Teri M. Brown

I sit down with award-winning author Teri M. Brown, known for her compelling novels Daughters of Green Mountain Gap, An Enemy Like Me, and Sunflowers Beneath the Snow. She’s also the host of the Online for Authors podcast and is gearing up for the release of her latest book, 10 Little Rules for a Double-Butted Adventure, which debuted on February 14, 2025. Join us as we dive into her creative journey, the themes that drive her storytelling, and what it means to embrace adventure—both in fiction and in life! You can find her content on her website terimbrown.com.

Transcript

Intro Song

Rob Valincius: And we are live for another episode of the Drink a Cock podcast. I've lost, uh, track at this point of how many episodes I'm at, uh, we're getting up there, uh, so we just keep chugging along, you know? Uh, you know, So I'm your host, Rob Valencius, uh, and I have the pleasure of having with the Terry Brown. Now, Terry, um, you're an author of a couple of books.

Uh, most recently your, uh, 10 little rules for a double butted adventure, which I thought was a clever title. I like that. Uh, which debuted what, uh, two weeks ago now.

Teri M Brown: be in February 14th, actually, so not even quite two weeks.

Rob Valincius: Awesome. Awesome. So we're hitting, we're hitting the stride early.

Teri M Brown: We are.

Rob Valincius: Um, and you're also the host of a online for authors podcast. Welcome to the show.

Teri M Brown: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate being here.

Rob Valincius: I got to tell you, I love interviewing authors. Um, they're just, they're fun because, uh, you know, I'm a creative myself and I feel like every creative person has a different, uh, creative process. You know, it's, there's, you know, people will, it's almost like you learn from someone else where you're take their creative process, but then you, you make it your own,

Teri M Brown: Exactly. Exactly.

Rob Valincius: I've met a lot of podcasters and I've taken bits and pieces from everyone that I've met And they've done the same with me. So it's like this. It's it's a cool give and take When you're working with creative people and I love it um, so let's start the podcast this way, so Um, I want to talk about life growing up.

So before we get into, um, your books and accomplishments and everything you've gotten into, tell me a little bit about, you know, what your childhood was like, you know, growing up, um, and, you know, kind of get into the, um, transition into when you thought, or when you knew you were going to become an author, because I feel like sometimes we get that, you know, that moment doesn't always happen, but talk to me a little bit about that.

Teri M Brown: Yeah, sure. So I tell everyone I had a pretty average childhood. I mean, you know, mom and a dad, a brother. We, I grew up, um, but my dad was in the air force when I was born. So I was actually born in Athens, Greece. Which was really cool. It was really cool growing up because I got to tell people, you know, everybody else was born in some little town in Ohio where I was living and I got to say Athens, Greece.

Um, and I actually had a dual citizenship for a while because although my dad was in the air force, there was not a, uh, air force. Uh, hospital. So I was born in a Greek hospital. So I had a dual citizenship, which I also thought was really cool. And I made sure that I lorded that over everyone. Um, as a kid, I said I wanted to be an author, but I also said that I wanted to be a brain surgeon and an Olympic ice skater.

So I'm not real confident that I knew what I wanted because I hate the sight of blood and I'm very klutzy. So

Rob Valincius: I wanted to be a doctor. That was, that was my, I think, the number one job in the beginning and then, you know,

Teri M Brown: I think I think what I knew is I loved books. I, I read all the time. I was the kid who was always reading. I would read books. I would go to the library and get books. If I ran out of books, I would reread books. I just was that kid. My mom would say, go outside and play. And so when she wasn't looking, I would take a book and put it out on the ledge.

out of my window, and then I would go outside, grab the book, climb a tree, and read. Because I love reading. And so I think I've always had like a fascination with the written word. But there was no way my parents were going to pay for me to go to college to be a writer. You know that that wasn't considered a real job.

That's that's what you that's what you did on the side when you were waitressing You know, you couldn't do that. So I went to college. I got two majors and two minors Um never actually used any of it not officially. I mean i've used all of it, but never any of it officially for a job um got married and had four children and Um, started homeschooling and ended up divorced, remarried.

I remarried, that was probably the worst decision of my life, was that second marriage. Um, he turned out to be emotionally abusive, but I didn't want to be divorced twice. So I stayed in that relationship for 14 years, desperately trying to make something work that wasn't going to. During that time, I started writing professionally for small businesses.

You figure that was around 2000 is when I started that and the internet was becoming. You know, it's so funny to think about now that the internet wasn't really a big thing in 2000. But it wasn't. You know, the first time, the first time I ever got on the internet, I think it was the end of 1998 and It was clunky and weird and and there weren't a lot of people on it yet.

Um, But I found that businesses were putting up these websites, but they had zero idea about what they should be saying about themselves. And so they had great ideas, but they didn't put them out there well. And I just found a great niche where I kind of went in and said, Hey, I can help. And I helped them do their website content.

eBooks, email campaigns, that kind of thing. I wanted,

Rob Valincius: like a pioneer. That was like, that was like early.

Teri M Brown: yeah, it was really early and, and it was all driven by, I wanted to be able to stay home with my kids and I could do that from home kind of around anybody else's schedule. Because as long as I had it done by the time I told them I was going to have it done, these people didn't care if I wrote it at two in the morning or seven in the morning or four in the afternoon.

It didn't matter to them so long as If I said I'd have it to you by Friday that they got it.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Teri M Brown: I just, it was, it was a perfect for me. It was really a good fit. I had this, Oh, desire to write like fiction. I wanted to so badly, but I was too afraid I was in this bad relationship. There's no safe place to land, you know?

So you're putting out your, your feelings and your thoughts and your characters and all this creative stuff out there. Well, if it doesn't go well, you want some. safe place, right? And I didn't have that. I got out of that relationship in 2017 and words started pouring out of me. And so I wrote my first manuscript.

It's horrible. It will never see the light of day, but what it, well, and I tell people it's like the first painting that Picasso ever did. No one wants either, right? He's just figuring out how to hold the paintbrush and that's kind of where I was.

Rob Valincius: Refrigerator material.

Teri M Brown: yeah. But, but I was, It, it taught me several things.

First, I had 50, 000 words in me. It just poured out of me, and it was like, oh, oh, okay, so I can write long form something. Um, it had a beginning, a middle, and it had characters, it had a plot. You know, it was kind of like, okay, so now I just have to figure out the craft of this thing. So I wrote another one, and I wrote another one.

And each time, I could tell, ooh, that got a little better here, and this is getting a little better here. But I was still terrified to let anyone know I was writing. because I had all of that leftover gunk from having lived 14 years in this really gross relationship. I'm, I met Bruce who is the guy that's on the cover with me for my 10 little rules for double budded adventure.

That could be a podcast all in its own because I was never getting married again ever. I was never having a relationship again. I was done and he tells people that he chased me until I caught him, which essentially means he, He just stuck around until I got used to him being around me and and then it was like, okay He really is who he says he is.

He's

Rob Valincius: down. I did the same for my

Teri M Brown: he just he just it's just he was just kept being there and it was like, okay I guess if you're gonna be here, we might as well get to know one another. I don't know. It was just um and He right after I got out of that relationship and began writing. I my son's friend Walked the Appalachian Trail and kept a blog and I read that thing like a drowning woman and I kept thinking, Oh, I want to do that.

I want to do something like that.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Teri M Brown: I thought that what I wanted to do was prove to people that I still had something worthy to give, that I still was, I don't know, somebody. Turns out nobody else doubted that except me. And so what I really needed was to prove this to me. So fast forward, I meet Bruce and he says very nonchalantly one day, I've always wanted to ride across the United States on a bicycle. I thought, huh, that would be an adventure.

Rob Valincius: Bet he didn't know what he was getting himself into.

Teri M Brown: and what's crazy is, is at the time I had not been on a bicycle in 40 years. So this would be truly an adventure for me. He then suggested, after we started talking about it a little bit, he suggested, well, why don't we do it on a tandem? And that's a two seater bike.

Two seats, right? Um, and he said, he said he is, he could ride. He's been riding forever. He's does cycle racing, all of the things. And he knew that he and I trying to go across the United States wasn't going to work well because there's no way I can keep up with him. I mean, it would be horrible. So he said, let's, let's do this.

Let's do it on a tandem. So I said, count me in. And we ended up getting married. And a year after we got married in 2020, the summer of 2020 COVID summer, we rode from Astoria, Oregon to Washington, DC, and that's 3, 102 miles. And it was at the end of that ride. As I see, we stopped at the Marine Corps Memorial.

My husband's a 25 year vet and we were raising money for toys for tots. So it seemed like a perfect place to stop. And he said, do you see that flag? I said, yeah. He said, that's it. That's where we're going. And I started to laugh and then I started to cry. And then I laughed and I cried and I was just a big emotional mess.

And I thought, Oh my gosh, I can do anything. I just rode across the United States on a bicycle. I mean, I can do anything. It's not a matter of, can I do it? But what do I want? And I said, why? I want to be an author. And 14 months later, my first book was out.

Rob Valincius: Wow. So, let's, alright, let's hit the ride first, because I got questions.

Teri M Brown: Okay. I'm sure you do.

Rob Valincius: from a logistics standpoint, how the hell does that work?

Teri M Brown: Well, it does not work the way I thought it was going to work. Okay, so we did a lot of riding around home about a thousand trading miles where we would just go take little 30 mile jaunts 40 mile jaunts and get really used to one another and the Saddle and the equipment and everything And I sat down at the kitchen table shortly before we left and I created this master plan of where we were going to be at the end of every day and where we were going to stay.

I had all the addresses. It was all on this lovely little document.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Teri M Brown: Yeah, day one. We didn't make it as far as I thought. And it was like, that's okay. That's okay. It's just the first day. And so I rearranged my schedule a little bit. Day two, we also didn't get as far as I thought. And so I rearranged the schedule.

And on day three, I threw it away. Because you can't pre plan. You can pre plan the trip, but not each little, little Dot along the way, because you don't know what the weather's going to be. You don't know how bad the hills are going to be. You don't know if you're going to be tired that day. You don't know how you're going to just feel emotionally.

You have no idea if the wind is going to be blowing in your face or, you know, blowing you. Just blowing you along.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Teri M Brown: So how do you do it? Um, let's see. It's called cycling adventures. No, adventure cycling has maps of the United States and they have all these bike routes laid out. Now these are not bicycle paths.

These are on the roads, but they tell you places that people have determined are pretty safe for cyclists. And then along the way they let you know, like, Where are places to stop and eat and where are the gas stations and where are campgrounds and those kinds of things so that you have all this information.

And we had those maps. And at the end of every day, wherever we were, we would look at the map and we would pick three places to stop if possible. One of them was close. One of them was kind of medium and one was further away. And as you're approaching that close one, Hey, how are you feeling? It's, you know, 11 more miles before we would get to the second place.

Do you think you have 11 miles in you? And if the answer was yes, then you went on. And then same thing. Some days there wasn't that option. Some days you had to go 70 miles because there was nothing in between and it didn't matter how you felt, you had to make it. But if we had a choice, that's what we did.

And we learned that we had to ride each day. Like you couldn't think about yesterday and you can't think about tomorrow. You were just writing that day, which is what made it so incredible when we show up in Washington, D. C. It was really difficult to take all of those individual days and realize that we'd made it the whole way across.

Because I didn't think, yeah, I didn't think of it as a 3, 102 mile trip.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Teri M Brown: You know, you think of it in these little segments. I finished the segment, I finished the segment. Okay. Put that away. I finished the segment. And then all of a sudden I've got the pictures to prove it. I've got everything to prove it.

I've got my memories, but I can't make it add up. I still, it's, it's been, it's been almost five years or three and four and a half years. I still can't make it. I mean, I know I did it, but it just doesn't compute.

Rob Valincius: So, so how long did that take you guys?

Teri M Brown: We left at the end of June and we arrived in DC the 1st of October.

Rob Valincius: Wow.

Teri M Brown: three months and a few days, it was actually 72 days of riding, but there were days in there where we had to take breaks. You just, you just can't write it straight through. Or maybe some people can, but I was 56 and my husband was 68. So, yeah, we, you can't just took

Rob Valincius: Wake up and, and, you know, be ready to go

Teri M Brown: yeah. I mean, sometimes,

Rob Valincius: 38 and I, I can't do

Teri M Brown: yeah, sometimes you just have to say who got to take a break. Um, we did not take breaks in the beginning. We were very, a little prideful. We thought that we were just, you know, going to gut our way through it and soon realized that if we continued at that pace, that we were going to burn ourselves out and we weren't going to make it across.

Um, and we learned, we learned several lessons very early on about what you can and can't do and how hard you have to push yourself and, and when to say enough is enough.

Rob Valincius: Now, did you guys, obviously you didn't ride back. Did you rent a car to take your bikes

Teri M Brown: So we actually live on the East Coast. So we, yeah, so we flew everything out to Oregon. And then rode back to the East Coast.

Rob Valincius: Oh, that's cool. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah,

Teri M Brown: and the reason, yeah, the reason we did that, just so you know, is prevailing winds are from the west to the east. And so, you have more headwinds if you go from North Carolina and head.

to Oregon. But if you're going from Oregon and you're heading back to east, you have more tailwinds. And you definitely want a tailwind over a headwind any day. Now, this does not mean that we never encountered headwinds, because we did. While in Montana, apparently the wind forgot which way was east and west, and we had headwinds for days on end.

Generally, you have a tailwind when you're coming across the other way.

Rob Valincius: What was, uh, now obviously you had to have stopped into some pretty unique towns and what was, what was, what was like one of the coolest, uh, like tourist areas or things that you guys did while you were

Teri M Brown: Well, you know, what's funny is you don't tend to hit a lot of the big ones because we're on smaller roads. That are trying to keep you outside of lots of traffic, but we did hit the geographic Center of north america. Okay, not not united states But north america and it's in north dakota and for the life of me I cannot think of the name of the place right now, but it's and there's just this little pillar of a monument In the middle of nowhere, it's just there it stands and we got our picture in front of it.

So we saw things like that. Things that people don't like set out to find,

Rob Valincius: Yeah, that's that's cool. Yeah, I see I saw I'm in the insurance world and I Travel probably a little bit more than you know normal people But there's certain areas and I still haven't been to but there's other areas where I didn't think I'd enjoy it And it was, you know, it was cool, you know, like our favorite place to go is Vegas.

We love Vegas. We, we love the, you know, never, we're night people. So we love the never sleep and you take a nap at 8 PM and get up and everyone's

Teri M Brown: and have something to do. Right.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. We love the dry heat in the desert. Like I would take the desert dry heat over. I live in Philly, so I would take that over, you know, the cold and snow.

Any day of the week. Um, you know, so it's, uh, I think that would be cool. Did you plan, like, the different, like, monumental things you wanted to do? Or did it just kind of, like, come up as you guys

Teri M Brown: kind of came up as, as we went through, I saw the, uh, headwaters of the Mississippi river. That was, that was up just a little North of Bemidji, Minnesota. Yeah. Bemidji. Um, you would think that the headwaters of the Mississippi would be something like to look at, and it is a Creek that you can literally wait across.

It's nothing. It's nothing. And you just think from that point to, The mighty Mississippi. It just blows my mind. It's this, it's this little Creek that crosses through a lake and kind of comes out. The other side is just this little Creek. It's nothing. And it says this big sign headwaters of the Mississippi river.

And you think, Hmm,

Rob Valincius: I'm not impressed!

Teri M Brown: yeah. And so you would never know, like if that's all you saw of the Mississippi river, you would never understand what the Mississippi river was. Because it, it, it's a creek.

Rob Valincius: Now, did you guys encounter any issues? Did you blow tires?

Teri M Brown: Yeah, yeah. So we encountered, we encountered a lot of different issues. Um, one day we had three flat tires. So the rear tire blew three times. Um, we also pulled a trailer that had camping gear in it and we blew a tire on the trailer. the trailer. We had a piece in the, the gearing system that was having problems, and so we had to, we went to a bike shop, they kind of patched it as best they could, ordered us a part that was sent to the next bike shop, so that when we got there, they could actually fix it.

Um, Yeah, you do.

Rob Valincius: get creative, right?

Teri M Brown: had to figure out how to get around a baby bison and its mama that was in the middle of the road. Um, because, you just go around. But as a cyclist, if you get too close to the baby, the mom might charge you. And if you're on a car, you're safe. But if you're on a bike, you're not. Um,

Rob Valincius: okay. Hey, that's, that's something you tend to think about

Teri M Brown: We, we slept, we slept outside, uh, camped quite a bit. And there were areas that was bear country and you had to take. owned and put it in a bear bag up in a tree so as not to attract bears when you were sleeping. Um, yeah, we had quite, yeah, it was a, it was a little, and I, I don't know, I thought of like little black bears like we have in North Carolina and it wasn't until we were through that area.

Thank goodness that my husband showed me a picture of a grizzly bear that had been hit by a motorcycle and this, This grizzly bear, it was ginormous. Its paws were twice the size of my hands. And I looked at him and said, that's the kind of bear that we were. Yeah,

Rob Valincius: good. And they run fast.

Teri M Brown: do. They're, they're huge. And it was like, Oh my God, I'm glad I didn't know.

Sometimes it's just better not to know. You know, like, it's just good not to know.

Rob Valincius: Um, so you guys, you guys did a lot of, I've never camped. So you camped then a

Teri M Brown: We did a lot of camping. We did, we did stay in some motels. Um, often the motels we stayed in, that would be kind calling them motels. They were, they were dives. When you think about how often we were having to stay and, and, and pay and, and whatnot, the trip would get really expensive if we kept staying in the Hyatt's.

You know, you couldn't do that. So you stayed in these. There was one in, in Montana that was smoking rooms only. It was just, it was a, it was a dive, but we were exhausted. That was the day of the three flat tires. And we were exhausted and, and we had 70 miles. We had to go that day and we got to that hotel and it was like, it's got a bed and it's got water.

And across the street was this little restaurant called flip burger. It was like. That's where we're going to stay. That's done. We don't need anything more. We don't have to get back on the bike to go find food. It's right there. We're done. That's

Rob Valincius: tip about, uh, hotels. I saw a tick tock on, I'm a tick tocker. That's I get into this, like this, this dark hole of just watching tick tock

Teri M Brown: It's called boomscrolling.

Rob Valincius: Oh, it is. It really is. And, uh, and I thought having TikTok for the longest time and I think it was like 2021 is when I pulled the trigger.

And now that's like where I it's like where I

Teri M Brown: That's where you live. That's

Rob Valincius: there's a guy he showed a tip to see if you have bed bugs. So if you take an iron and you heat the iron, the bed bugs like to stay in the corners of the bed, you just heat it. The corner of the bed, and then

Teri M Brown: And they come out to it. Yep.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, you, you lift it and they, they rise.

So you'll, you can see if, if the bed has

Teri M Brown: Isn't that gross?

Rob Valincius: Now I'm gonna need to do that every time I stay in a hotel. And, I mean, I guess I've never brought bedbugs home.

Teri M Brown: No, so you've been fine, because you would have. Bedbugs are insidious, but yeah. So yeah, we, we stayed in. We actually did have a bedbugs incident.

Rob Valincius: Oh no. Heh heh heh.

Teri M Brown: they moved us to a different room, and it was free of bedbugs, but I had trouble sleeping that night. I had to take two showers, because I just Oh, yeah.

Bugs. Just, mm hmm. Yeah. So yeah, we, so we had that. What else? What other kinds of things did we have? My husband, actually, at one time, um, just got exhausted. We hadn't been eating correctly. We'd been pushing ourselves too hard. And we'd pulled up to this place to, to grab a bite to eat. Two guys were like, Oh, what are you guys up to?

I mean, it, you could tell we were up to something that we weren't just out for a casual ride because we're on a tandem and we're pulling a trailer and we're loaded to the hilt with bags and, and, and whatnot. And I'm sure at this point we were in Ohio, so we're. And you know, they could probably smell us from who knows where.

And so it's like, Oh, what are you guys up to? So I'm telling them and I turned back around and my husband's on the ground. He's he's passed out.

Rob Valincius: Oh, no!

Teri M Brown: it was like, now what am I supposed to do? And I ended up finding this lady that drove a pickup truck. She was so kind, loaded everything in and took us to the hotel that we had gotten.

That was like three miles away. We were so close, but we weren't going to make it. Loaded us in, handed me a jar of peanut butter and said, you have him keep eating this because he's It's, he's probably got low sugar and that's what it turned out to be is he had just, and, um, he slept for about six hours and then we went down to like a Bob Evans and he got the, the breakfast of champions breakfast that had, you know, the pancakes and sausage and bacon and eggs and, and, and, and he ate the

Rob Valincius: Oh, give it, give me it all.

Teri M Brown: right and it was just like he consumed that and then and then we stayed I had relatives that lived close by So we stayed with them for three days until he really was sure he felt better because it was like I can't get back on A bicycle with him in the front and me in the back and have him passing out on me like that isn't gonna work

Rob Valincius: That is not good. Yeah, you gotta probably consume a lot of, like, carbs, right? To, to stay

Teri M Brown: yeah, and and

Rob Valincius: enough energy.

Teri M Brown: and and the problem was is we had hit up a spot that was just difficult for like three days in a row.

Very hilly. Lots of winds. We were up near Lake Erie. So there was a lot of of Lake wind. Um. And it didn't seem that we were eating correctly. Like we would, Oh, would we don't have any place to get lunch? Well, here's a gas station. And we would get some, you know, a couple of pop tarts or something. It just, we weren't doing what we should have done.

And it was too much too close to the end of our ride. There wasn't any energy to pull from, you know, at the beginning of the ride, you still have a lot that you can dig deep and find that we had already dug deep. There was nothing left to dig. Right. And so, yeah.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. What was it like, now obviously, I know you had, he kind of mentioned this, but what, what was it like trying to like, you know, how much clothes did you guys

Teri M Brown: Oh, so, so you can't take as much as you can't take much. I thought that I had done a lovely job packing. Like I was down to, to what I thought was next to nothing. And on about day six, we were in a motel that night and I wake up and my husband's staring at me. He's already awake and he's staring at me.

And I, it's like, he said, So I think I've made an error in judgment. And I thought, Oh my God, we're dead because, because he's the cyclist and if he's made an error in judgment.

Rob Valincius: anytime someone starts out by saying, so if, if there's some extra OS in there,

Teri M Brown: yeah, it was like,

Rob Valincius: know you're screwed.

Teri M Brown: this is not good. So he said, I think we're carrying too much. There are some things I can take, send back.

I'm going to get a box. Is there anything you feel you can send back? Well, fear gets rid of a lot of stuff. So we sent back 20 pounds. A week later, he said to me, there's still a few things that I could send back. And I said, yeah, me too. Experience got rid of another 20 pounds. So we started out 40 pounds heavier.

In the end, I had two cycling outfits, which, which consisted of the shorts, the padded shorts and shirts. Um, I had a long sleeve shirt that you could roll the sleeves up. Um, and it was the kind that had the sun block in the shirt. And it had like air holes and other things. So it was rather cool. So I had one of those and then I had a short sleeve t shirt.

We had one jacket, one long pair of pants. And I actually had a pajama t shirt because when you're sleeping in a tent and you have to get to the women's restroom eight tenths down, you have to have something decent that you can be seen in public in. And Oh, and I had a bathing suit and that was it. And so you would, you would get to where you were going for the night.

You would change out of your cycling clothes, wash them in the sink, hang them to dry. And then the next day you would put on the dry pair because the pair that you hung to dry is almost dry, but not quite dry. And then we would pin that to the back of the trailer and let the sun and the wind take care of it on the rest of the trip for that day.

And then that was what you would wear the next day as you washed and just what you did. And mostly we were washing things out by hand with a little bit of soap. And then every now and then you'd be someplace where you could get a washing machine. And then you'd throw everything in. The long sleeve shirt that I had that you could roll up was yellow.

Bright yellow. Beautiful yellow. And today, I still have it. I can't part with it despite the fact I can never wear it again. It's gray. I mean, it's yellow, but it's grey yellow. It's just, it's gross. Because there's, there was, you cannot wash it enough at this point. It's just never going to come clean.

Rob Valincius: yeah, it's, at that point it should have been burned,

Teri M Brown: it probably, but I, but I just can't. I also had a pair of leggings that I would pull over my shorts on the cold mornings. And I actually wore holes in the fanny of those leggings. And I still have those too. I can't, I can't throw them out. I mean, I don't wear them, but I can't throw them out, so.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, I mean, look, it's, it's a, it's a, I don't know what, I guess a trophy,

Teri M Brown: Yeah, it is. It is. I actually think I may, may create like a shadow box and stick those in the back with other things on the front of it. I don't know. We'll see.

Rob Valincius: That's that's cool. So so all right. Well, here's here's the golden question.

Teri M Brown: Oh no. Am I ready?

Rob Valincius: would you do it again?

Teri M Brown: No.

Rob Valincius: I knew that was gonna be the

Teri M Brown: yeah, so am I glad I did it? Absolutely.

Rob Valincius: Yeah

Teri M Brown: I would not trade that experience for the world. I am, you know, there's, even though it was difficult, the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, Oh my gosh, the things that I learned, I became a new person. I healed from that horrible abusive relationship.

I figured out I am, I do, I have, I, you know, like I can be what I want to be. I have everything I need, all of that. And I have zero to prove and do not need to do it twice.

Rob Valincius: I like I like that answer. I like that answer now Do you feel that? Had you not done this trip it would have altered Your trajectory, uh, as a human. Yeah.

Teri M Brown: this trip changed me. My husband tells people that who I was at the beginning is not the same person that I was at the end of this trip. I became self confident. I realized that I'm capable. I realized, I became confident again. I I, I found things deep inside that, that pushed me forward when days were miserable and any normal sane person would have just said, screw this, I'm done, you know, and instead, instead it was like, no, I'm not going to let this beat me and I, I found all of that in me.

And once you find something like that, you realize, my gosh, it's been there all the time. I just had it buried underneath so much crud, I couldn't find it. So, you know, I don't know, I may not have ever, I may never have published anything. I may still be writing my manuscripts and not showing them to anyone.

Rob Valincius: it's like for all the times that you were told you weren't good enough, that you weren't smart enough, you weren't creative enough. You know that kind of like scraped away. It was almost like, uh, you know getting your uh, your psyche cleaned

Teri M Brown: it was.

Rob Valincius: your teeth cleaned,

Teri M Brown: It was. And, and you have a lot of time on the back of a tandem bicycle. You know, you're, you're pedaling and you're pedaling and you're pedaling, but you do that day in and day out and day in and day out. And my husband and I talked a lot and we listened to music, but there was a lot of time to just contemplate.

And I think things would like come up in my mind and then I would weigh that against what I was doing right then. And it was like, well, I'm, I am capable, look at me, I'm out here on a bicycle riding across the United States. I mean, you know, so it was like, yes, things do scare me sometimes, but I do it anyway.

Rob Valincius: And it probably strengthened your relationship

Teri M Brown: my gosh. Yes. So

Rob Valincius: uh,

Teri M Brown: Bruce, Bruce and I call it tandem time. Um, and we say that three months on a tandem bicycle together is like 20 years of marriage. So we've been, we've been married for six years in earth time and 26 years in tandem time.

Rob Valincius: I can only imagine the random fights that you guys had, that you probably laugh about

Teri M Brown: right, we had two that were, that were significant. One of them, um, I don't even remember. I think I said something snarky. Uh, I, I tend to be sarcastic and when I'm, when I'm tired and I get and get a little grouchy and you know, and so I'm sure I said something, I have no idea, but I said something and he didn't like it and he's on the front and he's normally a very good captain where, where the pedal load is just the way that he and I have practiced together and he doesn't hit the potholes and all of the other Well, that was not true on this morning.

Okay. Now he was not purposely doing anything dangerous, but you could tell that he was riding for himself, not for his partner on the back. And we ended up at a dollar general and I thought, this is the perfect place. I have a bathroom. Air condition, food, something to drink, and there's always shade because it's a big square building and the sun is going to put shade on one side of that building all day long.

And that's, and I thought, I'm not getting back on the bike until we fix this. So I started eating my snack and he comes over in his grouchy manner and says, come on, let's go. And I said, I'm not getting on the bike. And he said, what? I'm not getting on the bike until we fix this. And so he said, fine, let's fix this.

And I said, I don't think you're ready. And I walked down the sidewalk and sat down and I just waited. And about 15 minutes later he walked down and he sat down next to me and he said, you're right, we need to fix this. And we worked it out. I apologized for being snarky, explained to him that when I'm grouchy, when I'm tired, I get a little grouchy.

He might have to give me a little leeway, you know, Maybe you say to me, Hey, that wasn't very nice. Could you try again? You know, that kind of thing. We worked it out, got on the bike, had a beautiful day. There was one evening where we had had a very difficult day because there was a lot of road construction and that meant there was a lot of traffic and it just, and we got into town and the GPS is not guiding us to the campground.

We can't find it. And at that point we both start snarking at each other. Uh, when we finally.

Rob Valincius: a left, I would have made a

Teri M Brown: wonder if I would have made a laughter. Yeah, so we finally get to the campground and we're not speaking. We put up the tent without speaking. We cook our food without speaking and now we get into bed. Okay, I'm laying on my left.

He's laying on his right and we're stiff as boards and not touching one another. Nobody's moving. Nobody's speaking and nobody's sleeping. Right. Every, you can just tell everybody's, I

Rob Valincius: for a pin to

Teri M Brown: yes, I was so cold and that I finally scooted backward until I was touching him. And I said, this doesn't mean anything. So we had a crappy night's sleep. And the next day we were only able to go 12 miles because we were exhausted. And those two things really taught us it's, this is ridiculous. There's why would we ruin like hours and days and, and relationships over a bad snarky. So we just learned to fix it. We just learned to fix it.

It's like I would take a deep breath. Sometimes it takes me I can't apologize immediately if I'm still angry. I'm still angry or if I'm still but if once I give myself time It's like all right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that, you know, and and then you just we just found a way to move on So

Rob Valincius: So what you're telling me is, is uh, anyone listening to this, if you're married, you should get on a tandem bicycle and ride across the country. And uh, by the time you get to the other side,

Teri M Brown: you're either divorced

Rob Valincius: probably Yeah! You either got your lawyer on speed dial,

Teri M Brown: right or

Rob Valincius: you guys have the So you guys have the strongest relationship of, of everybody

Teri M Brown: Absolutely.

Rob Valincius: that's cool. So, uh, just explain a little bit. We'll end, um, you know, this part of this, uh, the interviews explain like when you, you know, I know you said you were crying, but what, what did, what did that mean to you?

When you, you saw like that flight, like go through that emotional, uh, turmoil you probably had when you were like, you knew you were at the end and you were probably so. Um, dead that you were excited, but it was also like it was over,

Teri M Brown: Yeah, there's, you know, it's funny because you're on the bicycle. These seats are not comfortable. It's been hard. You've had, you've had weather, you've had wind, you've had sleeping in the most uncomfortable places and, and in your mind, you're like, Oh God, I can't wait. We're going to be done. We're going to be done.

Then you're, you realize we're, we're going to be done today. We're going to be done. And you start to think, well, what are we going to do tomorrow?

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Teri M Brown: I, I, uh, what, you mean real life? What? It just, so it was both like wonderful and horrible and then horrible and wonderful. It, it was crazy. And then I'm just a, I'm an emotional person, super emotional.

Rob Valincius: Me too.

Teri M Brown: they just, they just, I cry, I laugh. I just, I'm big and emotional. And so it's not surprising to me that I couldn't figure out what to do. I did. I laughed and I cried and went back and forth doing that for about 30 minutes. Laughing and crying, laughing and crying, and laughing and crying, because it was like, Oh my God, this is fantastic!

I was just, yeah, I was a mess. But

Rob Valincius: That, that's

Teri M Brown: like I said, though, there, to know that you did it. We used to tell people, they would say, well, where are you headed? And Bruce would say, Washington, D. C., but not today. Because, you know, we're, we're out in the middle of Montana or whatever. Well, that last day when you woke up and realized we're headed to Washington, D.

C. today, like, today.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Teri M Brown: We're, we, we have, we did it and I hadn't been on a bicycle in 40 years when I met Bruce and I rode across the United States on a tandem bicycle. I still, I still am amazed. It still amazes me. I could still cry. No, I do. When I, when I think about that last day, I still get goosebumps on my arms.

Rob Valincius: that's an accomplishment. I mean, there's got to be, I mean, you got to be on a short list of people

Teri M Brown: There

Rob Valincius: rode across the

Teri M Brown: are people that ride across the country on bicycles, very few on tandems. Tandem bicycle riding is not an easy endeavor. Crossing over the Rocky Mountains on a loaded tandem bicycle with a trailer. Like, thinking about it in terms of Are these people normal? I mean, we're not.

Rob Valincius: insane?

Teri M Brown: Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, maybe people should have said, no, you can't go across.

In fact, we're going to have you committed because there's a little bit of crazy that has to happen. But I tell people all the time, my definition of an adventure is something big and huge that you really have no idea what you're getting yourself into. Because if you knew you would say no, thanks. I'm staying home

Rob Valincius: If I don't mind asking, what's your astrological

Teri M Brown: I'm a Libra.

Rob Valincius: Okay. Alright.

Teri M Brown: I don't know what that. Okay. I was gonna say I don't know what that means in terms of this I think I think for me I just I needed to prove something I wanted to do something so big that people were going to say you can't do that And I had people tell me, you, you, you'll never make that. You can't do that.

And then it was like, good. And now I'm going to, I did real fast. I actually had my, my brother said to me, uh, yeah, you can't even walk and chew gum. You're never going to make it across the United States. And when we left that conversation, I looked at Bruce and I said, I don't care if you have to tie me to the bicycle. I'm making it across. So

Rob Valincius: always It's always the family that gets you triggered, too. I can see my brother doing the same thing, like, I'll show

Teri M Brown: I'll show you. Yeah. And it's like, watch me. Watch me. Yeah.

Rob Valincius: So, so now that the, uh, the tandem time is over, um, you know, obviously that jettisoned you to getting your books and, and deciding, Hey, I'm going to be an author. So talk to me a little bit about what that looked like, what your creative process looked like after this.

I mean, that had to like, almost like it was almost like getting electroshock

Teri M Brown: Yeah. Yeah. So I decided, well, I want to be an author. That's what I want to do. And I went back and started evaluating some of the manuscripts that I had written and thrown to one side. And one of them, my first one, Sunflowers Beneath the Snow, just Stuck out. And I thought, well, I'm, I'm going to see what I can do with this.

And I started querying with this thing long before I should have. It was in no shape for people to see it, but I didn't know that. Like, I didn't know what I was doing. And I happened to hit an, an editor who saw something in it and took a chance on me and said, Hey, here's some things you need to do to really like.

make this what it needs to be. And I published it. It's about three generations of Ukrainian women and it came out four weeks before the current Ukrainian crisis.

Rob Valincius: Oh, wow. Okay.

Teri M Brown: so what's cool about that, I mean, not cool because it's not cool that there's a Ukrainian crisis, but it's, it helped me as a writer because I had something that people wanted to read because Ukraine was in the news. So it gave me a leg up that I wouldn't have had otherwise.

Rob Valincius: So, so why, no, I'll say this, my, my wifey is Ukrainian. She

Teri M Brown: Oh, wow, is she?

Rob Valincius: but her parents were both, uh, in the army and air force. And they grew up, alright. Your mom was born in Venezuela? Yep. Her mom was born in Venezuela. She's Ukrainian though. Full, her whole family. Um, and, uh, why, so why did you start with the, the Ukrainian women first?

Teri M Brown: I had a friend who told me a story. She's Ukrainian. She told me this incredible story of something that happened to her in the United States that was so incredible that when she told it to me three years before I wrote the manuscript, I thought, wow, that should be a book or a movie. I'm not the right person to do it.

Well, when it came time, when I said, okay, I'm going to write this, I no longer had contact with her. I found her again, but she had gone dark on, on, um, social media and I just couldn't find her. And I thought, okay, so I don't know how we got to this incredible story. So I tell everyone I wrote 82, 000 words of fiction so I could tell her three pages of truth.

So I just made up this incredible, this story, this, To tell these last three pages of truth. So the last three pages of the last chapter are True and everything else is just me making stuff up to get there But what but why I picked that one over other manuscripts, I think I don't know I just I would I would look at other ones and it was like mm hmm.

And this one just kept saying to me This is it. This is it. And I was like, okay, so this is it. And like I said, yeah, it's like I said, I had this editor who looked at it. I mean what she should have said to me is Sweetheart, Pat, Pat, Pat, take this home and work on it. But instead, I think that she saw that there was a good potential here and she gave me a lot of good insight into what I needed to do to really strengthen this manuscript and I was willing to listen.

And I followed her, you know, people think editors like write, rewrite your story. That's not what they do. They do things like write a big circle around something and say, what's this or need more or who's this character or, you know, they, they point out holes and things. And in our discussion, she just told me, look, I need more of this character.

I need less of this. I need a little more here. And when I finished writing it to those specifications. I was able to get it published. It was, it was just really cool. It was, yeah, really cool.

Rob Valincius: that is awesome. That is awesome. So, so, you got your book published. Um, and then, now, you know, you have a couple more under your

Teri M Brown: Yeah, yeah,

Rob Valincius: you know, hold on, let me see.

Teri M Brown: I've got an enemy like me and Daughters of Green Mountain Gap. Yeah.

Rob Valincius: Um, so, so were those any of your originals? Or are these, these were brand new after?

Teri M Brown: Yeah, these were brand new and after my originals probably won't ever. They, they are so bad. In terms of like character development and things that I would have to do so much rewriting that it would actually be better to say I like the story idea, let me start from scratch and not even look at what I've written because it's just not, I mean, it, it was good for what it was, which was a way to get me started, a way for me to start learning about the craft of writing, but it's not good.

Like you should read it.

Rob Valincius: What's your, um, what's your creative process look like? So when you, when you sat down, um, now obviously, you know, the, um, sunflowers, you kind of already had it started. What was it like writing those two other books? Like, what did your process look

Teri M Brown: so I have,

Rob Valincius: talked to authors, you know, I had a guy that was in the bar and, you know, he wrote.

Typing and meeting people in a bar. I've had other people need they need to be isolated. Like what's that? What's that look like to you?

Teri M Brown: I, I always almost hate to say out loud what I do because it's, it isn't like what I think an author should do. You know, when, when you read these craft books, you know, you should write every day and you should pick a time and sit at it and I'm so not that person I, I do what I call word vomit, which I just all of a sudden need to write and I just write it all out and get it out.

I type. Because I'm an extremely fast typist, and if I write, handwrite as fast as my brain is going, I can't read a thing that I wrote afterwards. So I just type, type, type, type, type. Um, I also do what I call binge writing. Um, so once I have this idea, I will write and write and write and write. Heaven help you if you need something from me because I am not going to be available.

I, I don't eat, I don't, I don't shower. I, I get up, I sleep for a few hours. I'm back up, I'm typing, until it's just kind of not there anymore. And then I might not write anything for another week or so because I've got it all out of my system. My favorite way to write is to go away. Not be here at home, where I have to worry about laundry and the phone ringing and other things.

And if I can go away to a retreat, especially if I can get a two week retreat, I can get a first draft of a manuscript out.

Rob Valincius: wow,

Teri M Brown: nothing else to do,

Rob Valincius: yeah

Teri M Brown: but it's when I have other, you know, I think it's partially, I've, I've been a mom and a wife and all those things and I just, I can't sit here and, and do my, my binging when I know that someone wishes I was making supper.

Rob Valincius: There's a dish in the sink, or it's trash night,

Teri M Brown: or you, or you hear the, the bell go off on the dryer and you better get up and fold those. You just, and, and, As wonderful as Bruce is and as much as he loves the fact that I write, I'll tell him I'm going to write. I need to be left alone. And he says, got it. And I'll be type, type, typing. And all of a sudden I can feel him and he's standing behind me and he's very quiet.

And I'll look up at him and he'll say, I don't want to bother you. And it's like, yeah, too late. Um, and he says, but when you have time, could you come out to the garage? I need you to hold something while I do whatever. And it's like, well, let me do that right now. And he'll say, Oh, is that, is now a good time?

Pretty much he interrupted the flow. So let's go ahead and get that, you know, so it's just easier. To be somewhere else where no one has any expectations of me. And then I can get so much written. I also love to write in a coffee shop or, um, a library. Although I have found that a library is actually too quiet for me because then if someone makes a noise, it jolts me because it has been so quiet.

I kind of like it where there's a hum of people around because I've learned how to ignore that. And then I can just get right into it. And none of those people need me.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, there's just like a background

Teri M Brown: Yeah,

Rob Valincius: Like, I sleep with a fan on, you know. I need that, that white noise for me to, like, drift off. Cause I'm one of those thinkers, so like, you know, it'll be, you know, we lay down at 10, 1030 and I'm just laying there and I'm like Huh, I wonder why I did that when I was in high school and then you're just like I don't know Why did that even pop into my head,

Teri M Brown: exactly. Exactly.

Rob Valincius: That's interesting yeah, I you know, I always for me from a concentration standpoint I agree with you I think it's better to although I will tell you this like in terms of working like, you know, I work in an office I feel like I work better at home than I do in the office. It's weird. It's like well also I'm a I'm a tech Nerd.

So I custom built my PC here and this, this computer is like 10 or 15 at the computers at my office. So like I can do a million things without ever having to worry about anything. Cause this computer is ridiculous. Uh, unlike at work, and they're, they're okay, they're okay, they do, they do what they need to, but it's not like what I have here, so like, um, I just feel like I, I do more work, I work more hours, you know, um, but from, from a creative standpoint, I feel like, for me, I think I need, I, I feel like I would need quiet to a certain degree, but I, I like the retreat thing, I think that's,

Teri M Brown: There's just something about getting away. And part of it is, is on the way there. I like to go someplace a couple of hours from the house. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm going. And while I'm driving, it's like my mind is starting to go to, Ooh, we're gonna write soon. We're gonna write soon. And so by the time I get there, I can hardly get my computer into my room.

Before I'm just like, Oh, I have to sit down and write because I've been like doing all of the thinking and I've, I've been, I don't know, developing characters and scenarios and, and, and it's like, Oh, I've got to sit down. I've got to sit down. And then I just start writing and writing and writing and writing and writing.

It just comes word vomit. It just comes out. Now that first draft is not something I would ever show anyone.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Teri M Brown: You know, it's truly what came to my mind. And then I leave it alone. And then I come back to it a few weeks later and I read it. And I, I, I refuse to type anything on it. Even if I see mistakes or whatever, I just read it.

And I make notes in a notebook. This needs to happen. I need more here, and I make these little notes and then I leave it again. And then the next time I open up the document, I follow those notes. And now I start making changes and wordsmithing and adding and moving and massaging it and whatnot. And then once again, I leave it. And then I come back and I do another round of edits and say, okay, now I've done, I've done the edits I saw initially. Now let's read this. What do I see? What needs to happen? And then I get it to an editor. Because an editor, no matter how many times I edit it myself, an editor always will say This character's a little flat and you feel a little offended at that and then you look at the character and you think you're right, that character's a little flat and it's not something you can see on your own because the characters live in my head and even if I haven't told you, I know what the character would have for breakfast because that character lives in my head and I assume that you should know too and sometimes I assume and don't actually share it and my editor will say, Hey, This character really doesn't have an arc, Terry.

What? You obviously don't understand my character. Right.

Rob Valincius: are you talking about?

Teri M Brown: And then I look at it and think, or maybe it doesn't have an arc.

Rob Valincius: So what you're saying is, is the editor is almost like the constructive criticism that you need, and sometimes it's like the direction, you know? Sometimes we think, and we're like this, but the editor comes in and goes, well, you need to

Teri M Brown: Broaden it up. Or, or sometimes I have, I have the tendency to what she calls wander in the woods where I'm not getting to the point And she'll say to me, if you'll get to the point faster, you can go about wandering in the woods because people know why they're in the woods wandering with you and they'll stay in the woods.

But if you don't tell them why you're there, they're going to get tired and go home. And it's like, fine.

Rob Valincius: All right. All right. So, so with that process, how, uh, what on average, how long do you think it takes for you to write like a full on book from start to finish? I

Teri M Brown: I can get a first draft done in two weeks if I have a chance to go to a retreat, and then it's going to take me six or seven weeks of editing myself. Plus the downtime and then send it to the editor and then another couple of weeks fixing what they say. So for my actual writing process, I probably can do it in, Oh, 10 to 15 weeks.

But with all the downtime I need between those steps, it's about six, six to nine months.

Rob Valincius: mean, that's, that's still pretty incredible. I mean, that's, you know, I'll tell you this. I have, I'm a reader myself. I do audio books. Okay. Because I, I drive a lot.

Teri M Brown: Hey, look, audiobooks is reading. People, people will claim, Oh, that's not real reading. Oh, yes, it is. You're consuming books. It's reading. So, okay.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, and I hate because I just the radio. Uh, look, I like music, but I'm not a fan of today's music in, in many aspects. And there's a lot of stuff. I, I've been, I've been told I'm an old soul to a certain degree because I think sometimes I act like I'm 70. Uh, but there's certain things about just, um.

Absorbing information when I have an opportunity, so, you know, I have about an hour and a half drive, give or take, so, you know, I'm able to listen. I love fiction, so, um, you know, that's what my preferred is, but I will, I started to listen to some non fiction. I can't do self help books. I, I've tried. I have a bunch in my Audible account.

I've tried. I can't,

Teri M Brown: Well, those audible self help are, are difficult, I think. There's just something, I don't know, because to me, if you're going to do a self help book, you almost need to be doing one little chapter at a time with a notebook and, and making little notes. And, and that's not really what you're doing when you're driving a vehicle with, with, Something in your head, you know, like, yeah.

Rob Valincius: it's, I don't know, the self help thing, the rah rah, I just For me, it's, I just, in my head, I'm like, you just need to figure it out, dude.

Teri M Brown: Yeah.

Rob Valincius: know, these people can tell you, you know, and give you these tools, but you just need to figure it out. And that's kind of how I, sometimes I fly by the seat of my pants, I'll tell you that.

But, uh, for me, the audiobooks, you know, I've listened to some, some really, I love series. I love to know that I have, you know, three to six books. That's my thing. So like, um, you know, there's, there's a couple books, um, there's a, uh, just finished. The most recent book by, I think it's Dennis E. Miller. Um, it's the Bobiverse series.

Really, really cool. It mixes, like, real life, um, you know, uh, technology and advancements that are theoretical. And puts it into some pretty cool books, you know. But, it's one of those things where I stop at a certain point and I pull up and I'm like, Oh man, I can't wait. Till I'm done work to listen to the rest of this chapter.

Um, so it gives me something to look forward to because I hate driving, you know, and you deal with the, all the craziness and the, the, the BS that you're dealing with when you're dealing with, um, driving. So audio books are amazing. Do you have, do you have any yours in audio

Teri M Brown: my, my last novel, Daughters of Green Mountain Gap is in audio. Um, and that was interesting. So, you know, you hire a narrator and, and they send you a little, a little chapter for you to listen to see what you think. I was, well, I told you I cry. I was sobbing like a baby because it was like, Oh my gosh, it sounds like a real book.

Like I know mine are real books. I've won awards. They're real books. I write good books. But it, you, I don't know. There's like still that little piece of me somewhere that says, yeah, you're kind of faking it and someone's going to figure it out eventually. Right. And, you know, just because you rode across the United States on a tandem bicycle doesn't mean anything, Terry.

And so there's that, that still that little piece in there. And when I heard this book for the first time, just that little piece, oh my gosh, I was sobbing. And then when I heard the whole thing and I sat and listened to it. I could not believe because I don't know what I expected it to sound like.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Teri M Brown: I don't know.

I think maybe I expected it not to sound like the other audio books that I listened to. I don't know what it was, but Oh, it was fabulous. It was a, it was really great to have that done.

Rob Valincius: Would you say that's a surreal experience listening

Teri M Brown: it was to hear someone else reading your words in that very professional, you know, with the different character voices and whatnot.

And you're just like, gosh,

Rob Valincius: That's, that's cool. That's got to be a pretty unique

Teri M Brown: it was, it was

Rob Valincius: now let's, we're, we're getting, hitting that hour mark. So let's end with this. Cause I always like to, I have a lot of young listeners, uh, you know, so can you give anybody who's an aspiring writer or maybe they're a writer now, some, just some, some, some advice, you know, something that we can end the podcast on that maybe they could take away from this.

Teri M Brown: I tell people that there's really three, three pieces of advice that I have, and well, maybe four, but three. The, the one, the first one is, is you have to start writing. Like there are a lot of people who say, well, I'll write when, you know, I'll write when I'm older, I'll write when I have more time, I'll write when I've taken a class, I'll write when I get a degree, I'll write, you're not going to get better at writing until you write.

And so the first thing that you do will be no good, but that's okay because you're not going to get better until you start doing it. It would be like saying, I'm going to become a tennis player and I'm going to read this good book and now I'm going to go out and play tennis. I'm still not going to be able to hit the ball, right?

And I'm not going to be able to hit it until I've done it. So the first thing is to write. The second thing is, is once you are now comfortable with your writing and you start thinking, this isn't bad. I, I, you know, there's, there's some good to it. Find a critique partner. Find someone who will be honest with you.

Not, not brutal, not someone who just says this is crap and throws it at you, but someone who can say this is good, this, here's why I'm having trouble with this section. And then the third thing is Well part of the second is, is listen to that, right? If you keep writing the same way over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, you might as well quit writing.

You've got to, you've got to advance that and one of the ways you can do that is take someone who's going to be your, your end user, right, your reader, and listen to what they have to say. Now, my third piece of advice kind of contradicts itself a little bit in that don't listen to everyone. Because, for instance, I sent a manuscript to some beta readers.

And beta readers are those early readers that, that they're, they're trying to help you, like, what, what more does this story need? Did you find any holes? Well, there were six beta readers and there were places that all six of them gave me specific advice. That contradicted the other advice given to me by the others, right?

You can't do it all. And sometimes you'll be told things like, Oh, well you should outline, or you should do this, or you should do that. And it's okay to try it, but if it doesn't work for you, it's also okay to say, well I tried that and it doesn't work for me. So take advice, but also recognize that there's a lot of your own style and your own Sense of being an author that you have to stay true to and and it's okay to kind of figure out What's what and then I guess if I was gonna give a fourth piece It's don't forget about in the marketing aspect because I did and once you're done writing a book you're not done Now you have to get people to know what's out there.

And if you wait until you already have a book out there to start marketing, you're already behind.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Teri M Brown: first book came out and I literally waited for it to sell and did not understand why no one was finding it on Amazon.

Rob Valincius: Gotta, gotta be the salesman after that. I know that that's sometimes difficult for authors because not every author is a salesperson either.

Teri M Brown: But you

Rob Valincius: And not every salesperson is an author.

Teri M Brown: you have to be able to, I tell people all the time, I've done a few marketing classes now where, where I'm explaining some things to do. And the first thing I tell people is the number one rule of marketing book is you have to be able to say, Hi, my name is Terry Brown, and I've written a good book.

You should read it. if you can't say that, either you don't have a good book, which means you better go back and write until you do, or you need to figure out why you can't say that out loud. Right?

Rob Valincius: that's a great exercise.

Teri M Brown: Yeah. Yeah, and it's like, I'm Terry

Rob Valincius: aren't going to read it if it sucks.

Teri M Brown: well, you know and could you imagine I want you to imagine you inviting me on this podcast if I had reached out to you and said well I'm a sort of author and I kind of have written a few books and There's this one and it kind of came out and I you know Maybe you should take a look at it cuz well, I mean it might be alright Why would you want to have a podcast guest that can't say to you, Hey, I've written this really great book and it's coming out and I would love to be on your podcast to chat about it. Right. And, and I'm telling

Rob Valincius: ignored your message, probably, if you, if you didn't come, if you didn't respond to me like you did, yeah. And I get that

Teri M Brown: right. And so, and so that's why I tell people that the number one rule of marketing is, is you have to believe in your books. You have to believe in yourself. I'm Terry Brown. I've written a good book. You should read it. And if you can say that, in fact, you can say my name if you want to. Terry Brown's written a good book.

No, but I mean, if you can, if you can say that, then the marketing piece will be easier. So for those who are already writing, start looking at the marketing now. and, and learn to be able to say, Hey, I've written this great thing. You should read it.

Rob Valincius: That's awesome. That is excellent advice to end the podcast on, uh, Terry. It was a pleasure having you on tell everybody where they can find your plug yourself away, please.

Teri M Brown: The best place to find me is at my website, which is my name, Terry M Brown. And that's Terry with one r. com. Um, there you can find all my social media, have all the icons. You can just click, click, click, find me there. Um, you can buy all my books if you're in the United States. I will sign them and send them to you.

Um, and if you're not in the United States, I've got the links for other places where you can get them, but the shipping is, is horrible for outside the U S. Um, you can take a listen to my podcast where I talk to other authors and give. Indie authors, a platform. Uh, it's a great place. If you want to find out the next book on your to be read list, it's a great place to go look for that.

Um, I have a newsletter that you can sign up for and I also just have a contact me page and I love it when people reach out with questions or whatever. I always try to get back with people who've reached out to me

Rob Valincius: awesome. Awesome. Well, look, it was, it was great having you on. So my podcast is drink clock podcast on all socials. Drink o'clock pod, wherever you listen to podcasts, it's on all of them. So there's no excuse to not, I'm Rob Valencius and I have a great podcast. Okay. So go listen

Teri M Brown: and you should listen to it. Right.

Rob Valincius: this is a, this is a great episode and, uh, Terry, you have a great night.

Thank you so much for joining me. And, uh, let's do this again after your next

Teri M Brown: Fantastic. Thank you so much.

Rob Valincius: Thank you.

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