April 19, 2024 • 49 mins
Somewhere in the Middle Welcomes Author Teri M. Brown
Born in Athens, Greece as an Air Force brat, Teri M Brown graduated from UNC Greensboro with a multitude of degrees – majors in Elementary Education and Psychology and minors in Math and Sociology – she just couldn’t settle on one thing! While homeschooling her four children, she began her writing career by focusing on small businesses, writing articles, blog posts, and website content. She published five nonfiction self-help books dealing with real estate and finance, receiving First Runner Up in the Eric Hoffman Book Awards for 301 Simple Things You Can Do To Sell Your Home Now, finalist in the USA Best Books Awards for How To Open and Operate a Financially Successful Redesign, Redecorate, and Real Estate Staging Business and for 301 Simple Things You Can Do To Sell Your Home Now, and Honorable Mention in Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Award for Private Mortgage Investing. In 2017, Teri began dabbling in fiction, a lifelong dream. Upon winning the First Annual Anita Bloom Ornoff Award for Inspirational Short Story for a piece about her grandfather, she began writing in earnest, and recently published Sunflowers Beneath the Snow. Teri is a wife, mother, grandmother, and author who loves word games, reading, bumming on the beach, taking photos, singing in the shower, hunting for bargains, ballroom dancing, playing bridge, and mentoring others – especially youth and women who are having trouble discovering their worth. Teri’s debut novel, Sunflowers Beneath the Snow, is a historical fiction set in Ukraine.
Connect with Teri M. Brown- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/terimbrownauthor
- X (formerly Twitter): http://www.twitter.com/terimbrown1
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/terimbrown_author
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/terimbrown
- Website: http://www.terimbrown.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Michele A. Barard (02:11):
Happy Friday, everyone. Welcome to somewhere
in the middle with MicheleBarard. I'm your host, Michele
Barard Founder and CEO MicheleBarard LLC. And I'm really happy
to share this out with you wherewe examine all those places
where spirit needs life, and thejoys and challenges that may
bring you guys now I'd like tostart by thanking Miss Beverly
black and Trapp Family Channelfor helping me create the space
(02:34):
for us. trapped down the channelis home to an assortment of
thought provoking shows thatexplore life, spirit, business
and culture, including the womanat the well hosted by Miss
Beverly black herself. Somewherein the middle was born on Trump
Family channel. And although wehave grown onto our own
platform, we are ever gratefuland loyal to our roots. To
(02:54):
paraphrase an African proverb,we are here only because we
stand on the shoulders of thosewho came before us. I want to
thank my guests on the march15 2024 show, author William
Shermer, you can find Williamsbooks on Amazon. If you miss
that show, make sure you listento the replay. You can find our
(03:14):
complete show archives includingthe march 15 show at the
somewhere in the middlepodcast.com. I also want to
shout out Bruce George of thegeniuses komen movement, which
encourages all of us to embraceour inner genius and share it
with the world. It's reallyessential that we share this
message with the young people.And it's not just for kids. We
(03:34):
grownups need to be remindedsometimes that the world needs
our genius. Learn more about thegeniuses comm and movement at
WWW dot genius is common.com
Now, this month's guest has suchan interesting background. Born
in Athens, Greece as an AirForce brat, Terri Anne brown
(03:55):
graduated from UNC Greensborowith a multitude of degrees,
majors in elementary educationand psychology and minors in
math and sociology. She justcouldn't settle on one thing.
While homeschooling her fourchildren, she began her writing
career by focusing on smallbusinesses, writing articles,
(04:17):
blog posts, and web content. Shepublished five nonfiction self
help books dealing with realestate and finance. Receiving
first runner up in the EricHoffman Book Awards for 301
simple things you can do to sellyour home now, finalist in the
USA Best Books awards for how toopen and operate a financially
(04:39):
successful redesign. redecorate,in real estate staging business,
and for 301 simple things youcan do to sell your home now.
And honorable mention inforeword magazine's Book of the
Year Award for private mortgageinvesting
in 2017, Terry began dabbling infiction, a lifelong dream. Upon
(05:04):
winning the first annual andAnita bloom or an off award for
inspirational short story for apiece about her grandfather, she
began writing in earnest, andrecently published sunflowers
beneath the snow. Terry is awife, mother, grandmother and
author who loves war games,reading, bombing on the beach,
(05:25):
taking photos, singing in theshower, hunting for bargains,
ballroom dancing, playing bridgeand mentoring others, especially
youth and women who are havingtrouble discovering the worth.
Terry's debut novel sunflowersbeneath us now is a historical
fiction set in the Ukraine. So Iwould like to welcome Terry
(05:49):
Brown to somewhere in the middlewith Michelle Bora. Terry, thank
you for being on the show.
Teri M. Brown (05:54):
Thanks so much for having me. I'm really
excited to be here.
Michele A. Barard (05:58):
Well, I am excited, because you're really
interesting. And I'm reallyexcited to share your story with
my audience. As you know, Istart my interview with two
questions. So if you're ready,I'll go ahead and ask those. Ask
away. All right, so Terry Brown.Who are you? And how did you
(06:21):
become who you are today? Oh, so
Teri M. Brown (06:25):
yeah, who am I? That's a question for the ages,
isn't it? Um, so I'm a mom. I'ma grandma. I'm a wife. I'm an
author. I'm a ballroom dancer,newbie. I'm a bridge player. I
am a Beachcomber. I'm a cyclist.More my husband is but I follow
(06:50):
along. I'm just I'm so manythings. But how did I get to
where I am? It's like aconglomeration of my entire life
got me to this point, you know,I sometimes look and wonder,
like, if I had made a differentchoice at any given point, where
would I be today? And the answeris somewhere completely
(07:12):
different. And would I be happy,I don't know. You know, so many
little tiny choices, you know,lead you from one direction to
another, and sometimes eventhings that weren't your choice,
like I grew up. While I was inmy dad was in the Air Force. And
so we did that for a while thenwe were living in Ohio when he
got out of the Air Force. Andthen I came home from school one
(07:34):
day in the middle of my ninthgrade year, literally in the
middle, and my house was forsale, my parents decided to move
from Ohio to North Carolina, andalike that completely changed my
life. And I hated them for it,hated them for about four or
five months, hated it in NorthCarolina, and determined to
(07:55):
continue hating it, because theytold us that if we didn't like
it, after a year, we could goback home. So I had every
intention of hating it for afull year so that we could go
back to Ohio. And of course, Istarted making friends and and
I'm still live in North Carolina40 Some years later. I mean,
here I still am right? Not inthe same town. But you know, I'm
(08:18):
still in North Carolina. So youwonder like, what little things
would have changed if I hadstayed in Ohio, or if I had
really hated North Carolina fora whole year, instead of
adjusting to it. If I had goneto a different high school if I
had made different friends, if Ihad married a different people,
if you know what I'm saying?Everything, everything kind of
gets you to where you are.
Michele A. Barard (08:40):
Well, I think that's interesting. You lead off
with something that I lead offwith, if people ask me, Well,
you know, who are you? Um, firstthing you said was, I'm a mom.
And I would imagine since yousaid also that your grandma mom,
that your kids are big kids now,they're not little kids.
Teri M. Brown (09:00):
No, no, my my babies 24. So they're 2424 2730
and 33. And then I've remarriedand my husband has three girls.
So I have I call them my bonuschildren. And I have three bonus
children. And they're older thanmy children. So and then we have
(09:22):
grandchildren. And then I havebonus great grandchildren, two
of them. So they run this gamutfrom so my husband's 12 years
older than I am, and his oldestchild is only like 10 years
younger than me. So they runfrom there, all the way down to
six months old. Wow. kids andgrandkids and great grandkids.
(09:45):
They just just run the gamut. Soit's very much part of who I am.
What
Michele A. Barard (09:50):
and that's what I'm kind of interested in
on a certain level because, youknow, once you become a parent,
at least for me, that was that'slike Key to identity in so many
ways. And it I always feel likeeverything else that I've done
has been in service to that insome way. How did parenting fit
(10:12):
into your, your life plan?
Teri M. Brown (10:16):
Well, you know, it's interesting, my mom, I
guess it was, when she grew up,she just believed that I was
going to have children andwasn't going to do what she had
done, which was be a stay athome mom. And, you know, she
expected me to have 2.2children, which is how many
people were having at the time.And I was going to put them in
(10:40):
daycare and go off to work insome penthouse, you know, high
rise something. And instead, Ihad four children. And I stayed
at home and I homeschooled. Solike, completely off the grid of
what my mom had had expected.And I think it really blew her
mind. But I loved it. I lovedbeing part of my kids lives, I
(11:02):
loved homeschooling them. Ididn't start out to homeschool
for any reason other than wehated the school system we were
living in. And my son was verybright. He taught himself to
read at the age of three. By thetime it was time for
kindergarten, he was alreadyreading it like a fourth grade
level. And the school systemwasn't good. And we couldn't
(11:22):
afford to live somewhere in abetter school system and
certainly couldn't affordprivate school. And I thought,
who can't homeschoolkindergarten? Yeah, right? I
mean, so I'll do that. Well,then it's time for first grade.
And, and I take him in, and Iwant to get him in some of the
gifted classes. And I find outthat they don't even do gifted
classes until the second grade.And I thought, who can't
(11:44):
homeschool first grade, right?By the end of first grade, I was
kind of really hooked in theidea of watching him learn. And,
you know, I have four children.And so at that point, you know,
he's eight, and I had a fiveyear old who's now ready to
start kindergarten, and a twoyear old that's, you know,
toddling around in the midst ofit all. And it's interesting for
(12:07):
my son, I started it because hewas so advanced. Well, my
daughter who is veryintelligent, had a learning
disability, and did not learn toread until she was 10. And had
she been in a regular schoolsystem, it would have killed her
because she's a very shy,introverted. And the idea that
(12:29):
she would have been pulled outevery day so that people knew
she was the kid that didn'tread, it would have just killed
her. And instead, she ended upgoing to college and doing well.
And I believe it's because I wasable to keep her home. My third
child had an eye problem whereher eyes didn't track together.
And so we did two years worth ofeye therapy and tracking
(12:49):
exercises and patches. And, andthat would have been very
difficult had she been in apublic school system. And then
my youngest child hasAsperger's. So that's on the
autism spectrum. And once again,not that she couldn't have been
in a public school because ofcourse, there were many kids
(13:09):
that are but it really helpedthat we had her at home because
I was able to help her learn allkinds of of things that made
living as an adult, much easierfor her now. So I got started
for one reason, and then I juststayed because I think maybe I
was a glutton for punishment?I'm not sure.
Michele A. Barard (13:28):
Well, um, you asked the question, well, who
can't homeschool kindergarten, Icouldn't homeschool. At one
point, we were living inGuatemala, and I was very
unhappy with the school we. AndI am not afraid to say it was
the American School in GuatemalaCity, and I was very unhappy
(13:51):
with the way that they taughtthere. Because being from the
United States where parents arevery involved in their kids
education, especially, you know,we were in private schools at
that point, you know, before weleft the country, I was like,
why are the teachers not talkingto me? I don't understand. And,
you know, my oldest was feelinga little persecuted because
(14:14):
their Spanish wasn't perfect.And the the kids were teasing
her and things like that. Isaid, You know what, I'm just
going to keep her home. And Istarted homeschooling and I
realized, I don't know what I'mdoing. I have no doing
fortunately, we found a lovelyschool through the expat
community and it was started bya mom and dad who decided to
(14:36):
stay home and homeschool theirkids and that's so they ended up
eventually with a little schoolthey Guatemala City, but I
couldn't homeschool How did youhow did you figure it all out?
How did you so you had a reasonfor doing it? But how did you
figure out how to do it?
Teri M. Brown (14:56):
Well, you know, it's funny I think for for my
son in kindergarten that youRuth was, as he already knew
everything they were going toteach him in kindergarten, so I
didn't feel any pressure. Okay,you know, if I had done nothing
that year, he still was going tobe fine. The kid was reading, he
knew his numbers, he knew hiscolors. We were involved in some
community activities. So I feltlike he was definitely getting
(15:19):
social interaction. And it was,I mean, honestly, keep him keep
him occupied and entertained.And then first grade, it was
like, Well, I guess I should,like, find some real curriculum,
you know, and so you just startmeeting other people, though,
that were involved. And I triedout different curriculums. I'm
not a person, I don't like tofollow rules or, or things like
(15:43):
I really don't like having anykind of like real tight
boundaries around me. So I wasthat curriculum person who I
took a little bit of this and alittle bit of that, and a little
bit of the other. And then Iwent to the library, and I made
stuff up on my own. But itworked for my kids anyway. I
mean, they all went on tocollege. And you know,
(16:03):
everybody's doing okay, soapparently I didn't completely
ruin them. Although, although mymiddle daughter does sometimes
say that I did ruin her. Sowe'll just do
Michele A. Barard (16:13):
it think you should tell you know what, now
you have something to talk abouton Oprah when she comes
Teri M. Brown (16:19):
to you. I agree. I agree. I've, I've also told my
kids I said, you know, if it wasreally bad, go get therapy, I'll
pay.
Michele A. Barard (16:28):
When then you can always blame them because
they chose you. That's what mything I say you chose me. So you
only have that choice. I thinkthis is really interesting, too,
though, because then you startedwriting? How did you decide to
start writing your books?
Teri M. Brown (16:47):
So yeah, my story is kind of a complicated one. So
I married I had my fourchildren, my husband, and I
probably should have remainedgood friends and never gotten
married. We were just asincompatible as two people could
be there was never any middleground. We couldn't find a place
where we were both comfortable.So we ended up divorced. And
(17:09):
then I remarried. And I, youknow, I don't know what I don't
know what I thought. But Imarried this man. I think he's a
chameleon. When we were dating,he was fine. And when we were
married, he was not and I livedwith him for 14 years. But he
was emotionally abusive. And itwas horrible, absolutely
horrible. But I wasn't going tobe divorced twice. I mean, you
(17:30):
know, I didn't want the bigbadge on my head that you know,
divorce see two times, you know,so I stayed with it. And I
really, really, really worked atit hard. And during that period
of time, I started working fromhome, writing for small
businesses. So I was doingarticles and blog posts and
website content, small ebooksfor pretty much anybody that
(17:53):
needed something written down.And I was really good at taking
what they had to say, andturning it into what they really
wanted. Because they would, theywould give me things and say, so
I've written this article. Andit just needs a little bit of
editing. And I would read it andthink a little bit, I'm not sure
(18:13):
that that's the right word. Andso I had a really good knack at
being able to take theirinformation and turning it into
something that other peoplewould want to read. So that's
kind of where my writingstarted. But I always knew that
I wanted to write more. Butwhile in that emotionally
abusive relationship, I didn'tbelieve in myself at all. Like,
(18:34):
there was no way that I had theability to do that. He even once
told me that just because Icould write nonfiction didn't
mean I could write fiction. AndI believed completely, like, you
know, you get that you just youjust don't believe in yourself
anymore. And, you know, at thispoint, I always say if there's
anyone who's in that kind ofrelationship, like, first of
(18:54):
all, believe in yourself and getout as fast as you can. You
don't have to prove anything toanyone. You know, like if
there's a way out, get out. Soin 2017, I did get out of that
relationship. I had drawn a linein the sand and he crossed that
line. And it was like, I don'tknow, it was like, I had been
released from prison. I had beenwaiting, you know, like, like,
(19:17):
there's only one thing that hecan do that will make me leave.
And he did that thing. And Ileft and that was the end of
that. And I started writingimmediately. And the first
manuscript I wrote was 50,000words. I wrote it in 10 days. It
was it was terrible. It was itwas not any good. But it had a
(19:38):
beginning and a middle and anend. The story has some merit to
it. My characters were flat, allthe scenes were flat. There
wasn't any, anything grippingabout it at all, but I did it.
And I realized that I had 50,000words in me. Well, if I have
50,000, then maybe I haveanother and so I wrote my second
manuscript, and that one wasbetter It still will never see
(20:01):
the light of day because it hadall kinds of errors and things
in it that just needed a lot ofwork. It's kind of like I say,
if you were to look at it as anartist, a painter, they would
never show you the very firstthing they painted. Because they
didn't know what they weredoing, they were just
experimenting with with thecolor in the strokes, and that
in the paint brushes, and that'skind of where I was. And so my
(20:23):
characters still had a lot ofproblems, they were perfect, I
couldn't let them have anyproblems. And yeah, so there
weren't a lot of fun to read.But I learned something with
that second one, and then Iwrote a third one. And that was
get a little better. And then Iwrote part of a fourth one, and
then got tired of it and leftit. And then the fifth one is
(20:45):
the one that actually became mydebut novel. So, you know, it
just, it just took some time forme to develop who I am as a
writer.
Michele A. Barard (20:56):
So you said some interesting things in
there. And this is interestingto me for a variety of reasons.
One is, I believe that it'simportant to just get her done.
Right? perfect is the enemy ofdone, you sat down, you hammered
it out the first book in 10 daysgot 50,000 words? How did you do
(21:17):
that? Did you just get up oneday and say I'm gonna start
writing? Or did you develop aplan? Or are you? Are you a
pantser, I'm
Teri M. Brown (21:24):
a pastor, I am such a pastor. And then I tell
people, not only am I a pastor,but I am a binge pastor. Oh, so.
So there are some people whowrite a little bit every day,
and they sit down from six toeight, or whatever it is. And I
do not, I cannot. In fact, ifyou tell me, Terry, right now
(21:45):
you'd have to sit down andwrite, I'll have nothing to say.
I'll sit there and, and thecomputer and I will stare at
each other. So I write when Iget the feeling to write, okay.
And when I get the feeling towrite, I might not do anything
for several days. Other thanRight. Like, there's no dishes
(22:05):
being done. There's no laundrybeing done, my husband's eating
wings, I've remarried. So myhusband's eating, you know,
frozen wings and chips in frontof the television, because I'm
writing. And then when I'm done,and my hair standing on end, and
I probably don't smell too good.I then I'm back to me again. And
I'm going about life. And Imight not right for a week or
(22:28):
two or even three and then allof a sudden it's I have
something to say. And so yeah,I'm a I'm a binge pastor. That
Michele A. Barard (22:35):
is fabulous. You know what that it reminds me
of I don't know if you've seenElizabeth Gilbert talk about
creativity, and talent. Oh, shehas a wonderful talk about
creativity. Look it up. Shetalks about this poet, I can't
think of the poet's name. Butshe went and she talks his poet
(22:56):
and this poet said somethingabout the words kind of in the
way I took it was the words kindof flow through her and she has
to immediately find something towrite with. Or they'll the words
will escape. And she won't beable to get them back and talked
about this one time where shewas running to go get her pen or
(23:19):
pencil whenever it's right. Andshe finally got there and the
words were passing through herand she had to pull them back.
And she wrote everythingbackwards. Oh, isn't that crazy?
But it's feels almost less likea intellect intellectual
process, and more of a spiritualone. How do you interpret your
(23:44):
your writing process?
Teri M. Brown (23:46):
So something happened to me one time when I
was writing that it still blowsmy mind? You know, I'm writing I
type. That's how I do it. I saidthat the computer. My
handwriting is so poor when Iwrite quickly that I can't read
it afterwards. So and I'm a veryquick typist. So I sit and I'm
thinking the words and thenthey're coming out. But while
(24:08):
I'm typing, I'm also readingwhat's popping up on my screen.
So I'm writing something, I amwriting it. Okay. And I'm
reading it. And I started tocry. Because something that was
happening was just so amazing.And then I thought, This is
stupid. You just thought it andwrote it. And now you're crying
(24:31):
like you didn't know it wascoming. Do you see what I'm
saying? Like it was it? So it'slike there's two parts. I mean,
you know, there are two parts toyour brain. And I swear
sometimes they do not talk toone another. The creative, the
creative piece was doingsomething and then the logical
piece that's reading it wasgoing oh my goodness. So it was
just it was crazy. So yeah, I dothink there's it isn't just a
(24:57):
logical process. It isn't justYou know, fingers on a keyboard,
you think you put it out,there's, there's something else,
you know, I have characters thattalk to me. And no, I don't need
medicine. But I just they talkto me like I get a character
and, and they start developingin my head and I don't usually
(25:17):
write right away, I let themkind of percolate in there and
start telling me little storiesuntil I get a feel for where we
might go. And then I just startwriting. And I'm very much a
Panster. Very rarely do I knowhow the story is going to end.
Or if I do know how it's goingto end like I did with
(25:38):
sunflowers. And I'll tell youwhy in a minute. But I didn't
know how it was going to get tothat end. So
Michele A. Barard (25:43):
you had a beginning in that case, and you
had an end, but you didn't knowthe middle. Actually,
Teri M. Brown (25:49):
I only had an end. So for sunflowers beneath
the snow, this is crazy story. Iwas still living with that
abusive spouse. My daughter'sboth went to Girl Scout camp as
camp counselors, several summersin a row. And they always had
international students and oneof the students was Ukrainian.
She came for the summer of 2013.Got to know my girls, came again
(26:13):
in 2014. And then couldn't gohome because Russia had invaded
the Crimea peninsula, rightwhere her parents lived. Okay,
so she ended up staying in theUnited States is still in the
United States today has neverseen her parents again in
person. So I mean, that's crazy,right? But in 2016, she came to
visit one of my daughters forher birthday, and was telling me
(26:36):
this amazing story, a littlesliver of something that
happened to her. And it was socompelling that I thought, well,
first of all, I thought whatshe's telling me can't be real,
like, I must, I must bemisunderstanding, she has her
Ukrainian accent. Her English,though good, she could be using
some words incorrectly. So I'mrepeating back what I think I
(26:58):
understand. And lo and behold,that is the story. And it made
goosebumps stand up on my arms.And I thought that story has got
to be like a movie or a book orsomething. But this is in 2016,
I'm still in this badrelationship. I'm certainly not
the one to write it. But therethat little seed was planted. In
2018. I wrote 82,000 words offiction, to tell that little
(27:24):
sliver of a story. So the lastthree pages of the last chapter,
not the epilogue, but the lastchapter are true. And everything
else is a figment of myimagination, so that I could get
to that interview. Wow.
Michele A. Barard (27:38):
Wow. So that says a lot about the writing
process for you, too, in termsof how you get inspiration,
sometimes it could be somethingsomeone tells you, you have your
characters that could just kindof come to you and start
formulating in your brain. Whatother things, you know, help you
to get started with your books.
Teri M. Brown (27:58):
I had a song one time, it was a country song. And
it was I think it was calledFive more minutes. And it was
like, you know, if they had fivemore minutes to kiss on the
front porch, or five moreminutes, and then there was the
five more minutes with grandpaor something like that. And that
just got me to thinking aboutlike, what if you knew what if
(28:20):
you knew where your end datewas? You know, like, what would
you do? And how, you know, whatwould that make you live
differently. And so my mindstarted going there. And the
next thing you know, I've gotthis character who is is
irritated because her childrenwon't go to sleep at night. And
she's a single parent, and she'ssitting down with a glass of
(28:41):
wine. And she says, you know,who if I could just close my
eyes and never wake up again.And of course, she didn't mean
that she was just exasperated,but death shows up and said, You
asked for it. That's it. Off wego. And so she finds a way to to
beg for more time. And now shehas a certain amount of time to
(29:01):
prove that she really wants tolive. Oh, wow. And so that's
kind of this story is still I'mwho knows that where it'll ever
go because I got to a certainpoint, and it just kind of
stalled on me. My dad passedaway in the middle of all of it.
So I think that every time I goback to it, I kind of I go to
that bad place and then I can'tI can't move forward. I will
(29:24):
eventually I think I'll get toit eventually. But so that one
came from a song that I startedcontemplating. Just anything can
happen. Sometimes someone willjust say the craziest little
sentence. I like to writesomething called micro flash
fiction. And micro flash fictionis usually 100 words or less.
And I actually like the onesthat are 50 words or less. Okay,
(29:48):
and the smallest things willcome to me and I'll think, ooh,
I could do something with that.And then I just write a little
50 word blurb because, you know,it was an advertisement and it
was As the heading in my emailor it was a news story, and it
struck me or any number ofthings. I mean, it was April
(30:10):
Fool's Day, and I came up withan idea. And I thought that
would be hysterical. And thennext thing, you know, I've got a
flash fiction. So it's kind ofjust whatever's going on around
me, I like to really payattention to people and what
they're doing what they'resaying. I like to watch when
people's facial expressions, andbody language is completely
(30:32):
different from what's coming outof their mouth. You know, and,
you know, I just, I love thatkind of thing. I take notes all
the time. I tell people all thetime, you do know that that's
going to be in my next book. So?
Michele A. Barard (30:45):
Well, I think that's interesting, too, because
I think a lot of writers arekind of people watchers. Yeah.
Yeah. Well,
Teri M. Brown (30:53):
I mean, if you're going to write characters that
are compelling, you have to makesure that they're doing and
feeling things that seem realplausible. And the only way to
do that is to have beenobservant enough when other
people are doing and feelingthings. You know, like, if
someone's angry, you don't wantto say, you know, my character
(31:14):
is angry. I mean, that isdoesn't make for good reading.
And so how do we know thatyou're angry? You know, what if
What have you been doing thatlets me know that you're angry,
and you don't want to be like,over the top, you know, steam
coming out his ears and snortingthrough his nose, because
that's, that's just too over thetop that's too too cartoony, but
(31:37):
you want to do something. Evenif you give them a little tick,
that the person sees over, yourreader sees over time, oh,
they're angry, they're doingthat whatever they're doing
again, you know, they're,they're scratching it their
pants again, you know, or their,their hands in their pocket, and
they're Jingwen those keys, youknow, whatever they're doing, so
(31:57):
that, you know, oh, there's thatanger. Yes, you have to kind of
pay attention, the number oftimes that I'm trying to explain
an emotion. And I think, well,what would I do if I were
feeling that and I'll get amirror? And I'll try to feel
that emotion. And I'll bewatching myself, it's like, oh,
(32:19):
yeah, well, let's see my eyescrinkled or my one eyebrow went
up? Or, or, you know, like, whatam I doing? My shoulder, my
shoulders slumped, or, you know,everything got tight. Or? So
I'll sit in front of a mirrorand try the emotions, like try
to feel them and then look, whatam I doing, so that I can then
(32:39):
describe that for my character.
Michele A. Barard (32:41):
That's really interesting, because I think
sometimes we forget, especiallynew authors, forget about other
ways to convey things abouttheir characters, like a tick.
That's a classic one, really, Ihad taken a creative writing
(33:01):
course many, many moons ago. Andone of the positive things that
came out of one of my critiques,there was a lot of negative
stuff. But this is the onepositive one that I remember was
I my particular character forthat short story was, I think
she was twisting a Kleenex, orsomething as she taught, you
(33:25):
know, and that was a detail thatthe professor kind of it was a
guest Professor honed in on andsaid, That's a good, that's a
good detail about her, you know,that gives us something about
that person. And you don't thinkabout those sometimes when
you're a new author, and youyou're so excited about your
story. What kinds of things doyou feel like were wrong with
(33:47):
your first manuscript? Oh,
Teri M. Brown (33:49):
my goodness. Well, first of all, my character
had no flaws. None. No, she wasperfect. She was perfect. She
was like, Superwoman, everythingevery she had lots of things
that happened to her, but shecame through every one of them
with flying colors and no sweat.Kind of like, have you seen
those horrible old movies wherethe women would go running into
(34:11):
the ocean, and they just run inthe ocean waves and their hair,
and they go in and their haircomes up, you know, when I go
running into the water, youknow, first of all, my feet are
kicking all of the waves, I'mhalf tripping, I finally fall
into the water and I come upwith seaweed. You know, that's,
that's real. Yeah, the wholerunning in, you know, like, like
(34:32):
Baywatch or whatever that wasback in the day. You know,
that's not real people don'tthat's not how you enter the
ocean. Okay, I would say Good.Never, never. And so she was
like that. She was like aBaywatch character. I mean,
there was nothing about her thatthat was relatable because I
couldn't let her have anyfailure. And then the other
(34:54):
thing that I did was instead ofshowing that she was angry, I
just did Point Blank said, andnow she is angry. And now she is
happy. And now she is sad, youknow, I couldn't trust my reader
to figure it out. It was like,the number of times that I would
have to go back if I were to doanything. Well, first of all,
(35:15):
I'd have to make her have flaws.But even if if that were fixed,
I would have to go back in andget rid of all of the she felt.
She did she get a I told I toldher everything. And I didn't let
my readers experience it.Because I was too quick to say,
(35:37):
just in case you've missed it.
Michele A. Barard (35:40):
So there's something there about trusting
yourself as a writer, but alsotrusting your readers? Right,
exactly.
Teri M. Brown (35:46):
I think, I think new writers in particular, and I
mean, I still really strugglewith it, when I go back and do
my editing the number of times Ithink I've done it again, you
know, get rid of that. Why did Iput that in there? We have the
feeling that if we don't tellsomeone exactly what's happening
(36:07):
at all times that maybe they'renot going to get it? Well, the
truth is, is that readers do getit, you know, in fact, they want
to sometimes struggle a littleand wonder what exactly is
happening and why. And then whenthey get it, they get that, oh,
now I know what's happening. Andthey then make a connection with
your, your book or yourcharacter or the setting or
(36:28):
whatever. So you have to becareful to to not feel that that
you have a low IQ reader who'snever going to catch on. I mean,
you want to give them a chanceto experience the character with
you.
Michele A. Barard (36:42):
Well, and what kinds of things you think
you do better now,
Teri M. Brown (36:46):
let's think that I'm pretty good at dialogue, I,
I have a way of, especially withmy historical fiction, there's a
lot of information that I feellike in sunflowers beneath the
snow, it's a Ukraine, it's aboutUkraine, and it starts in the
Soviet Union, and goes throughuntil a little after the first
(37:07):
invasion in 2014. And there's alot of history that's necessary
to know. But it could get reallyboring, if you just put it in as
a, you know, just like as abackstory, and you were just
reading it, it'd be the type ofthing that people would skip.
Right. And so I've learned howto put that information into
(37:29):
dialogue. For instance, I haveone of my characters and her
husband, they're debatingbecause the the presidential
election is coming up. And sothey're debating and they're
throwing back and forth. Buteverything they're debating is
all those facts that would havebeen boring any
Michele A. Barard (37:45):
other way. And then people needed to really
Teri M. Brown (37:48):
Yes, to really understand why it mattered.
Right? You know, and it doesmatter. Because if it didn't
matter, then this setting, Icould have made them be
anywhere. But they needed to bein Ukraine and needed to be this
time period. And thereforepeople need to have at least
some understanding of why thismatters. And so I just had them
(38:08):
have this, you know, theyweren't arguing but it was a
debate back and forth. And youknow, the wife would bring up
one point and say, Yeah, butwhat about this? And he'd say,
Well, you know, that's a goodpoint. But you know, blue blood,
you get to sit back and forth.Yeah, I think my dialogue is, is
probably one of the best thingsthat I do. Awesome.
Michele A. Barard (38:27):
And you know, it's interesting that you
mentioned that because when Iwork with writers, what I often
tell them is look at movies orTV for inspiration. Because one
of my favorite, this is sosilly. You're going to learn
what kind of geek I am rightnow. Right? So one of my
favorite observations of thatwith the dialogue giving
(38:50):
background information isactually in an episode of Psych.
Well, I don't know if you everused to watch it. But that's
fun. It's funny, a little show.We love it. And we still watch
it. It will do marathonswatching it. But there was this
one episode where Shawn and Gusare on the beach, you're on the
(39:10):
boardwalk, or whatever, I guesstalking. And all they're doing
is given information that peopleneed. And I was like, Oh, that's
really good. As an example ofhow this happens, you also have
things like that in HarryPotter. You know, I love using
Harry Potter as an example,where you have complex stories,
(39:32):
and there's a lot of informationyou need about Sirius Black and
all these different people inorder for the movies move
forward and for people tounderstand what's going on. What
do you think is a good exampleof a tool that a writer can use
to learn to write better?
Teri M. Brown (39:52):
You know, I'm a firm believer, I've taken very
few courses. I think the twothings that you need to do to be
a good writer is read Eat a lotand write a lot. You're never
going to become a better writerby thinking about it. And you're
not even going to become abetter writer by taking a course
if you then don't go take whatyou learned in that course and
right, like you've got to write.I, the caveat to that is, once
(40:18):
you've written to a point whereyou don't think that you're
making any progress, it'sprobably a good idea to start
throwing your work out in frontof other people, and asking
their opinions because they,other people will be honest with
you, if you ask them to about,well, what is missing? What do
you like? What don't you like?What slow for you? You know, if
(40:42):
you could do anything, if youcould learn anything that wasn't
in here, what would you want toknow that I didn't tell you, you
know, those kinds of questions.And that will help you a lot.
You know, I found my firsteditor for some flowers beneath
the snow, it was veryinteresting, because she came
back and said, You know, I needto know more about a particular
(41:02):
character. And it was like, Why,I mean, I felt it was perfectly
fine that I didn't need any moreat all. And she was adamant that
it needed more. And so I wentback and and I added more. And
she was right. You know, as Ilooked at it, it was like, Wow,
that really, it changed thestory, it was so much better
(41:24):
now. But in my mind, it was itwas fine the way it was. And so
I think it's really good to havethose other eyes. So whether
that's by taking a class, and soyou have a professor that's
doing it, or whether you're in acritique group, or you just get
some beta readers or friends,you know, someone who enjoys
reading the genre that you'rewriting, to take a look and tell
(41:45):
you, this is good. This is notgood. This is what I would do.
You know, and then and thenexperiment and try some more.
Michele A. Barard (41:54):
Well, in the thing that I heard you say was
you had very specific types ofquestions. You didn't just say,
hey, what do you think, which iswhat our inclination is? And
people are typically, especiallyif they're friends family,
because Oh, it's great, great.It was good. Yeah, we should
pursue this, as opposed to whatshould I have done differently?
(42:15):
What would you have donedifferently? What would you need
to know more about? If you couldchange something about this
character, this story that howdo you feel like this works for
you in terms of timeline, you'regiving them very specific types
of questions, so that you canactually elicit useful
(42:36):
information, right? Is that whatI'm hearing? Yeah,
Teri M. Brown (42:38):
I do that. And I also when I'm reading, I'm
asking those same questions. AsI'm reading. What is this author
doing to make the story moveforward? Why do I like this
story so much? What about thischaracter is so compelling, that
I stayed up until three o'clockin the morning to find out what
happened next? What is it sothat I can start to add that to
(43:02):
my writing? You know, like, whatis it about that? That writer
that ability that grabbed me socompletely, that despite the
fact that I knew that I had asix o'clock appointment? I was
up at three, reading, knowing itwas going to ruin my whole day?
What is it that they did? Oreven if I'm reading a book that
(43:22):
I'm not enjoying? Why, what isit? What about this book is
turning me off? You know,usually, it's because it starts
to slow, or the characterdevelopment isn't very good. I'm
a very, I'm into character. It'sbig in my books that I write.
(43:43):
And it's also what I enjoyreading, if the character just
isn't well developed. I'm justnot going to enjoy the story. I
don't care how compelling thestory is, if the character is
not well developed, it justdoesn't send me.
Michele A. Barard (43:56):
So if you had three pieces of advice for a new
author, what would they be?Yeah,
Teri M. Brown (44:03):
so right, do it now. Don't wait. Don't wait for
a class. Don't wait for acertificate. Don't wait for a
certain period of time in yourlife. Don't wait until you've
had more experiences. Just startwriting. The sooner you start
writing, the better, you'llbecome, you know, number two was
get an editor or someone who'swilling to help you. But the
(44:25):
third piece of advice that I'mgoing to give almost sounds like
I'm contradicting myself, andit's don't listen to everyone.
Because there's more than oneway to write. If there was only
one way to write, there'd onlybe one style of book and that's
not what's true. There's so manydifferent things out there. So
definitely listen, try thingsout, give it a shot. If it
(44:47):
doesn't work for you, or itdoesn't work for your character
or the way you want your book tobe. It's okay to say that was
not bad advice, but it's notgood advice for me and to put it
to the side.
Michele A. Barard (44:59):
Exactly. That's awesome. That's awesome.
Well, Terry, how can peopleconnect with you?
Teri M. Brown (45:04):
Well, they can go to my website. It's www dot
Terry M Brown. And that's Terrywith one R t e r i, m brown.com.
And on there you'll find all mysocial media I am on everything
including Tik Tok, which blowsmy mind because I don't even
know what I'm doing on it yet,but but it's there. It's there.
(45:25):
So yeah, my Instagram andFacebook and I'm on LinkedIn.
Literally, I'm on everything. Soyou can go there. You can also
sign up for my newsletter. Andif you sign up for the
newsletter, you get the 10historical fiction novels you've
never heard of that will makeyou cry. So I've curated this
list from from friends who haveread really good historical
(45:46):
fiction that haven't made theyou know, New York Times
bestseller list. So
Michele A. Barard (45:50):
awesome. That in and of itself is worth
signing up for the newsletter.It especially if you like to
have a good cry.
Teri M. Brown (45:57):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And to me, if, if a
book can make you cry, then iteven happy tears like either
way, happy, sad, both. In fact,I had someone say to me that my
books made them both laugh andcry. And it was like that is the
best thing you could have saidto me and let you know my job is
complete.
Michele A. Barard (46:16):
100% I agree. Terry Brown, thank you so much
for being on somewhere in themiddle of Michele Barard.
Teri M. Brown (46:24):
Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed
it.
Michele A. Barard (46:28):
Well, that's our show this month, guys. You
can reach me online at Michelebarard.com. You can also find me
on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,and Tiktok as urban book editor,
send me a note. I'd love to hearfrom you. Feel free to send in
some topics you'd like us tocover on the show. Make sure you
tune into the show on May 17thwhen my guest will be author
(46:50):
Peter Davidson. You can find usonce a month on Fridays at 5pm
Pacific 6pm Mountain 7pm Centraland 8pm Eastern at the summer in
the middle podcast.com. Let'scontinue the conversation. You
guys be good. stay mindful andremain prayerful. Peace and
(47:10):
blessings y'all
Happy Friday, everyone. Welcome to somewhere
in the middle with MicheleBarard. I'm your host, Michele
Barard Founder and CEO MicheleBarard LLC. And I'm really happy
to share this out with you wherewe examine all those places
where spirit needs life, and thejoys and challenges that may
bring you guys now I'd like tostart by thanking Miss Beverly
black and Trapp Family Channelfor helping me create the space
(02:34):
for us. trapped down the channelis home to an assortment of
thought provoking shows thatexplore life, spirit, business
and culture, including the womanat the well hosted by Miss
Beverly black herself. Somewherein the middle was born on Trump
Family channel. And although wehave grown onto our own
platform, we are ever gratefuland loyal to our roots. To
(02:54):
paraphrase an African proverb,we are here only because we
stand on the shoulders of thosewho came before us. I want to
thank my guests on the march15 2024 show, author William
Shermer, you can find Williamsbooks on Amazon. If you miss
that show, make sure you listento the replay. You can find our
(03:14):
complete show archives includingthe march 15 show at the
somewhere in the middlepodcast.com. I also want to
shout out Bruce George of thegeniuses komen movement, which
encourages all of us to embraceour inner genius and share it
with the world. It's reallyessential that we share this
message with the young people.And it's not just for kids. We
(03:34):
grownups need to be remindedsometimes that the world needs
our genius. Learn more about thegeniuses comm and movement at
WWW dot genius is common.com
Now, this month's guest has suchan interesting background. Born
in Athens, Greece as an AirForce brat, Terri Anne brown
(03:55):
graduated from UNC Greensborowith a multitude of degrees,
majors in elementary educationand psychology and minors in
math and sociology. She justcouldn't settle on one thing.
While homeschooling her fourchildren, she began her writing
career by focusing on smallbusinesses, writing articles,
(04:17):
blog posts, and web content. Shepublished five nonfiction self
help books dealing with realestate and finance. Receiving
first runner up in the EricHoffman Book Awards for 301
simple things you can do to sellyour home now, finalist in the
USA Best Books awards for how toopen and operate a financially
(04:39):
successful redesign. redecorate,in real estate staging business,
and for 301 simple things youcan do to sell your home now.
And honorable mention inforeword magazine's Book of the
Year Award for private mortgageinvesting
in 2017, Terry began dabbling infiction, a lifelong dream. Upon
(05:04):
winning the first annual andAnita bloom or an off award for
inspirational short story for apiece about her grandfather, she
began writing in earnest, andrecently published sunflowers
beneath the snow. Terry is awife, mother, grandmother and
author who loves war games,reading, bombing on the beach,
(05:25):
taking photos, singing in theshower, hunting for bargains,
ballroom dancing, playing bridgeand mentoring others, especially
youth and women who are havingtrouble discovering the worth.
Terry's debut novel sunflowersbeneath us now is a historical
fiction set in the Ukraine. So Iwould like to welcome Terry
(05:49):
Brown to somewhere in the middlewith Michelle Bora. Terry, thank
you for being on the show.
Teri M. Brown (05:54):
Thanks so much for having me. I'm really
excited to be here.
Michele A. Barard (05:58):
Well, I am excited, because you're really
interesting. And I'm reallyexcited to share your story with
my audience. As you know, Istart my interview with two
questions. So if you're ready,I'll go ahead and ask those. Ask
away. All right, so Terry Brown.Who are you? And how did you
(06:21):
become who you are today? Oh, so
Teri M. Brown (06:25):
yeah, who am I? That's a question for the ages,
isn't it? Um, so I'm a mom. I'ma grandma. I'm a wife. I'm an
author. I'm a ballroom dancer,newbie. I'm a bridge player. I
am a Beachcomber. I'm a cyclist.More my husband is but I follow
(06:50):
along. I'm just I'm so manythings. But how did I get to
where I am? It's like aconglomeration of my entire life
got me to this point, you know,I sometimes look and wonder,
like, if I had made a differentchoice at any given point, where
would I be today? And the answeris somewhere completely
(07:12):
different. And would I be happy,I don't know. You know, so many
little tiny choices, you know,lead you from one direction to
another, and sometimes eventhings that weren't your choice,
like I grew up. While I was inmy dad was in the Air Force. And
so we did that for a while thenwe were living in Ohio when he
got out of the Air Force. Andthen I came home from school one
(07:34):
day in the middle of my ninthgrade year, literally in the
middle, and my house was forsale, my parents decided to move
from Ohio to North Carolina, andalike that completely changed my
life. And I hated them for it,hated them for about four or
five months, hated it in NorthCarolina, and determined to
(07:55):
continue hating it, because theytold us that if we didn't like
it, after a year, we could goback home. So I had every
intention of hating it for afull year so that we could go
back to Ohio. And of course, Istarted making friends and and
I'm still live in North Carolina40 Some years later. I mean,
here I still am right? Not inthe same town. But you know, I'm
(08:18):
still in North Carolina. So youwonder like, what little things
would have changed if I hadstayed in Ohio, or if I had
really hated North Carolina fora whole year, instead of
adjusting to it. If I had goneto a different high school if I
had made different friends, if Ihad married a different people,
if you know what I'm saying?Everything, everything kind of
gets you to where you are.
Michele A. Barard (08:40):
Well, I think that's interesting. You lead off
with something that I lead offwith, if people ask me, Well,
you know, who are you? Um, firstthing you said was, I'm a mom.
And I would imagine since yousaid also that your grandma mom,
that your kids are big kids now,they're not little kids.
Teri M. Brown (09:00):
No, no, my my babies 24. So they're 2424 2730
and 33. And then I've remarriedand my husband has three girls.
So I have I call them my bonuschildren. And I have three bonus
children. And they're older thanmy children. So and then we have
(09:22):
grandchildren. And then I havebonus great grandchildren, two
of them. So they run this gamutfrom so my husband's 12 years
older than I am, and his oldestchild is only like 10 years
younger than me. So they runfrom there, all the way down to
six months old. Wow. kids andgrandkids and great grandkids.
(09:45):
They just just run the gamut. Soit's very much part of who I am.
What
Michele A. Barard (09:50):
and that's what I'm kind of interested in
on a certain level because, youknow, once you become a parent,
at least for me, that was that'slike Key to identity in so many
ways. And it I always feel likeeverything else that I've done
has been in service to that insome way. How did parenting fit
(10:12):
into your, your life plan?
Teri M. Brown (10:16):
Well, you know, it's interesting, my mom, I
guess it was, when she grew up,she just believed that I was
going to have children andwasn't going to do what she had
done, which was be a stay athome mom. And, you know, she
expected me to have 2.2children, which is how many
people were having at the time.And I was going to put them in
(10:40):
daycare and go off to work insome penthouse, you know, high
rise something. And instead, Ihad four children. And I stayed
at home and I homeschooled. Solike, completely off the grid of
what my mom had had expected.And I think it really blew her
mind. But I loved it. I lovedbeing part of my kids lives, I
(11:02):
loved homeschooling them. Ididn't start out to homeschool
for any reason other than wehated the school system we were
living in. And my son was verybright. He taught himself to
read at the age of three. By thetime it was time for
kindergarten, he was alreadyreading it like a fourth grade
level. And the school systemwasn't good. And we couldn't
(11:22):
afford to live somewhere in abetter school system and
certainly couldn't affordprivate school. And I thought,
who can't homeschoolkindergarten? Yeah, right? I
mean, so I'll do that. Well,then it's time for first grade.
And, and I take him in, and Iwant to get him in some of the
gifted classes. And I find outthat they don't even do gifted
classes until the second grade.And I thought, who can't
(11:44):
homeschool first grade, right?By the end of first grade, I was
kind of really hooked in theidea of watching him learn. And,
you know, I have four children.And so at that point, you know,
he's eight, and I had a fiveyear old who's now ready to
start kindergarten, and a twoyear old that's, you know,
toddling around in the midst ofit all. And it's interesting for
(12:07):
my son, I started it because hewas so advanced. Well, my
daughter who is veryintelligent, had a learning
disability, and did not learn toread until she was 10. And had
she been in a regular schoolsystem, it would have killed her
because she's a very shy,introverted. And the idea that
(12:29):
she would have been pulled outevery day so that people knew
she was the kid that didn'tread, it would have just killed
her. And instead, she ended upgoing to college and doing well.
And I believe it's because I wasable to keep her home. My third
child had an eye problem whereher eyes didn't track together.
And so we did two years worth ofeye therapy and tracking
(12:49):
exercises and patches. And, andthat would have been very
difficult had she been in apublic school system. And then
my youngest child hasAsperger's. So that's on the
autism spectrum. And once again,not that she couldn't have been
in a public school because ofcourse, there were many kids
(13:09):
that are but it really helpedthat we had her at home because
I was able to help her learn allkinds of of things that made
living as an adult, much easierfor her now. So I got started
for one reason, and then I juststayed because I think maybe I
was a glutton for punishment?I'm not sure.
Michele A. Barard (13:28):
Well, um, you asked the question, well, who
can't homeschool kindergarten, Icouldn't homeschool. At one
point, we were living inGuatemala, and I was very
unhappy with the school we. AndI am not afraid to say it was
the American School in GuatemalaCity, and I was very unhappy
(13:51):
with the way that they taughtthere. Because being from the
United States where parents arevery involved in their kids
education, especially, you know,we were in private schools at
that point, you know, before weleft the country, I was like,
why are the teachers not talkingto me? I don't understand. And,
you know, my oldest was feelinga little persecuted because
(14:14):
their Spanish wasn't perfect.And the the kids were teasing
her and things like that. Isaid, You know what, I'm just
going to keep her home. And Istarted homeschooling and I
realized, I don't know what I'mdoing. I have no doing
fortunately, we found a lovelyschool through the expat
community and it was started bya mom and dad who decided to
(14:36):
stay home and homeschool theirkids and that's so they ended up
eventually with a little schoolthey Guatemala City, but I
couldn't homeschool How did youhow did you figure it all out?
How did you so you had a reasonfor doing it? But how did you
figure out how to do it?
Teri M. Brown (14:56):
Well, you know, it's funny I think for for my
son in kindergarten that youRuth was, as he already knew
everything they were going toteach him in kindergarten, so I
didn't feel any pressure. Okay,you know, if I had done nothing
that year, he still was going tobe fine. The kid was reading, he
knew his numbers, he knew hiscolors. We were involved in some
community activities. So I feltlike he was definitely getting
(15:19):
social interaction. And it was,I mean, honestly, keep him keep
him occupied and entertained.And then first grade, it was
like, Well, I guess I should,like, find some real curriculum,
you know, and so you just startmeeting other people, though,
that were involved. And I triedout different curriculums. I'm
not a person, I don't like tofollow rules or, or things like
(15:43):
I really don't like having anykind of like real tight
boundaries around me. So I wasthat curriculum person who I
took a little bit of this and alittle bit of that, and a little
bit of the other. And then Iwent to the library, and I made
stuff up on my own. But itworked for my kids anyway. I
mean, they all went on tocollege. And you know,
(16:03):
everybody's doing okay, soapparently I didn't completely
ruin them. Although, although mymiddle daughter does sometimes
say that I did ruin her. Sowe'll just do
Michele A. Barard (16:13):
it think you should tell you know what, now
you have something to talk abouton Oprah when she comes
Teri M. Brown (16:19):
to you. I agree. I agree. I've, I've also told my
kids I said, you know, if it wasreally bad, go get therapy, I'll
pay.
Michele A. Barard (16:28):
When then you can always blame them because
they chose you. That's what mything I say you chose me. So you
only have that choice. I thinkthis is really interesting, too,
though, because then you startedwriting? How did you decide to
start writing your books?
Teri M. Brown (16:47):
So yeah, my story is kind of a complicated one. So
I married I had my fourchildren, my husband, and I
probably should have remainedgood friends and never gotten
married. We were just asincompatible as two people could
be there was never any middleground. We couldn't find a place
where we were both comfortable.So we ended up divorced. And
(17:09):
then I remarried. And I, youknow, I don't know what I don't
know what I thought. But Imarried this man. I think he's a
chameleon. When we were dating,he was fine. And when we were
married, he was not and I livedwith him for 14 years. But he
was emotionally abusive. And itwas horrible, absolutely
horrible. But I wasn't going tobe divorced twice. I mean, you
(17:30):
know, I didn't want the bigbadge on my head that you know,
divorce see two times, you know,so I stayed with it. And I
really, really, really worked atit hard. And during that period
of time, I started working fromhome, writing for small
businesses. So I was doingarticles and blog posts and
website content, small ebooksfor pretty much anybody that
(17:53):
needed something written down.And I was really good at taking
what they had to say, andturning it into what they really
wanted. Because they would, theywould give me things and say, so
I've written this article. Andit just needs a little bit of
editing. And I would read it andthink a little bit, I'm not sure
(18:13):
that that's the right word. Andso I had a really good knack at
being able to take theirinformation and turning it into
something that other peoplewould want to read. So that's
kind of where my writingstarted. But I always knew that
I wanted to write more. Butwhile in that emotionally
abusive relationship, I didn'tbelieve in myself at all. Like,
(18:34):
there was no way that I had theability to do that. He even once
told me that just because Icould write nonfiction didn't
mean I could write fiction. AndI believed completely, like, you
know, you get that you just youjust don't believe in yourself
anymore. And, you know, at thispoint, I always say if there's
anyone who's in that kind ofrelationship, like, first of
(18:54):
all, believe in yourself and getout as fast as you can. You
don't have to prove anything toanyone. You know, like if
there's a way out, get out. Soin 2017, I did get out of that
relationship. I had drawn a linein the sand and he crossed that
line. And it was like, I don'tknow, it was like, I had been
released from prison. I had beenwaiting, you know, like, like,
(19:17):
there's only one thing that hecan do that will make me leave.
And he did that thing. And Ileft and that was the end of
that. And I started writingimmediately. And the first
manuscript I wrote was 50,000words. I wrote it in 10 days. It
was it was terrible. It was itwas not any good. But it had a
(19:38):
beginning and a middle and anend. The story has some merit to
it. My characters were flat, allthe scenes were flat. There
wasn't any, anything grippingabout it at all, but I did it.
And I realized that I had 50,000words in me. Well, if I have
50,000, then maybe I haveanother and so I wrote my second
manuscript, and that one wasbetter It still will never see
(20:01):
the light of day because it hadall kinds of errors and things
in it that just needed a lot ofwork. It's kind of like I say,
if you were to look at it as anartist, a painter, they would
never show you the very firstthing they painted. Because they
didn't know what they weredoing, they were just
experimenting with with thecolor in the strokes, and that
in the paint brushes, and that'skind of where I was. And so my
(20:23):
characters still had a lot ofproblems, they were perfect, I
couldn't let them have anyproblems. And yeah, so there
weren't a lot of fun to read.But I learned something with
that second one, and then Iwrote a third one. And that was
get a little better. And then Iwrote part of a fourth one, and
then got tired of it and leftit. And then the fifth one is
(20:45):
the one that actually became mydebut novel. So, you know, it
just, it just took some time forme to develop who I am as a
writer.
Michele A. Barard (20:56):
So you said some interesting things in
there. And this is interestingto me for a variety of reasons.
One is, I believe that it'simportant to just get her done.
Right? perfect is the enemy ofdone, you sat down, you hammered
it out the first book in 10 daysgot 50,000 words? How did you do
(21:17):
that? Did you just get up oneday and say I'm gonna start
writing? Or did you develop aplan? Or are you? Are you a
pantser, I'm
Teri M. Brown (21:24):
a pastor, I am such a pastor. And then I tell
people, not only am I a pastor,but I am a binge pastor. Oh, so.
So there are some people whowrite a little bit every day,
and they sit down from six toeight, or whatever it is. And I
do not, I cannot. In fact, ifyou tell me, Terry, right now
(21:45):
you'd have to sit down andwrite, I'll have nothing to say.
I'll sit there and, and thecomputer and I will stare at
each other. So I write when Iget the feeling to write, okay.
And when I get the feeling towrite, I might not do anything
for several days. Other thanRight. Like, there's no dishes
(22:05):
being done. There's no laundrybeing done, my husband's eating
wings, I've remarried. So myhusband's eating, you know,
frozen wings and chips in frontof the television, because I'm
writing. And then when I'm done,and my hair standing on end, and
I probably don't smell too good.I then I'm back to me again. And
I'm going about life. And Imight not right for a week or
(22:28):
two or even three and then allof a sudden it's I have
something to say. And so yeah,I'm a I'm a binge pastor. That
Michele A. Barard (22:35):
is fabulous. You know what that it reminds me
of I don't know if you've seenElizabeth Gilbert talk about
creativity, and talent. Oh, shehas a wonderful talk about
creativity. Look it up. Shetalks about this poet, I can't
think of the poet's name. Butshe went and she talks his poet
(22:56):
and this poet said somethingabout the words kind of in the
way I took it was the words kindof flow through her and she has
to immediately find something towrite with. Or they'll the words
will escape. And she won't beable to get them back and talked
about this one time where shewas running to go get her pen or
(23:19):
pencil whenever it's right. Andshe finally got there and the
words were passing through herand she had to pull them back.
And she wrote everythingbackwards. Oh, isn't that crazy?
But it's feels almost less likea intellect intellectual
process, and more of a spiritualone. How do you interpret your
(23:44):
your writing process?
Teri M. Brown (23:46):
So something happened to me one time when I
was writing that it still blowsmy mind? You know, I'm writing I
type. That's how I do it. I saidthat the computer. My
handwriting is so poor when Iwrite quickly that I can't read
it afterwards. So and I'm a veryquick typist. So I sit and I'm
thinking the words and thenthey're coming out. But while
(24:08):
I'm typing, I'm also readingwhat's popping up on my screen.
So I'm writing something, I amwriting it. Okay. And I'm
reading it. And I started tocry. Because something that was
happening was just so amazing.And then I thought, This is
stupid. You just thought it andwrote it. And now you're crying
(24:31):
like you didn't know it wascoming. Do you see what I'm
saying? Like it was it? So it'slike there's two parts. I mean,
you know, there are two parts toyour brain. And I swear
sometimes they do not talk toone another. The creative, the
creative piece was doingsomething and then the logical
piece that's reading it wasgoing oh my goodness. So it was
just it was crazy. So yeah, I dothink there's it isn't just a
(24:57):
logical process. It isn't justYou know, fingers on a keyboard,
you think you put it out,there's, there's something else,
you know, I have characters thattalk to me. And no, I don't need
medicine. But I just they talkto me like I get a character
and, and they start developingin my head and I don't usually
(25:17):
write right away, I let themkind of percolate in there and
start telling me little storiesuntil I get a feel for where we
might go. And then I just startwriting. And I'm very much a
Panster. Very rarely do I knowhow the story is going to end.
Or if I do know how it's goingto end like I did with
(25:38):
sunflowers. And I'll tell youwhy in a minute. But I didn't
know how it was going to get tothat end. So
Michele A. Barard (25:43):
you had a beginning in that case, and you
had an end, but you didn't knowthe middle. Actually,
Teri M. Brown (25:49):
I only had an end. So for sunflowers beneath
the snow, this is crazy story. Iwas still living with that
abusive spouse. My daughter'sboth went to Girl Scout camp as
camp counselors, several summersin a row. And they always had
international students and oneof the students was Ukrainian.
She came for the summer of 2013.Got to know my girls, came again
(26:13):
in 2014. And then couldn't gohome because Russia had invaded
the Crimea peninsula, rightwhere her parents lived. Okay,
so she ended up staying in theUnited States is still in the
United States today has neverseen her parents again in
person. So I mean, that's crazy,right? But in 2016, she came to
visit one of my daughters forher birthday, and was telling me
(26:36):
this amazing story, a littlesliver of something that
happened to her. And it was socompelling that I thought, well,
first of all, I thought whatshe's telling me can't be real,
like, I must, I must bemisunderstanding, she has her
Ukrainian accent. Her English,though good, she could be using
some words incorrectly. So I'mrepeating back what I think I
(26:58):
understand. And lo and behold,that is the story. And it made
goosebumps stand up on my arms.And I thought that story has got
to be like a movie or a book orsomething. But this is in 2016,
I'm still in this badrelationship. I'm certainly not
the one to write it. But therethat little seed was planted. In
2018. I wrote 82,000 words offiction, to tell that little
(27:24):
sliver of a story. So the lastthree pages of the last chapter,
not the epilogue, but the lastchapter are true. And everything
else is a figment of myimagination, so that I could get
to that interview. Wow.
Michele A. Barard (27:38):
Wow. So that says a lot about the writing
process for you, too, in termsof how you get inspiration,
sometimes it could be somethingsomeone tells you, you have your
characters that could just kindof come to you and start
formulating in your brain. Whatother things, you know, help you
to get started with your books.
Teri M. Brown (27:58):
I had a song one time, it was a country song. And
it was I think it was calledFive more minutes. And it was
like, you know, if they had fivemore minutes to kiss on the
front porch, or five moreminutes, and then there was the
five more minutes with grandpaor something like that. And that
just got me to thinking aboutlike, what if you knew what if
(28:20):
you knew where your end datewas? You know, like, what would
you do? And how, you know, whatwould that make you live
differently. And so my mindstarted going there. And the
next thing you know, I've gotthis character who is is
irritated because her childrenwon't go to sleep at night. And
she's a single parent, and she'ssitting down with a glass of
(28:41):
wine. And she says, you know,who if I could just close my
eyes and never wake up again.And of course, she didn't mean
that she was just exasperated,but death shows up and said, You
asked for it. That's it. Off wego. And so she finds a way to to
beg for more time. And now shehas a certain amount of time to
(29:01):
prove that she really wants tolive. Oh, wow. And so that's
kind of this story is still I'mwho knows that where it'll ever
go because I got to a certainpoint, and it just kind of
stalled on me. My dad passedaway in the middle of all of it.
So I think that every time I goback to it, I kind of I go to
that bad place and then I can'tI can't move forward. I will
(29:24):
eventually I think I'll get toit eventually. But so that one
came from a song that I startedcontemplating. Just anything can
happen. Sometimes someone willjust say the craziest little
sentence. I like to writesomething called micro flash
fiction. And micro flash fictionis usually 100 words or less.
And I actually like the onesthat are 50 words or less. Okay,
(29:48):
and the smallest things willcome to me and I'll think, ooh,
I could do something with that.And then I just write a little
50 word blurb because, you know,it was an advertisement and it
was As the heading in my emailor it was a news story, and it
struck me or any number ofthings. I mean, it was April
(30:10):
Fool's Day, and I came up withan idea. And I thought that
would be hysterical. And thennext thing, you know, I've got a
flash fiction. So it's kind ofjust whatever's going on around
me, I like to really payattention to people and what
they're doing what they'resaying. I like to watch when
people's facial expressions, andbody language is completely
(30:32):
different from what's coming outof their mouth. You know, and,
you know, I just, I love thatkind of thing. I take notes all
the time. I tell people all thetime, you do know that that's
going to be in my next book. So?
Michele A. Barard (30:45):
Well, I think that's interesting, too, because
I think a lot of writers arekind of people watchers. Yeah.
Yeah. Well,
Teri M. Brown (30:53):
I mean, if you're going to write characters that
are compelling, you have to makesure that they're doing and
feeling things that seem realplausible. And the only way to
do that is to have beenobservant enough when other
people are doing and feelingthings. You know, like, if
someone's angry, you don't wantto say, you know, my character
(31:14):
is angry. I mean, that isdoesn't make for good reading.
And so how do we know thatyou're angry? You know, what if
What have you been doing thatlets me know that you're angry,
and you don't want to be like,over the top, you know, steam
coming out his ears and snortingthrough his nose, because
that's, that's just too over thetop that's too too cartoony, but
(31:37):
you want to do something. Evenif you give them a little tick,
that the person sees over, yourreader sees over time, oh,
they're angry, they're doingthat whatever they're doing
again, you know, they're,they're scratching it their
pants again, you know, or their,their hands in their pocket, and
they're Jingwen those keys, youknow, whatever they're doing, so
(31:57):
that, you know, oh, there's thatanger. Yes, you have to kind of
pay attention, the number oftimes that I'm trying to explain
an emotion. And I think, well,what would I do if I were
feeling that and I'll get amirror? And I'll try to feel
that emotion. And I'll bewatching myself, it's like, oh,
(32:19):
yeah, well, let's see my eyescrinkled or my one eyebrow went
up? Or, or, you know, like, whatam I doing? My shoulder, my
shoulders slumped, or, you know,everything got tight. Or? So
I'll sit in front of a mirrorand try the emotions, like try
to feel them and then look, whatam I doing, so that I can then
(32:39):
describe that for my character.
Michele A. Barard (32:41):
That's really interesting, because I think
sometimes we forget, especiallynew authors, forget about other
ways to convey things abouttheir characters, like a tick.
That's a classic one, really, Ihad taken a creative writing
(33:01):
course many, many moons ago. Andone of the positive things that
came out of one of my critiques,there was a lot of negative
stuff. But this is the onepositive one that I remember was
I my particular character forthat short story was, I think
she was twisting a Kleenex, orsomething as she taught, you
(33:25):
know, and that was a detail thatthe professor kind of it was a
guest Professor honed in on andsaid, That's a good, that's a
good detail about her, you know,that gives us something about
that person. And you don't thinkabout those sometimes when
you're a new author, and youyou're so excited about your
story. What kinds of things doyou feel like were wrong with
(33:47):
your first manuscript? Oh,
Teri M. Brown (33:49):
my goodness. Well, first of all, my character
had no flaws. None. No, she wasperfect. She was perfect. She
was like, Superwoman, everythingevery she had lots of things
that happened to her, but shecame through every one of them
with flying colors and no sweat.Kind of like, have you seen
those horrible old movies wherethe women would go running into
(34:11):
the ocean, and they just run inthe ocean waves and their hair,
and they go in and their haircomes up, you know, when I go
running into the water, youknow, first of all, my feet are
kicking all of the waves, I'mhalf tripping, I finally fall
into the water and I come upwith seaweed. You know, that's,
that's real. Yeah, the wholerunning in, you know, like, like
(34:32):
Baywatch or whatever that wasback in the day. You know,
that's not real people don'tthat's not how you enter the
ocean. Okay, I would say Good.Never, never. And so she was
like that. She was like aBaywatch character. I mean,
there was nothing about her thatthat was relatable because I
couldn't let her have anyfailure. And then the other
(34:54):
thing that I did was instead ofshowing that she was angry, I
just did Point Blank said, andnow she is angry. And now she is
happy. And now she is sad, youknow, I couldn't trust my reader
to figure it out. It was like,the number of times that I would
have to go back if I were to doanything. Well, first of all,
(35:15):
I'd have to make her have flaws.But even if if that were fixed,
I would have to go back in andget rid of all of the she felt.
She did she get a I told I toldher everything. And I didn't let
my readers experience it.Because I was too quick to say,
(35:37):
just in case you've missed it.
Michele A. Barard (35:40):
So there's something there about trusting
yourself as a writer, but alsotrusting your readers? Right,
exactly.
Teri M. Brown (35:46):
I think, I think new writers in particular, and I
mean, I still really strugglewith it, when I go back and do
my editing the number of times Ithink I've done it again, you
know, get rid of that. Why did Iput that in there? We have the
feeling that if we don't tellsomeone exactly what's happening
(36:07):
at all times that maybe they'renot going to get it? Well, the
truth is, is that readers do getit, you know, in fact, they want
to sometimes struggle a littleand wonder what exactly is
happening and why. And then whenthey get it, they get that, oh,
now I know what's happening. Andthey then make a connection with
your, your book or yourcharacter or the setting or
(36:28):
whatever. So you have to becareful to to not feel that that
you have a low IQ reader who'snever going to catch on. I mean,
you want to give them a chanceto experience the character with
you.
Michele A. Barard (36:42):
Well, and what kinds of things you think
you do better now,
Teri M. Brown (36:46):
let's think that I'm pretty good at dialogue, I,
I have a way of, especially withmy historical fiction, there's a
lot of information that I feellike in sunflowers beneath the
snow, it's a Ukraine, it's aboutUkraine, and it starts in the
Soviet Union, and goes throughuntil a little after the first
(37:07):
invasion in 2014. And there's alot of history that's necessary
to know. But it could get reallyboring, if you just put it in as
a, you know, just like as abackstory, and you were just
reading it, it'd be the type ofthing that people would skip.
Right. And so I've learned howto put that information into
(37:29):
dialogue. For instance, I haveone of my characters and her
husband, they're debatingbecause the the presidential
election is coming up. And sothey're debating and they're
throwing back and forth. Buteverything they're debating is
all those facts that would havebeen boring any
Michele A. Barard (37:45):
other way. And then people needed to really
Teri M. Brown (37:48):
Yes, to really understand why it mattered.
Right? You know, and it doesmatter. Because if it didn't
matter, then this setting, Icould have made them be
anywhere. But they needed to bein Ukraine and needed to be this
time period. And thereforepeople need to have at least
some understanding of why thismatters. And so I just had them
(38:08):
have this, you know, theyweren't arguing but it was a
debate back and forth. And youknow, the wife would bring up
one point and say, Yeah, butwhat about this? And he'd say,
Well, you know, that's a goodpoint. But you know, blue blood,
you get to sit back and forth.Yeah, I think my dialogue is, is
probably one of the best thingsthat I do. Awesome.
Michele A. Barard (38:27):
And you know, it's interesting that you
mentioned that because when Iwork with writers, what I often
tell them is look at movies orTV for inspiration. Because one
of my favorite, this is sosilly. You're going to learn
what kind of geek I am rightnow. Right? So one of my
favorite observations of thatwith the dialogue giving
(38:50):
background information isactually in an episode of Psych.
Well, I don't know if you everused to watch it. But that's
fun. It's funny, a little show.We love it. And we still watch
it. It will do marathonswatching it. But there was this
one episode where Shawn and Gusare on the beach, you're on the
(39:10):
boardwalk, or whatever, I guesstalking. And all they're doing
is given information that peopleneed. And I was like, Oh, that's
really good. As an example ofhow this happens, you also have
things like that in HarryPotter. You know, I love using
Harry Potter as an example,where you have complex stories,
(39:32):
and there's a lot of informationyou need about Sirius Black and
all these different people inorder for the movies move
forward and for people tounderstand what's going on. What
do you think is a good exampleof a tool that a writer can use
to learn to write better?
Teri M. Brown (39:52):
You know, I'm a firm believer, I've taken very
few courses. I think the twothings that you need to do to be
a good writer is read Eat a lotand write a lot. You're never
going to become a better writerby thinking about it. And you're
not even going to become abetter writer by taking a course
if you then don't go take whatyou learned in that course and
right, like you've got to write.I, the caveat to that is, once
(40:18):
you've written to a point whereyou don't think that you're
making any progress, it'sprobably a good idea to start
throwing your work out in frontof other people, and asking
their opinions because they,other people will be honest with
you, if you ask them to about,well, what is missing? What do
you like? What don't you like?What slow for you? You know, if
(40:42):
you could do anything, if youcould learn anything that wasn't
in here, what would you want toknow that I didn't tell you, you
know, those kinds of questions.And that will help you a lot.
You know, I found my firsteditor for some flowers beneath
the snow, it was veryinteresting, because she came
back and said, You know, I needto know more about a particular
(41:02):
character. And it was like, Why,I mean, I felt it was perfectly
fine that I didn't need any moreat all. And she was adamant that
it needed more. And so I wentback and and I added more. And
she was right. You know, as Ilooked at it, it was like, Wow,
that really, it changed thestory, it was so much better
(41:24):
now. But in my mind, it was itwas fine the way it was. And so
I think it's really good to havethose other eyes. So whether
that's by taking a class, and soyou have a professor that's
doing it, or whether you're in acritique group, or you just get
some beta readers or friends,you know, someone who enjoys
reading the genre that you'rewriting, to take a look and tell
(41:45):
you, this is good. This is notgood. This is what I would do.
You know, and then and thenexperiment and try some more.
Michele A. Barard (41:54):
Well, in the thing that I heard you say was
you had very specific types ofquestions. You didn't just say,
hey, what do you think, which iswhat our inclination is? And
people are typically, especiallyif they're friends family,
because Oh, it's great, great.It was good. Yeah, we should
pursue this, as opposed to whatshould I have done differently?
(42:15):
What would you have donedifferently? What would you need
to know more about? If you couldchange something about this
character, this story that howdo you feel like this works for
you in terms of timeline, you'regiving them very specific types
of questions, so that you canactually elicit useful
(42:36):
information, right? Is that whatI'm hearing? Yeah,
Teri M. Brown (42:38):
I do that. And I also when I'm reading, I'm
asking those same questions. AsI'm reading. What is this author
doing to make the story moveforward? Why do I like this
story so much? What about thischaracter is so compelling, that
I stayed up until three o'clockin the morning to find out what
happened next? What is it sothat I can start to add that to
(43:02):
my writing? You know, like, whatis it about that? That writer
that ability that grabbed me socompletely, that despite the
fact that I knew that I had asix o'clock appointment? I was
up at three, reading, knowing itwas going to ruin my whole day?
What is it that they did? Oreven if I'm reading a book that
(43:22):
I'm not enjoying? Why, what isit? What about this book is
turning me off? You know,usually, it's because it starts
to slow, or the characterdevelopment isn't very good. I'm
a very, I'm into character. It'sbig in my books that I write.
(43:43):
And it's also what I enjoyreading, if the character just
isn't well developed. I'm justnot going to enjoy the story. I
don't care how compelling thestory is, if the character is
not well developed, it justdoesn't send me.
Michele A. Barard (43:56):
So if you had three pieces of advice for a new
author, what would they be?Yeah,
Teri M. Brown (44:03):
so right, do it now. Don't wait. Don't wait for
a class. Don't wait for acertificate. Don't wait for a
certain period of time in yourlife. Don't wait until you've
had more experiences. Just startwriting. The sooner you start
writing, the better, you'llbecome, you know, number two was
get an editor or someone who'swilling to help you. But the
(44:25):
third piece of advice that I'mgoing to give almost sounds like
I'm contradicting myself, andit's don't listen to everyone.
Because there's more than oneway to write. If there was only
one way to write, there'd onlybe one style of book and that's
not what's true. There's so manydifferent things out there. So
definitely listen, try thingsout, give it a shot. If it
(44:47):
doesn't work for you, or itdoesn't work for your character
or the way you want your book tobe. It's okay to say that was
not bad advice, but it's notgood advice for me and to put it
to the side.
Michele A. Barard (44:59):
Exactly. That's awesome. That's awesome.
Well, Terry, how can peopleconnect with you?
Teri M. Brown (45:04):
Well, they can go to my website. It's www dot
Terry M Brown. And that's Terrywith one R t e r i, m brown.com.
And on there you'll find all mysocial media I am on everything
including Tik Tok, which blowsmy mind because I don't even
know what I'm doing on it yet,but but it's there. It's there.
(45:25):
So yeah, my Instagram andFacebook and I'm on LinkedIn.
Literally, I'm on everything. Soyou can go there. You can also
sign up for my newsletter. Andif you sign up for the
newsletter, you get the 10historical fiction novels you've
never heard of that will makeyou cry. So I've curated this
list from from friends who haveread really good historical
(45:46):
fiction that haven't made theyou know, New York Times
bestseller list. So
Michele A. Barard (45:50):
awesome. That in and of itself is worth
signing up for the newsletter.It especially if you like to
have a good cry.
Teri M. Brown (45:57):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And to me, if, if a
book can make you cry, then iteven happy tears like either
way, happy, sad, both. In fact,I had someone say to me that my
books made them both laugh andcry. And it was like that is the
best thing you could have saidto me and let you know my job is
complete.
Michele A. Barard (46:16):
100% I agree. Terry Brown, thank you so much
for being on somewhere in themiddle of Michele Barard.
Teri M. Brown (46:24):
Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed
it.
Michele A. Barard (46:28):
Well, that's our show this month, guys. You
can reach me online at Michelebarard.com. You can also find me
on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,and Tiktok as urban book editor,
send me a note. I'd love to hearfrom you. Feel free to send in
some topics you'd like us tocover on the show. Make sure you
tune into the show on May 17thwhen my guest will be author
(46:50):
Peter Davidson. You can find usonce a month on Fridays at 5pm
Pacific 6pm Mountain 7pm Centraland 8pm Eastern at the summer in
the middle podcast.com. Let'scontinue the conversation. You
guys be good. stay mindful andremain prayerful. Peace and
(47:10):
blessings y'all
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