Latest / Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori / 38. Interview with Memoir Author, Dr. Phyllis Heintz

Transcript

38. Interview with Memoir Author, Dr. Phyllis Heintz · Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori

• 0:07
  Welcome to Show.
• 0:07
  Don't Tell Writing with me, Suzy Vadori, where I teach you the tried and true secrets to writing fiction nonfiction that are gonna wow your readers broken down step by step.
• 0:18
  We're gonna explore writing techniques.
• 0:21
  I'm gonna show you a glimpse behind the scenes of successful writers' careers that you wouldn't have access to otherwise.
• 0:27
  And I'm also gonna coach writers live on their pages so that you can learn and transform your own storytelling.
• 0:33
  Whether you are just starting out, you're drafting your first book, you're editing, or you're currently rewriting that book, or maybe even your 10th book, this show's gonna help you unlock the writing skills that you didn't even know you needed, but you definitely do.
• 0:48
  I'm so looking forward to helping you get your amazing ideas from your mind onto your pages in an exciting way for both you and your readers, so that you can achieve your wildest writing dreams, and you're gonna also have some fun doing it.
• 1:02
  Let's dive in.
• 1:04
  What can I say about my guest today?
• 1:06
  Phyllis Heintz, her new book just released in March of 2025.
• 1:11
  It's called Bedside Nurses Miracles and Medical Breakthroughs.
• 1:16
  I invited Phyllis on the show because her story is absolutely extraordinary.
• 1:21
  She has a long career spanning five decades in nursing and medical, and starting as a candy striper in 1969.
• 1:32
  Working at the bedside and then working her way up, getting her PhD, working in nursing administration and administrations in in hospitals, and then teaching at California State University at Bakersfield.
• 1:45
  She has seen this profession absolutely transform in a way that has earned her the nickname of the Forest Gump of Medical Breakthroughs.
• 1:54
  It's like she was there for everything that happened based in Seattle and then later California.
• 2:00
  And her story is absolutely incredible.
• 2:03
  She always knew that she wanted to tell it, and yet.
• 2:06
  As she was writing her memoir, she's a PhD and has written before and written academic papers and very strong writer, and yet learning to write a memoir.
• 2:15
  There was a lot of things that she had to learn and she doesn't shy away from sharing with us today on the show.
• 2:22
  She.
• 2:22
  What the ups and downs of that journey have been.
• 2:25
  I invite you to take a listen.
• 2:27
  She is an absolute joy.
• 2:29
  I met her about four or five years ago now.
• 2:32
  When she was first on this journey.
• 2:34
  She took some courses from me and then we kind of worked on it off and on together as she tried to figure out how to tell this really epic tale and which pieces she wanted to share with the world, and she finally figured it out.
• 2:50
  And she was able to publish this book.
• 2:53
  She chose to independently publish it.
• 2:56
  She went with Amazon assisted self-publishing, which I absolutely love.
• 3:00
  For her, it's the right choice because she is so ambitious and so capable, and her story is just beginning.
• 3:07
  She is a sought after speaker for many, many audiences, but specifically for the nursing profession as it is evolving and.
• 3:16
  She wants to share and make sure that those lessons are not lost.
• 3:21
  Take a listen.
• 3:22
  Welcome Phyllis.
• 3:25
  Thank you, Susie.
• 3:26
  It's nice to be here.
• 3:27
  Oh, we're here to talk about your new book that just came out.
• 3:32
  Memoir.
• 3:32
  I can't wait to talk about it.
• 3:34
  I haven't got all the skinny, so this is gonna be the first time that I've heard a lot of this.
• 3:39
  But yeah, your book Bedside, which is Nurses Miracles and Medical Breakthroughs, excited to talk about it.
• 3:45
  Thank you.
• 3:46
  So tell us a little bit about the call to write this book, because when I first met you a few years ago, you'd already been working on it a bit.
• 3:55
  What did it feel like when you were like, oh my gosh, I think I need to write this memoir.
• 4:01
  What did, what happened, and what did that feel like?
• 4:04
  Well, nursing is such a wonderful profession and it's hard sometimes to have longevity in the profession because it's also probably one of the hardest because you're right there for life and death and.
• 4:16
  And I spent a fair amount of my career bouncing around.
• 4:21
  Basically, it's, it's what I put in my description of the book.
• 4:25
  It's like the playfulness of all the places you'll go with the serendipity of medical history with Forrest Gump.
• 4:34
  So, you know, I get, I'd get, I'd get, so I worked critical care for a while and then I worked in dialysis and then I missed critical care.
• 4:40
  So I went back and critical care is.
• 4:43
  For me it was very emotionally difficult, you know, because you really are with people at, at those very difficult times.
• 4:51
  Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot, but it wear, it wore on me, so I would doubt that's back and forth.
• 4:57
  So really, my resumes, many pages long because I would go, I spent time in hospital nursing and then out of hospital nursing.
• 5:06
  Then I was a nurse exec and all the different layers of education that I went through.
• 5:12
  So the last dozen years of my career, I was teaching at Cal State Bakersfield in the Department of Nursing.
• 5:18
  And so I'd take students into the clinical area.
• 5:22
  They'd worked 12 hour shifts.
• 5:23
  I'd take them off the floor for about an hour to do their lunch break, and we debriefed about their patients.
• 5:30
  And one of the ways that some of them would stall, they'd say, Dr.
• 5:33
  Knights, please tell us another story.
• 5:36
  And so I started telling all these different stories from all these different times in history that related to the patients that they were seeing today.
• 5:44
  And you know, so many of them said, you need to write a book, you know?
• 5:47
  And I thought, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 5:49
  And then after I was getting close to retirement, I thought, yeah, I should write a book, you know, just for fun.
• 5:56
  Fun.
• 5:56
  Yeah.
• 5:57
  And, and was it fun?
• 5:59
  It was fun.
• 5:59
  It was really fun.
• 6:00
  And I'm a qualitative researcher and so.
• 6:04
  I scoured the, because I had the outline of what I wanted to say based on my memory.
• 6:10
  But you know, those were like 1969 memories.
• 6:13
  Wow.
• 6:13
  So I had to go back and really see if that all matched.
• 6:17
  And the beauty of being at the ground floor of a lot of the things that happened in me in, in medicine really 1969 was a critical moment.
• 6:26
  The space shuttle went off and all of a sudden we had the technology to keep people alive in space.
• 6:33
  And they said, oh, we can do this in hospitals.
• 6:35
  So all of a sudden we had critical care units, we had ventilators, we had monitors, we had all these things that.
• 6:42
  We didn't have really for broad scale use.
• 6:45
  Well, I've never, I've never made that connection until you pointed it out like that.
• 6:50
  It was technology that was developed for space.
• 6:53
  Right.
• 6:53
  Yeah.
• 6:53
  And that's so cool.
• 6:54
  And I love what you said, the playfulness.
• 6:57
  Oh, the places you'll go.
• 6:58
  Classic Dr.
• 6:59
  Seuss, right?
• 7:00
  This adventure for this young person who, who knows what's ahead.
• 7:05
  And then, right.
• 7:06
  And that was your life.
• 7:07
  And then the Forrest Gump.
• 7:08
  I mean, every time we talked about this story and what you'd done, and like you are Forrest Gump, it's like, it's like you were at the forefront of everything important that happened.
• 7:20
  And you were kind of this player like Forrest is where he just kind of is, is there and part of a critical moment of it for listeners when they read the book, they're going to be absolutely amazed because you truly were in all the places at like that exact right moment.
• 7:39
  Yes.
• 7:39
  And what was really ironic was, so I was in Seattle and that's where a lot of this was coming out.
• 7:45
  The first medic one call in 69.
• 7:47
  I was a candy striper.
• 7:49
  And so by the time I graduated nursing school, it was 75.
• 7:52
  We'd had some things that that had really been solidified.
• 7:56
  So we had real critical care units and all of these things, and so I worked with Dr.
• 8:01
  Hickman and I worked with Dr.
• 8:02
  Scribner and I worked with all these people that I thought that's what everybody in the country did.
• 8:07
  It wasn't until I went to work at the Critical Care Nurses down in California and it, this was like 15 years into my career.
• 8:17
  I show up in California and they have catheters and they have Scribner.
• 8:20
  It's like, but they don't have those doctors here.
• 8:23
  How can they, how can they have these things still?
• 8:26
  So all of a sudden the light bulbs came on and said, Ew, there's something in Seattle.
• 8:29
  That was very special.
• 8:31
  Yeah.
• 8:31
  The doctors that you were actually working with, that you were creating with, that you were supporting?
• 8:36
  Yeah, we're creating things that were medical breakthroughs across the country, across the world.
• 8:41
  Yeah.
• 8:41
  Right.
• 8:42
  And, and me, I just thought, well, it's a Hickman line, so I need to call Dr.
• 8:45
  Hickman.
• 8:46
  To and dect it or troubleshoot it.
• 8:49
  Never, never thinking outside of my little Seattle bubble that.
• 8:54
  What do people in New York do?
• 8:55
  What do people in California do?
• 8:56
  I'll love that.
• 8:57
  I could just imagine young Phyllis like just picturing you in working in the hospital and just thinking that these were like cutesy names that they've given these devices, these amazing medical devices that were named after your buddies and your colleagues, right?
• 9:13
  And then you're like, oh wait.
• 9:15
  They're actually really important discoveries.
• 9:17
  And everybody around the world calls them that because they discovered it.
• 9:21
  Is that sort of the, the way that it happened?
• 9:24
  Yeah, yeah.
• 9:25
  And what was interesting is I was doing the research and luckily most of what I had thought and written did match with the newspaper articles and all of these things.
• 9:38
  But what I found as I was reading in depth about all of them, every single one of those people were told that their innovation would never work publicly in journals, in newspapers.
• 9:50
  I.
• 9:51
  And so they were called into question.
• 9:53
  And so that was the, the, then the thread through the book was the perseverance that Yeah.
• 9:58
  And how they overcame and, and I mean, many listeners are going to really resonate with that too, because writing a book isn't that much different, really.
• 10:06
  Right.
• 10:07
  Like it's That's right.
• 10:08
  It's kind of, you know, is it, is it a needle in the haystack if you finally get to publish it?
• 10:12
  Is it.
• 10:13
  Is it one in a thousand?
• 10:15
  Is it those chances and those who persevere are the ones, yeah.
• 10:20
  There's gonna be so many lessons for people to read.
• 10:22
  So what did you hope that readers would get out of these stories?
• 10:27
  I mean, it's not just about your life or it's not about learning about these medical devices.
• 10:32
  What did you hope that readers would take away from that book when they read it?
• 10:36
  Yeah.
• 10:37
  So this is part of the feedback I would get from different people of like, you know, you need to focus your book on, on this one specific type of reader for it to do any good.
• 10:46
  And I wrap, I wrap myself up in circles trying to do that.
• 10:49
  But really it's, the book is for people that are interested in medical history.
• 10:54
  'cause there's a, a subset of people like that.
• 10:57
  It's for nurses that are burned out because it's, because sometimes you don't realize what are your other options besides being a bedside nurse.
• 11:07
  For the students to kind of really get some traction to figure out how they want to live their life.
• 11:13
  And I think that I, I make a compelling case for that because I've gone back to Cal State Bakersfield and my students are now faculty and they will tell me that, that they remembered me telling them, if you think you're in a tight spot, you can always get out and you can always do something else.
• 11:34
  Yeah.
• 11:35
  That's amazing.
• 11:37
  Phyllis, you are no stranger to writing, and you've written academically over the years, right?
• 11:42
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:43
  And you've got your PhD and everything.
• 11:45
  You wrote your thesis.
• 11:47
  What was your thesis on?
• 11:49
  It was on lesbian executives and how they manage their multiple identities in the workplace.
• 11:56
  So the, the concept I worked with was intersectionality.
• 12:00
  Intersectionality talks about the complex overlay of the different, you know, race, gender, sexual identity, all of the different religion, all of the different things, how they create who we are and how they intersect in our life.
• 12:16
  Yeah, and I just love when you talk about that, which is why I wanted you to talk about it, because you have done so much already and have such a strong voice.
• 12:25
  And we wanted people to hear you talk about how thoughtful you have been in your career.
• 12:30
  And like you said, there are many more things other than being a nurse at a bedside and many more identities that you hold.
• 12:38
  So you've written before, written important papers before, and you sat down and you started writing a book.
• 12:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:46
  What was it like?
• 12:46
  What was, what was different?
• 12:48
  Was it easy?
• 12:49
  Well, it was easy till I got feedback, but it was easy because it, it, it was like all in your head and you thought it was wonderful, right?
• 12:57
  Yeah.
• 12:58
  And uh, you know, it was, it was basically just chronicling what I had done in my life.
• 13:05
  And so it was very nonfictiony, you know, and I think you read one of the early pretty nonfiction like books and, and most of the feedback from.
• 13:16
  Many was, you know, nobody's really gonna care about this and you need to put more of you in there.
• 13:22
  And so I misunderstood the more of me of wanting my personal life in there, which was, you know, not to me as interesting as my professional life.
• 13:33
  And it wasn't until probably last fall that I realized maybe it's my professional, my personal career arc, rather than who I was.
• 13:45
  On my personal side.
• 13:47
  Absolutely.
• 13:48
  And I mean, you've been such a good student.
• 13:50
  You took my group mentorship last year and then we worked and coached a little bit, but you were already kind of down this path of trying to meld your professional and your personal life.
• 14:01
  And some people were interested in the personal and some people were interested in the professional.
• 14:04
  And it was hard, right?
• 14:05
  Because you have Yeah.
• 14:06
  Really.
• 14:07
  And, and maybe there, there's definitely two books.
• 14:10
  Yeah.
• 14:10
  And so at some point.
• 14:12
  You realize that you could do that and, and your personality, like you could do that with your professional arc and your personality comes through in the voice, right?
• 14:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 14:22
  And so when people are saying, we want more.
• 14:24
  Of you.
• 14:25
  It doesn't mean necessarily.
• 14:27
  'cause memoir is not, doesn't have to be and shouldn't be cradle to grave.
• 14:32
  It's not everything that ever happened to you in your life.
• 14:34
  And writing a memoir is not an all access pass into everything that's happened to Phyllis.
• 14:42
  Mm-hmm.
• 14:43
  You get to pick and choose and you get to decide what it is that you're bringing forward and what is that moment that you want to, or that journey that you wanna share.
• 14:53
  We all go through hundreds of journeys, I hope, thousands of journeys.
• 14:57
  By the time, you know, I leave this world lots of different journeys.
• 15:01
  So, which one you want to highlight?
• 15:05
  And it took you a minute because you were trying to sort of do them all.
• 15:08
  Is that fair?
• 15:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:10
  Oh, that's fair because, okay, so I'm a Taurus, so I've been told I can be stubborn and, and see that.
• 15:18
  I could see that and the people that would say, you know, these are two different books I had.
• 15:23
  I heard that all the time.
• 15:24
  I said, but I lived the one life, so why can't it be one book?
• 15:30
  Yeah.
• 15:31
  And it wasn't until I was kind of pushed to the edge of really digging deep into my personal life I thought.
• 15:38
  I'm really not interested in doing that, and so I actually went and stripped everything out of my memoir that had to do with personal, and what I did is I, I put the attributes that I wanted into my career, and then it finally, it all fell into place.
• 15:56
  Then within months I had it done.
• 16:01
  I love, I could publish it.
• 16:02
  I love that clarity.
• 16:03
  Yeah.
• 16:03
  And it's, it's those decisions.
• 16:05
  And I like to say, you know, early on when we're coaching.
• 16:08
  You can change your mind about a decision, but I'm gonna like try to force you to make a decision because until you make that decision, you can't move forward.
• 16:18
  Right?
• 16:18
  So as, as long as you're trying to put everything into the book, it was hard to finish.
• 16:24
  Is that fair to say?
• 16:25
  Yeah.
• 16:26
  Yeah.
• 16:26
  And so the moment that you made that decision and you could have backed away from it, and now you have all that personal stuff that you wrote and explored, and you, you did understand that arc and so you were able to weave it back through, I'm assuming.
• 16:38
  Right, right.
• 16:39
  Um, I haven't read this new version.
• 16:40
  I'm excited to read it, but yeah, you, you kind of weave it back through and then it, it all fits with that professional arc as well, without having to dive into the parts that you weren't really interested in sharing.
• 16:53
  Right, right.
• 16:55
  And that gave me the space to, to actually then do kind of a side, side discussion about, you know, here's, here's what I learned personally.
• 17:06
  I.
• 17:07
  That career with each thing.
• 17:08
  Yeah.
• 17:08
  I can't wait.
• 17:09
  I'm actually going on a trip next week and I'm bringing your book with me.
• 17:12
  Read back.
• 17:13
  Oh, thank you.
• 17:14
  Can't wait.
• 17:15
  I can't wait.
• 17:15
  I'll, I'll report back.
• 17:17
  But yeah.
• 17:17
  So what were the biggest things that you learned?
• 17:19
  You talked about, you know, doing, and I've never really called it this, but I love what you just said.
• 17:24
  It was very nonfictiony or like documentary type or academic when you first did it.
• 17:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:30
  And then you wanted to turn it into something that was readable from.
• 17:35
  Start to finish and have that arc'cause a memoir, when it's done correctly, it reads more like a novel.
• 17:41
  It doesn't have to have all the ups and downs and the twists and turns that a novel has.
• 17:46
  'cause obviously it's your life.
• 17:48
  It doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to have a little bit of an arc.
• 17:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:51
  So what were the biggest things that you learned about how to take it from that, what you're calling this Nonfictiony draft into what feels like a cohesive book, which is what you've published?
• 18:03
  What.
• 18:04
  What were the biggest takeaways for you or the biggest things that you had to learn?
• 18:09
  Well, having the thread of perseverance really helped with that.
• 18:14
  And so I had been so focused on all of the, they're mostly physicians.
• 18:20
  There are two that are, are really thought leaders that there were also influential, um, in my career.
• 18:27
  I was focusing on their perseverance, but then I, I pulled it back and, and put in my perseverance, what I learned at each step of the way and, and how I faltered, you know, all these different paths along the way because there, there's no way you can go from a brand new graduate nurse to being an executive of a hospital or a nursing organization without tripping along the way.
• 18:56
  And so I would include some of those, you know, downturns.
• 19:01
  Yeah.
• 19:01
  And like you said, those are the, those are the personal bits that people were trying to encourage you to put.
• 19:06
  It's not just Phyllis is, you know, a fly on the wall watching all of this go down.
• 19:11
  You're in there, you're, you're changing, you're growing as a human.
• 19:14
  You're, you're, mm-hmm.
• 19:15
  You're influencing, you are gaining speed and you're earning your spot where you ended up.
• 19:21
  Right.
• 19:22
  Yeah, so I love that.
• 19:24
  Happy to read it.
• 19:25
  Okay.
• 19:25
  What's hardest moment in this entire journey of writing a book?
• 19:31
  What's the hardest moment?
• 19:32
  Yeah, what was the hardest part?
• 19:34
  When did, was there a time when you were like, I don't know, I don't know if I'm gonna finish this.
• 19:38
  Like, why?
• 19:39
  Why am I doing this?
• 19:40
  Maybe there was more than one.
• 19:41
  I don't know that I ever gave up on it because I just really felt like it was such an important story because, you know, I'm not.
• 19:49
  I'm not 25 anymore.
• 19:52
  And there's some of these, some of these medical miracles.
• 19:55
  I mean, they're truly miracles.
• 19:57
  When you can bring somebody back from dead, being dead, you know, restart their heart.
• 20:01
  I call that a miracle.
• 20:02
  And what's happening now is, so the last, the, the books in parts and the last part is called Precious Medical Miracles in Peril.
• 20:11
  And so what really I think pushed it forward was watching.
• 20:17
  Some of the counties around, uh, Seattle that started to defund their medic one.
• 20:23
  And because people assume, people say, oh, there's always gonna be somebody around to restart your heart.
• 20:28
  And it's like, no, if we don't have the people there to do it, it's not going to happen.
• 20:34
  And the vaccine hesitancy from Covid and all of that, and now it's even escalating more.
• 20:39
  And just, so that's, that was the other part of wanting to capture it.
• 20:44
  I don't want that all lost.
• 20:47
  It's kind of disheartening, you know, you were on the front lines and learned how to save people's lives and, and now you know, history because we take some of it for granted.
• 20:58
  We're, we're losing some of it, right?
• 21:00
  Yeah.
• 21:00
  You used to call the coroner.
• 21:02
  We didn't have 9 1 1.
• 21:03
  You just called the coroner or the right, the funeral home.
• 21:08
  So people don't realize all of that, but.
• 21:11
  To answer your question, what was the, the most, um, angst producing moment was that Sure.
• 21:16
  I gave it to the publisher.
• 21:20
  Yeah.
• 21:20
  To actually, you know, get it all ready and put it up on Amazon, it's like, yeah.
• 21:27
  Because you did have some interest from, from publishers and then you chose to publish independently with Amazon.
• 21:34
  Yeah.
• 21:34
  And I'd love, love, love that for you.
• 21:36
  I think it's perfect.
• 21:37
  To actually take it on and do it on your own is just amazing.
• 21:42
  And you use their assisted self-publishing arm.
• 21:45
  How did, how did it go?
• 21:46
  So you gave it to them and then you're like, ah.
• 21:48
  I know it's gonna be out into the world.
• 21:50
  How did the whole process go?
• 21:52
  It was actually the gal that helped me was so patient because once I handed it to her, okay, seven years I've been writing this, I have, you know, sticky notes everywhere.
• 22:05
  I got them all incorporated.
• 22:07
  Darn if I didn't hit publish and went, oh, but I really wanted to make sure that this was said right.
• 22:13
  And I come up with a phrase or something and.
• 22:17
  So she, when she sent it back to me and said, read it through, make sure that there's, you know, any changes.
• 22:24
  And so I, I went through the, the detailed changes and then at the end I said, and by the way, while you're at it, can you change these, like three things?
• 22:33
  And she was so patient and I did that to her twice, but she was so patient.
• 22:38
  But you.
• 22:40
  It's not, when you publish independently, especially, you have to play all those roles of the developmental editor at the end and the mm-hmm.
• 22:49
  You know, and the roles that the publisher would normally play.
• 22:53
  You are playing those roles and you know, when you, when you publish independently, all those decisions are yours.
• 22:59
  Yeah.
• 22:59
  So, I'm glad Of course they should incorporate those.
• 23:01
  'cause it's your business, right?
• 23:03
  It's, it's your, it's your book and it should be exactly what you want it to be.
• 23:08
  So the book just came out on March 5th, 2025.
• 23:12
  Congratulations.
• 23:13
  Thank you.
• 23:14
  And yeah.
• 23:15
  And so what could share about how you feel now knowing that it's out there?
• 23:21
  It's been out just a couple of weeks when we record this a little bit longer when it airs.
• 23:25
  How are you feeling now that it's out there?
• 23:27
  How does, what does that feel like?
• 23:29
  You know, it's, it's pretty amazing.
• 23:31
  So I got the Kindle version and because.
• 23:35
  I was just so tickled that I could open my Kindle and there's my book and I read it on my Kindle and I cried at the end.
• 23:42
  It's like, oh, I did it and, and I really like it.
• 23:47
  That's the no matter how many times I read it now, it's like, this is what I wanted to say, and I, and I feel really good about it.
• 23:54
  So.
• 23:55
  I, you know, I have, I have this interview.
• 23:58
  I have another interview with another organization next week, and I am possibly going to speak at the history of Nursing and Healthcare Association.
• 24:07
  I submitted an abstract for that so I can kind of get out and talk about it.
• 24:12
  I have some friends that say, you need to be buying the Amazon ads.
• 24:15
  The publisher said, don't do that.
• 24:17
  It's, you know.
• 24:18
  A waste of money.
• 24:19
  And finally I told her, I said, you know, it takes me years to become an overnight success.
• 24:25
  That's just how I am.
• 24:27
  And so I've been using my networking of people to really kind of build it and Absolutely, and I love that for you.
• 24:35
  I mean, people often will ask me, what can they do to sell more books now that they're out there?
• 24:39
  And it's, I mean.
• 24:40
  It doesn't matter anymore whether you are traditionally published or independently published.
• 24:45
  It's still on the writer, on the author to do a lot of promotion and to build that, build that network and build that momentum yourself.
• 24:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:54
  Um, and I actually put out, I.
• 24:56
  An episode a couple of weeks ago on 30 ways to promote your books.
• 25:01
  Mm.
• 25:01
  I saw that.
• 25:01
  It's, it's really, yeah.
• 25:02
  You saw that.
• 25:03
  But, but it's not about finding 30 ways.
• 25:06
  And one of those things is yes by Amazon ads, if you're really into that.
• 25:10
  But like, you know, if you're not into crunching the numbers and, and gaming it and being on there all the time and figuring it out, for some people they love it.
• 25:19
  I don't see that for you.
• 25:20
  And so, yes, it would be, you know, not your best path.
• 25:24
  Pick one thing and do it well and what you are awesome at.
• 25:28
  Is telling those stories and showing up in forums where people wanna hear them.
• 25:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:34
  Um, so I love that.
• 25:35
  And keep doing those and, and find that public speaking path.
• 25:38
  And people will find your book, right?
• 25:41
  Yes.
• 25:42
  Um, so the student n there's a National Student Nurses Association in a California national student or California Student Nurse Association.
• 25:51
  About five years ago, I was their inspirational speaker at their statewide conference.
• 25:56
  And so this group of graduating seniors from Cal State Bakersfield, I gave them the Kindle version of the book.
• 26:03
  Amazing.
• 26:04
  So then, you know, that's how I kind of get the word out and.
• 26:09
  Network.
• 26:09
  Amazing.
• 26:10
  And then they tell two friends, and then they tell two friends.
• 26:12
  Yeah.
• 26:13
  I would love to see it in the curriculum, right.
• 26:15
  For nursing students, um, to read the book.
• 26:19
  And, and it easily could be, it easily could be.
• 26:22
  And the miniseries and the, and the, all the things that could come with a young Phyllis Hines, who, who do you think would play you not big on actors?
• 26:34
  Oh, I don't know.
• 26:34
  Reese Witherspoon.
• 26:36
  Yeah, he's kind of spunky.
• 26:38
  Yeah, it'd be awesome.
• 26:40
  Okay, so from start to finish, from the moment when you were like, okay, people were saying I should write a book, but no, I'm actually maybe gonna write a book.
• 26:48
  How long from then till now?
• 26:51
  Seven years.
• 26:52
  Seven years.
• 26:53
  Yeah.
• 26:54
  And that doesn't surprise me at all.
• 26:55
  Right.
• 26:55
  That's, and, and it was sort of, you mentioned in the last six months to a year that you kind of really made that decision and stopped sort of taking a poll of what other people wanted and.
• 27:09
  Decided you had everything there and pulled it all together and released it.
• 27:14
  Exactly.
• 27:15
  The book.
• 27:15
  And that's, that's, you know, all we can ever hope for is that writers will write exactly the book that they want to write, because that's what's gonna, that's what's gonna work, that's what's gonna resonate with people.
• 27:28
  That's what you're gonna be excited to talk about forever, right?
• 27:32
  Yeah, exactly.
• 27:33
  Exactly.
• 27:34
  Seven years.
• 27:34
  Yeah.
• 27:35
  So what was your first big break along the way where you were like, okay, this is really happening?
• 27:40
  Okay.
• 27:41
  No, to all the listeners.
• 27:43
  Susie didn't ask me to say this, but it was Susie.
• 27:47
  Oh my goodness.
• 27:48
  No, I didn't ask you to say that.
• 27:49
  Yeah, I know, because what, maybe five years ago, how long have you been working together?
• 27:54
  Four or five years, probably.
• 27:56
  Yeah.
• 27:56
  I had, I had submitted my manuscript to.
• 28:01
  Book editor, book coach that was supposedly well known and the feedback she gave me was just brutal.
• 28:08
  It was just, I mean, I already had a master's degree where I did a thesis and I had a dissertation from being, being a doctorate.
• 28:16
  And, you know, clearly I can string a sentence together, but you wouldn't know it from the feedback she gave me.
• 28:22
  And, and I sat with that.
• 28:24
  I know, and I'm so sorry that that happened to you.
• 28:27
  And it, it does happen in our profession where people think that their job is to tear writers down and Yeah.
• 28:35
  You know, really it's to figure out, okay, what are we working with?
• 28:39
  What are you trying to do and how do we get you there?
• 28:42
  Right.
• 28:42
  Yeah.
• 28:43
  So I'm very grateful to that.
• 28:44
  I found you, I, I'm not sure how I found you, but I found you when you did the first developmental edit.
• 28:51
  We're halfway through.
• 28:52
  I think he just said, could you please send me the feedback that that other person gave and you were able to translate it?
• 29:00
  Because I had just shut her out because, I mean, at one point I split an Infiniti and she, it was just like, don't ever do that again.
• 29:06
  It's like, who gives that feedback?
• 29:09
  Yeah.
• 29:10
  And I think, I mean, at the end of the day, the gr the grammar part is not the interesting part.
• 29:15
  Anybody can, I mean, AI is grouping now and can Exactly, can fix your grammar.
• 29:20
  Right?
• 29:21
  But, but the human aspect of it, and I think I, I almost never ask for somebody else's feedback, but in this case.
• 29:29
  It was something that you were carrying in terms of the discussions that we've had and how it affected you and how it affected your willingness to work on the book, and that's why I think it's just so harmful sometimes to work with people who are not sensitive to the fact that this is somebody's life story and that you have all of these skills.
• 29:51
  And that you are coming to us because you know that there's something missing.
• 29:55
  You are not saying it's perfect, but how do we get you from here to here to there?
• 30:00
  And so the reason that I did that, I remember that now, I'd forgot.
• 30:04
  Thank you for the reminder.
• 30:05
  The reason that I asked to see that feedback was because I didn't want you to carry it any longer.
• 30:10
  I didn't want you to carry the criticism.
• 30:12
  I wanted to look through it, and I do this, sometimes I'm a little bit cocky because I think that I can read between the lines and I can, I've seen thousands of these types of feedbacks and take a look at it and just say, okay, you know, I know you took it.
• 30:26
  Like I can't write, everything is crap and all the things, but.
• 30:31
  But here's what's actually being said, and here's how you can apply it.
• 30:36
  And I think that's what I did with you actually, if I remember correctly, it's, I took a look at the feedback and I said, okay, so this feedback.
• 30:44
  All you gotta do is, and I don't remember exactly what it was, but all you gotta do is this, that and the other thing.
• 30:50
  Here's the technique that you're missing, right?
• 30:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:52
  Here's the technique that this person is trying to support you with, but they didn't say that.
• 30:58
  They just criticized and didn't give you a cons, like something helpful.
• 31:02
  And so I think that's what I did was I went through and said, Hey, all of this,'cause you gotta deal with it, right?
• 31:07
  We know this, right?
• 31:08
  We've got something in.
• 31:11
  The, the best way.
• 31:12
  If there's a pig, put it on the table.
• 31:14
  Describe the pig, right?
• 31:15
  Like, yeah.
• 31:16
  So, yeah, so that's what we did with that feedback was we kind of took the, took the sting out of it by saying, okay, here's where, you know, it wasn't totally wrong, but it wasn't, it wasn't helpful when you didn't have That's not where I could hear it.
• 31:29
  Yeah, but it wasn't, it wasn't helpful because you didn't have.
• 31:33
  You know, once we write, we don't know what we don't know.
• 31:35
  And you're a talented writer.
• 31:37
  This is the thing.
• 31:38
  Thank you.
• 31:38
  Like writing novels is different and I work with people who've written screenplays that don't know how to write a novel.
• 31:43
  And I've worked with people who've written dissertations who don't know how to write a novel and you know, all the things, and you just break it down and you, you support that person.
• 31:51
  You help them figure it out.
• 31:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 31:53
  Instead of breaking you down.
• 31:55
  Yeah.
• 31:56
  Good.
• 31:56
  Well, thank you.
• 31:57
  Yes.
• 31:57
  I didn't ask you to say that, but thank you.
• 32:00
  Alright.
• 32:01
  That really is what turned it around though for me.
• 32:03
  Yeah.
• 32:03
  I find I felt like I could do it again.
• 32:06
  Um, yeah, because I think, yeah, before we met, I think there had been some last amount of time between you getting that feedback and you actually working on the book.
• 32:16
  Um, yeah.
• 32:18
  Yeah.
• 32:18
  Alright, so what is your best advice, Phyllis, for those listening to the podcast today who are wanting to write a memoir?
• 32:25
  What's your best advice that you could give them?
• 32:29
  I would say write what you want to write and when it comes to getting feedback, really vet the people that you get the feedback from.
• 32:39
  You know, because there's all kinds of things out there for you to get feedback from because.
• 32:46
  You don't want somebody that's going to do what the first person did with me to really take the wind outta your sails, you know?
• 32:54
  Yeah.
• 32:54
  So vet the people that you're working with.
• 32:56
  Yeah.
• 32:57
  Because the fact that you wanna write a book, you've, you've just taken the biggest step ever.
• 33:04
  I mean, yeah.
• 33:05
  To actually put a word on a piece of paper.
• 33:08
  I mean, that's, so many people don't even do that.
• 33:10
  Yeah.
• 33:11
  Well, I am so excited that your journey is where it is today.
• 33:15
  I am just here cheering you on, Phyllis.
• 33:18
  Thank you.
• 33:18
  I can't wait until you get all those speaking gigs and this story gets out into the world.
• 33:23
  So where can find you and your book?
• 33:27
  It's on Amazon and it's called Bedside.
• 33:31
  Because there wasn't any other book out there called Bedside.
• 33:35
  But when you search, if you just search bedside, it comes up with, if you're not looking in books, you have bedside tables, you have bedside, all these other things.
• 33:43
  So do Amazon Bedside nurses.
• 33:46
  I.
• 33:47
  Great Amazon bedside nurses and we'll drop a, we'll drop a link in the show notes too.
• 33:52
  Okay.
• 33:53
  Everybody.
• 33:53
  This book, if you wanna meet the nursing equivalent of Forrest Gump and all the things that have happened through the years, it is a really fun, exciting adventure that Phyllis has gone on.
• 34:06
  And it's not over yet.
• 34:08
  We only just begun.
• 34:10
  Yeah.
• 34:11
  Yeah.
• 34:11
  Thank you, Suzy.
• 34:12
  Thank you so much for coming on today, Phyllis.
• 34:15
  Sure.
• 34:15
  My pleasure.
• 34:16
  It's good to see you.
• 34:17
  You too.
• 34:26
  Thanks for tuning in to show hotel writing with me, Susie Vadori.
• 34:29
  I'll me continue to bring you the straight goods for that book you're writing or planning to write.
• 34:34
  Please consider subscribing to this podcast and leaving a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you're listening.
• 34:41
  Also, visit susie Vadori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list where you'll stay inspired and be the first to know about upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my community.
• 34:56
  If you're feeling brave, check the show notes and send us a page of your writing that isn't quite where you want it to be yet for our notes.
• 35:03
  Page review episodes.
• 35:05
  Remember that book and your writing is going to open doors that you haven't even thought of yet, and I can't wait to help Make it the absolute best you're feeling called to write that book.
• 35:18
  Keep going and I'm gonna be right here cheering you on.
• 35:21
  See you again next week.