SPS 228 Post Pardon Me: Writing A Book About Postpartum And Other Difficult Life Experiences with Suzanne Yatim Aslam

and former Miss Arab USA turned writer . She hit number one bestseller with her new book . It's called Post-Pardon Me , a dark comedy addressing post-partum depression and anxiety . The book offers support and comfort to struggling moms , sharing an honest account of the author 's experience .

So I want to just kind of go behind the scenes on her experience writing the book , publishing the book . Hopefully this will be a really fun episode for moms who are thinking about writing a book or maybe women who are going through post-partum . So , Suzanne , welcome , Great to have you here .

I had just read his book called the Miracle Morning and some of the stuff that in the book . You have this series of things that you do in the morning and one of them is visualization .

So I started visualizing what my life was going to look like and what I wanted and I was again just coming out of my post-partum depression and I was really angry , really angry that I was , that I was dealing with that , I had dealt with that and I felt so alone and all the dark thoughts that I had were thoughts that when I said them out loud they were

not well received and people kind of shied away and it just it wasn't good . So then I bottled it all up .

So when I was doing my visualization I started seeing myself writing this book so I could help other moms and say all the things that were in my head that they I'm not special that they most likely felt too you know that I'm not the only person in the world that has felt this way and just give them a voice .

And so I just started visualizing , writing this book and speaking about it , and I didn't know how it was going to turn out .

Of course , when you write your first draft , my first draft was 30 pages and I was like I don't know what else to say , you know , and by the time it was done , it was a series of journal entries , which means I get to let the mom inside of my brain , and I just made these up because I wanted something creative .

So you go inside of my head and these journal entries , it's really unfiltered , it's funny , it's dark , it's awkward , you know , because you're just like saying things that you're not supposed to say to anybody else .

I guess I guess the writing and the acting . Yeah , yeah , let's start there . And I got one other question on that .

Assuming I can get a script , assuming I get cast , assuming I work well with the director , you know , assuming the you know how many movies I made that I've never seen in the night of day , I mean , you know it just happened .

So I but I can sit there in my room and be in my own little world , which is why I love acting , because I love , you know , turning into somebody else , going into a whole different world .

So I love reading , so I get to write and I get to have full control of what that looks like and how I do it , and I don't have to wait for anybody and rely on anybody . It's why I didn't even do the traditional publishing route , because I again didn't want to wait for my agent to get me a job , like I did with acting .

I guess what would be your advice for people who are kind of in that mode and then thinking about writing their first book ?

No , I actually have dialogue that I wrote , that I made up between me and my husband , for example , and the stories are real , but I don't remember exactly what was said three years ago . So I used my love for acting and script writing and and all that to to create the dialogue which , for me , was so , so , so fun .

So I was able to use my love for my former life so , and I tied it into my writing .

Steven Pressville came on the podcast and he wrote scripts early on and then ended up writing books and we had I feel like two or three different authors have done that . And then we had a whole episode with a woman who kind of took her experience and says all right , here's how you turn your book into a script .

But what would you say , suzanne , is your personal experience Like ? What did you learn writing scripts that made you better writing books ? What are the ? What are kind of some of the similarities and differences ?

It's mostly dialogue and a little bit of exposition . So in terms of like , like , right now I'm writing a second book and it's in the form of a novel and I'm like what did I get myself into ? This is so hard , because in the journal entries I just got to like free flow and then before script writing .

it was all dialogue driven , so writing like a legit novel is actually I bit off a lot .

I mean , I know you haven't finished the fiction book yet , but what's been your experience in the differences between writing nonfiction and fiction ?

And I'm like that's a really cool story , because it's a really cool scene , I'm like but what do I do with that , like , how do you flesh it out ? And you actually make like a whole chapter out of it when I just have like one thought to say do you know what I mean ? This was my problem in college .

They'd be like write an APH paper and I'm like , but I can say it in three , so why ?

So what I want you to do right now is go to self-publishingcom forward slash schedule book a publishing consultation with one of the experts on my team . We'll talk about your goals for your book , your dreams , your challenges , your next steps and we'll start putting together a plan . All right , so go to self-publishingcom forward slash schedule book .

A call with the team . Let's see how we can help with your book . It's time to implement .

Every scene you go into you have to ask yourself what does this character want from this scene ? So the dialogue is like it's like almost surfacing , because what you're actually feeling and thinking and wanting in the drive is kind of different . That's just the tool to get you there .

So how do you take that and then put it into a book form where , for example , myself , when I'm dealing with postpartum depression and in the story , like I didn't know I had it , and then , when I didn't know I had it , I didn't tell my husband .

So I'm talking to him , knowing I have postpartum depression , but I'm not telling him and every single line is shrouded with , like this , information that he doesn't have , and so there's just so many more layers to the dialogue .

And I really had I not had that background with acting and script writing and really like being forced to dive into what every single line means . What did the script writer want and mean when he said that , and how do I interpret it ? And all of that helped me write dialogue better .

words , or 30% of what's communicated is the actual words that you say . And it's interesting hearing that the other side of breaking down the script as an actor or actress and saying , okay , this 30% of what I'm reading is what's being said . Now how do I fill in the other 70% with the emotions , the expressions , the way that I'm saying it .

I know it sounds like this is a learned skill , but any tips for folks who are like hey , I'm writing about my life story and I'm struggling with the dialogue aspect ?

talk , and so I've gotten good at if I write something and then I'm looking at it and I'm like there's no way anybody says this , that's just not how people talk . This is me forcing it because I'm trying to get a point across .

So I just got really used to observing people and seeing how they really talk and understanding what's real and what's what's forced .

You got to ask your question like would your grandpa talk this way ? Was this how you express himself ? So I think I would just sit there and try to observe people more and just see again , because if you're forcing it , it's gonna , you're gonna tell like you've ever watched a movie .

Nobody talks that way because they're forcing it in order to get you from point A to point B . And if you're doing that , that's why I like the way that I'm . I wrote it in the book because it's very free flow . And it just sounds like two people chatting .

For people is if , hey , if you're writing , whether it's self help , whether it's memoir , whatever but about yourself you are a character , you're the main character , and if those weird to write about yourself as a character or sometimes people just don't even connect the dots like , well , I'm just sharing my experience , but you're still a character , and so you should

approach that character development , that dialogue , the all those pieces in a similar , in the same way as if you were writing about someone else .

And that's why , you know , oftentimes we'll talk about how we get our memoir authors that come into work with us and we put them in our fiction program and they're like well , hold up , I'm writing a memoir , it's like well , a memoir is much , much often more closely resembles fiction writing than it does nonfiction writing , because you're telling a story , you have

characters , you have , you have all these kind of core elements that would normally exist inside of fiction .

I didn't know anything , so I just did it on my own . I started Googling , like how do you publish a book by yourself ?

And then , actually before I did that I wanted , I started looking up agents , book agents and that was so depressing and I realized like , oh , I'm just doing the thing I did before with acting , where I was like , hey , I really hope my agent gets me this audition , hey , I really hope my agent gets me in front of this publisher .

So I was like I'm just going to take this into my own hands instead of , you know , fingers crossed . So I did it that way and I

just started like , really , I just started Googling , I started going on blogs and people would be like step one , step two , step three , and then I would like take their steps and their steps and their steps and your steps . And I , you know , I just like I didn't . I had nobody to hold my hand , so I just kind of half-assed it really .

And then I sat there and I looked through it myself with a pen and the paper and there was something about that that was really helpful after spending a year looking at it on a screen , mm-hmm . So I really loved that . And so the process of just learning how the editing world works , that was really really good to know , really really good to know .

Like the whole , you get a developmental editor and then they change your story and you're like that's not . Oh no , that's better , that's .

And then you walk around your house with it performing the scene and , yeah , so paper .

Really , I think so , yeah , and so why did you relaunch ? How did you relaunch ? Any lessons learned from that ?

Or you want to support gas on the fire and have an excuse to talk about the book . So I kind of talk about the five different types of relaunches . There's the just because relaunch .

There's updated and expanded edition , there's new and revised , there's anniversary and there's one other that I can't remember right now but kind of like the re or I think , made multiple formats , like launching the ebook and the print and then launching audio book and treating that as a separate launch and to kind of have multiple bites of the apple .

So those are like the types . And then why I recommend it and why we , we , we teach it and recommend it . What's your take ?

There was no leading up to it , there was nobody had a clue , and I would talk about it every once in a while . I'm not very good at social media and I did my best and I had no plan at all . So a friend was like you should relaunch your book . And I'm like , why , what's the point to like to your point ? Those five points didn't occur to me .

And she was like just do a second edition and that'll give you a reason to relaunch the book . Well , I've been on this podcast tour where I talk about maternal mental health and I've learned so much . So I went through the book and I edited it based on just all the new information that I've learned , to just make it more holistic for the mom .

And , speaking of developmental editing , I sent it to an editor and she destroyed it because my book was in past tense because they're journal entries , right , she made it all in present tense and I was so mad at her for doing this to me .

And then I was like , oh damn it , that's actually really good , because now you're , you're like on the journey with me , you're experiencing all of my emotions in real time , and because it's so like you know , I say she , when I'm talking about to your point , like she's a character , my girl , I'm a character .

I added a few more like mental health notes and , and then I decided to make the audio book based on that . So then I had two tracks , I had a second edition and then I had the audio book based on the second .

But I just really it felt really self serving . So I really tried hard to get out of my comfort zone because I knew that the more publicity this book got , the more moms that helped . So we had this big launch party . You know it was private , like I didn't invite people online , I just had this party . Steve Sims flew out .

It was really so lovely and I had it at an art gallery , slash bookstore and like signed books it was . I didn't always going to do that . It was really weird . And the audio book didn't come out the day of the launch like it was supposed to . So that actually worked out really well .

So I have like the five day campaign on Amazon where the book was free , and so I got to focus all on the ebook and I ended up selling selling for free . I had I had like 250 downloads just in that five days , which was really cool for me , since I , you know , I was a nobody .

And then so by the time the audio book came out like a week later because Amazon , like you know , they have that 10 day business , 10 business days , and I just had no idea when it was going to drop so by the time that came out , there was already so much buzz with the ebook and the launch and I was like posting pictures from the launch party and my

speech from the party and the pictures of the cool people that came , all these influencers , it was so great . And so by the time the audio book came out , like that just worked out really well the timing . I didn't mean to do that . There was so much more hype that I got to that moment . Just keep you know , add the , add the gas to that fire .

It was just really interesting of finding the line of , like making it interesting enough , engaging enough for it to not be monotonous , but at the same time , like I can't actually perform perform , you know , I can't cry just because my character in that moment is crying , you know .

So just learning to do that and trying to be engaging enough was was really really hard . Oh , but one thing I did learn is not to go to print until after the audio book is done , because I caught 29 mistakes .

this process and I want to kind of unpack this maybe for a couple different groups of people . So let's start with moms . We have a lot of moms in our world and and gosh , probably 60 70% of the people who write books with us are women .

So , helping a lot of women , and mostly moms , and a lot of times 40 , 50 , 60 year old range are coming to us to write books . So what would be your advice to to moms who are thinking about writing books , are kind of going through this process , kind of knowing , knowing what you know now .

You don't know , the fact that it was put on paper and somebody gave voice to their feelings and their thoughts . It impacted them in a way that made them feel less alone . So they already knew , let's say , that they had postpartum depression . That's not enough . What helps them is knowing that .

Oh my God , thank you for giving me the words , thank you for making me feel like I'm not crazy , thank you for making me feel like I'm not alone . This is so great . You're right , I do need help . And then going out and getting the help , which is the whole point of this .

So you think like nobody wants to hear your story because either it's , too it's , you know . You think like it's too . Who cares ? Who cares about you and your story ? None of us are that unique that somebody is not going to resonate with it , and so many people don't put it into words .

So having the capability of putting it into words and then connecting with people that way is such a you're giving them such a gift and making them feel like they're that they're not isolated . So I really like that , that power .

I feel like this and we could just give you a whole separate podcast interview , but there's , I feel like we've always said , in some ways it's like free therapy , because you're writing out kind of about some of the really tough times in your life .

What would what would be your encouragement or advice there , as someone who's written a book that feels very personal and obviously even the way that you did it it's like journal entries , very raw and real and vulnerable . What did you learn from that and what would be your advice for folks who are thinking about going down that same path ?

I made it a dark comedy on purpose , because it's such a heavy topic and if you're in the middle of postpartum and your life feels like it's unraveling and it's absolute garbage and you don't , you can't think straight and you you're tired , you're sleep deprived , I wanted to make you laugh a little . You know I wanted to bring a little levity into your life .

I already know your life is hard , like I don't . We don't need to sit there and like cry all day together Like you can do . You know that's important and I don't want to take away from it with any levity , but sometimes I wanted to be the person to give you that levity . So I really like making people laugh . I really , really love it .

So being able to , in that dark time , just make you chuckle a little bit with the joke that I have about Harry Potter , whatever it is that I say in the book I just , I just really love . So that was my .

That was one of the goals that I had is , yes , I want to hold your hand and I want to give you the curse to ask for help , but I also really want to laugh along the way . So for me , that was my , that was the direction I chose to take and I was very intentional with that direction .

Like I knew it was going to be , it was going to have comedy in it . So maybe somebody's writing about something really serious and they can't do that and they want to just keep it serious . That's fine , but I think it really helps to know what your emotional goal is .

goal , similar to the whole script writing piece at the very top of the interview . What's the words that you're saying ? and and how do you want to make someone feel when they're reading this or when they're seeing this , depending on the mechanism of delivery , whether you're writing or acting it out . So this has been awesome , Suzanne .

I guess a couple of final questions . First one would be what's your parting piece of advice , knowing what you know now , on the other side of this experience , for the Suzanne from you know a few years ago , or the other Suzanne's out there who are thinking about writing or in the process of writing their first book .

disservice to the people that could benefit from your story . So we have to be brave .