! You know, please tell me when the next one is going to be! So, ⁓ You know. Monica Hay: Yeah, well it sounds like you kind of pushed yourself to do it and you're really grateful that you did that. Lori Puma: Yeah, yeah, and I don't think we talked about... So there's kind of the... So all of my stories have like the same process ⁓ in common, ⁓ you know, and I don't think I told you... So when I started out as a dancer, like I did partner dancing, like salsa and swing and Argentine tango, and ⁓ when I was, you know, as I improved the... dancers behind me who were just starting out, they would ask me, like, how do I get better? And I came up with a name to describe this, this thing, and I call it the Valley of Suck. Right? It's like, you have to be willing to go through those times when it is really uncomfortable. Like those times when I showed up and like, I couldn't get my words out. And actually I met you ⁓ and joined ⁓ the... Monica Hay: Yes. Lori Puma: mastermind around this time, so if you remember me, you can probably vouch for how messy I was, I rambled and I didn't... I just really struggled to say things succinctly. Monica Hay: Yes. I do not remember you rambling or struggling to say anything succinctly at all. I don't think, it's so funny because people will be like, oh, I did so bad at that. And I'm like, did you? I didn't notice. I would like to ask as a final question, ⁓ what would you want ⁓ writers or writers who might be in a similar place to when you had surgery, what would you want them to hear right now? Lori Puma: Well, just that the time when you're not drafting is not wasted. It is vital and you don't know yet what it is going to make possible for you in the future. Monica Hay: I love that. I love that. That is the perfect note to end on. So where do people find you, Lori? You have a lot of cool shit. Lori Puma: Thank you, yes. So yeah, you can find me at loripuma.com. And I typically do my one-on-ones with experienced indie authors. So if you're working on your first novel, you can just bookmark me for later. And yeah, if you are working, if you're a couple of books in and you want to... Monica Hay: you Lori Puma: move from something that's really solid into something that is ready to create readers who rearrange their schedules around your release dates, ⁓ we should talk and you should take the quiz on the free quiz on my site which is the breakout novel x-ray. Monica Hay: love it. That's such a good name, man. Well, thank you so much, Lori. This has been really cool. I did not know all this about you, so it was a really cool conversation for me as well. Lori Puma: Yes, yeah, mean, it's like one of the things that I had to learn about, you know, just like my life is really, I can't encapsulate it in like a, you know, short paragraph, right? I have lived like, this is one memoir and we didn't even talk about my experience. I also dated someone who died of a terminal illness. So I'm like, Monica Hay: Yeah. Hmm. Lori Puma: I have at least two memoirs worth of material and I can't tell everybody all about it all at the same time. have to be selective and that was such a hard lesson to learn. Monica Hay: Fair, fair. Well now I wanna ask you all the questions about that, but I will. Good. You could always do this again. Yeah, man. Thank you all for listening and yeah, go check out Lori. And thank you for giving us all your hard earned wisdom. Lori Puma: Well, we can always do this again some other time, my friend. Yeah, well thank you for listening. I mean, it's always really empowering to talk about your personal experience, even if it's also like, ⁓ my god, I'm talking about myself again, what will people think of me, right? But then it's like, yeah, I'm talking about myself, and both things are true at the same time. Monica Hay: Both things are true at the same time. Love it. Mic drop, mic drop.