Healing in Tandem: Finding Oneself Through Adventure, Writing and Love with Teri M. Brown

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (00:00)
Welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now, the podcast where we dive deep into the moments of transformation, the times when not yet shifts into right now and everything changes. I'm your host, Jen Ginty, and this podcast is all about those pivotal moments in our life journeys. You know the ones, when the hesitation fades, when we take that first step, even if it feels like a leap. It's in these moments that growth and healing begins. Each episode will explore stories of resilience,

moments of clarity, and the sparks that ignite real change. From personal experiences to expert insights, we'll uncover how people navigate the complex journey we call life and come out stronger on the other side. Whether you're searching for that spark in your own life or just curious about how change unfolds for others, you're in the right place. We'll discuss the ups and downs, the breakthroughs and setbacks, and how to embrace the right now, even when it feels out of reach. Because sometimes,

The hardest part of the journey is realizing that the moment you've been waiting for has already arrived. So take a deep breath, settle in, and let's get started.

Jen (01:08)
Hello and welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now. I'm your host, Jen Ginty, and today I have a wonderful guest with me. Her name is Terri M. Brown, and she is an award-winning author, adventurer, and fierce storyteller. Born in Athens, Greece as an Air Force brat, Terri entered the world with a suitcase full of stories and a heart wired for resilience.

Life hasn't been easy. She weathered the emotional toll of a 14-year abusive marriage and rebuilt herself piece by piece, never letting adversity define her future. In 2020, she and her husband Bruce peddled a tandem bicycle across the entire United States from the Pacific and Oregon to the nation's capital, discovering new depths of strength, love, and perspective. She homeschooled four children while building a successful writing career

publishing award-winning nonfiction and later turning to historical fiction that explores courage, healing and identity. Her novels have touched readers across the globe. Now Terry writes not just to entertain, but to empower. Whether it's mentoring women who are rediscovering their worth or capturing the quiet magic of the everyday, she writes with purpose, grit and grace. Welcome, Terry.

Teri M Brown (02:28)
wow, thank you so much, that sounds so good. I'm turning around to see who you're talking about.

Jen (02:34)
I'm talking about you. And from all of the discussions that we've had so far, you are a bright light in this world and I can't wait for our conversation. So.

Teri M Brown (02:46)
I'm super

excited too. Thank you so much.

Jen (02:49)
Yes, so let's get into it. What is your origin story?

Teri M Brown (02:54)
So, you know, it's crazy. Like when I think about it, I think, well, I'm just normal. It's just, this is just normal. And then when I tell people, they're like, well, that isn't quite as normal as you'd think. But I think my origin, the very beginning is very normal. I grew up in a household with a mom and a dad. had a brother, we had a cat. lived, you know, we lived in Ohio. We lived in a house that my parents owned. We, you know, had an acre of property. We just did normal, did normal life. ⁓

During that time, as a kid, when I look back, what did I want to be when I grew up? ⁓ I said I wanted to be an author, but I also said I wanted to be a brain surgeon and an Olympic ice skater. So I didn't think I really had any clue what I wanted. ⁓ I knew I loved books. I was that reader that read everything I could get my hands on. I read all of Nancy Drew, and then I started reading all of the Hardy Boys because I was told girls weren't allowed. So I read all of them because how dare you tell me?

⁓ Mom would say to me all the time, go outside and play, go outside and play. And so I'd put my book out on the ledge and I'd go out and grab my book and climb a tree and read. So I was that kid. So I've always known that books were important to me. Now it's time for college. Well, you know, no way are my parents paying for me to get a degree in creative writing because that's not what you go to college for. You go to college, you get a job and you're never gonna get a job in creative writing, Terry. And that was kind of, so I had no idea what I wanted.

So I ended up with two majors and two minors and I laugh because I've never used any of them specifically for any specific job. So my parents did not get their wish after all, but that's a whole nother story. Then I got married and I had four beautiful children and my husband and I, though we are friends now, we were really not good for one another. And so we ended up divorced. So now I'm a single mom, four kids.

And I start writing for small businesses because this was in 2000 and in 2000, the internet's really getting going, but small businesses don't know what to put out on their websites. And what they were putting out was pretty bad. And so I would contact them and pretty much say, hey, I can clean that up for you. Let me help you. And so I really started this small business that way. Then I remarried. And when I remarried, it was probably one of the worst decisions of my life.

He was emotionally abusive. And I think I knew I had made a mistake. I'm sure by anniversary number one, but I'm really stubborn and I did not wanna be divorced twice. I felt like being divorced once, I already had the scarlet letter tattooed on my forehead and I didn't want two of them up there. And I was determined to make that marriage work, but you can't make something work if the other person isn't also determined to make it work, but.

It took me 14 years to finally have enough. He used to take our money out of the bank and then put it in another account that I didn't have access to. So he did that twice during our marriage. And after the second time, I told him, if you ever do it again, I'm leaving and I'll never come back. Like that will be it. It was my one line in the sand. And in 2017, he did it for the third time. And 14 hours later, everything I owned was packed in storage and I was gone.

⁓ And I didn't go back and I wasn't ever going to go back. To this day, I am grateful that he took that money because otherwise I'm afraid I would still be there trying to fix something that wasn't fixable.

As soon as I left, words started pouring out of me. I had been wanting to write fiction, but was terrified of the prospect of writing fiction because when you're nonfiction, it's facts and it's just, can you arrange them nicely? Can you arrange them in a way that people want to read them? And there isn't a whole lot of you that goes into it, but when you're writing fiction and you're writing characters, this is your imagination. This is...

from deep inside, this is your creativity and you're putting it out there on the line. Why couldn't do that with an emotionally abusive husband? Because I didn't have a safe place to land. Because sometimes you put the things out there into the world and you hear things that aren't kind. People are very quick to be critical and you need a safe spot. And I didn't have it. So I went ahead and...

Jen (07:21)
Yes. Yeah.

Teri M Brown (07:25)
now these words are falling out of me and I start writing and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote my very first manuscript and it was horrible but it taught me so many things. First of all, I had 50,000 words in me and I wasn't sure that I had that kind of volume. ⁓ It had a beginning, a middle and end, it had characters, it had a plot, it was just very flat. It's your first time trying something. It was like if Picasso, the first time he picked up a paintbrush, you know,

You don't get perfection then. ⁓ But it was like it opened a dam, so I wrote another one. And it was a little better and it still had problems. And then I wrote another one and I had several in different aspects of readiness. But I was terrified to show them to anyone because you gotta remember, 14 years of emotional abuse, despite the fact I knew it, you hear something long enough and you begin to believe it. You don't want to.

Jen (08:15)
Yes.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Teri M Brown (08:23)
Right? You don't want to, but you do. You

begin to believe it. And I was kind of at the point where even going to the grocery store and picking out which brand of peanut butter was difficult for me. Because what if I made a wrong decision?

Jen (08:37)
Yeah, I think that this is an important thing to talk about. And I've mentioned this many times on the podcast about intuition and abuse. That people who have been abused, have PTSD from abuse, they can't trust their intuition because it didn't work for them. Because they're abusers. It didn't matter what you...

chose. If your abuser was in a bad mood or they wanted to do something to harm you, you didn't have that intuition to be able to say, I can leave the house right now, or I could do something else to stop this. There's no intuition when it comes to abuse. And then it's so hard to build intuition when you're out of it.

Teri M Brown (09:26)
It is, and

right, so here I have all these manuscripts and I'm not showing them to anyone because I don't feel like a writer. I don't feel like I'm good enough. You know, I haven't been good enough in years and so why am I good enough now? You know, I felt like a complete imposter. Then I met Bruce and we could have a whole podcast just about me meeting Bruce because you know, I was never, ever, ever, ever, never.

being in a relationship again and positively never marrying again. Like I'd done it twice. I'm obviously bad at it. I tell everyone I'm a bad picker and I just, you I'm not doing this again. Well, Bruce told everyone that he ⁓ chased me until I caught him. And that was kind of how he put it. And he just, he just didn't go away. You know, I would tell him all the time, you need to leave now. Like this would be the best time because right now you are a half gallon of chocolate ice cream and a good cry.

And if you keep sticking around, I'm going to become attached. And then when you leave, it's going to hurt me and I can't be heard again.

Jen (10:32)
Yeah, pushing away what is good for us is another thing that we do when we've gone through trauma. And you went through emotional abuse, you went through financial abuse, and as you said, this was after your second marriage. And I know after my first, I was like, never again, never again. I also had financial abuse in my first marriage, and I was just like, I'm never sharing anything with another person again.

Teri M Brown (10:37)
Right?

Right,

I wanna be completely insulated because then any of the problems that I have are completely of my own making and there's only one person to blame and then I can fix it myself because I made it myself. But when you allow someone else in, now it requires decisions together and it requires cooperation and giving up some things to get other things and I didn't want any of that and I also didn't believe he'd stay.

I felt so damaged that I knew that eventually he'd recognize how damaged I was and he would walk away. But I was afraid he wouldn't walk away before I had let him in to my heart a little bit. And so I just kept pushing and pushing. And he would always say to me, I'm not going anywhere. I'm really not going anywhere. eventually, obviously I believed him because we got married. But while we were dating, he started talking about the fact.

that he had from 1976, he has always wanted to ride across the United States on a bicycle. A group of college kids did it in 1976 as part of the bicentennial. He was a Marine at the time. And he said he would have gone with them in a heartbeat. But of course, the Marines don't let you off for three months to go do something crazy. So he has always had that idea in his head. Well, if we back up just a little bit, when I left my abusive husband,

I had a friend of my son who started walking the Appalachian Trail and I was reading his blog and I read it like a drowning woman. don't know why it hit me the way it did, but I would read his blog post and reread them and fantasize about doing something huge like that because I felt like I needed to prove to the world that I still had value.

Now, as it turns out, the world did not believe that I didn't have value. It was me, but I didn't know that at the time. But I felt this need to prove to people, and I felt like the only way I could do it was to do something huge, something way outside of my normal. So when Bruce brings up riding across the United States on a bicycle, I'm thinking, that's huge. And I asked him, I said, is this something you're gonna talk about until the day you die, or are you gonna do it?

He said, no, I really wanna do it. And I said, count me in. And we were dating, I had no intention of marrying him, but I thought I can go on an adventure with someone. I don't have to be married to go on this adventure. But he was the cyclist that, I mean, he's been cycling, ⁓ I don't know, probably since early childhood, but I know since high school, he was doing bicycle racing, he's done triathlons, he's a cyclist.

I hadn't been on a bicycle in 40 years. And so we started riding a tandem bicycle, which was wonderful because he can't go faster than me and I can't go slower than him, right? Like we had to work together.

Jen (14:03)
Makes sense.

Yeah. And I'm sure that you were able to lean upon each other on that too. I'm tired. You work harder. ⁓

Teri M Brown (14:07)
So, wait, get good.

Yes! Yes!

You work a little harder. And,

you know, I've thought about it. If we had tried to do this adventure on a regular bicycle, he would have always been way ahead of me and it would have never been fun. I would have always felt like I was behind and struggling and it would have not been good. But on a tandem, it kind of equalized us. You know, he can't go faster than me and I can't go slower than him. And so we're in this together. So we decided, yeah, we're gonna do this thing. And we started planning it.

And in the meantime, then we get married and now it's just a little over a year later and we're getting ready to go and COVID hits. And we thought that's it. We're not going to be able to go this year. So we kind of stopped thinking about it, but I watched him and he just was so sad because here's this dream that he has been wanting for all these years. And once again, it's kaput. And then things started opening up just a little bit.

where people were allowed to fly again and people were allowed to, now it was, I mean, still crazy with the masks and all of the things, but the United States was opening a little, borders were opening a little between states, et cetera. And I just said to them, let's go. We're in the United States. The worst thing that happens is we have to rent a car and come home. Like, let's do this. So.

Jen (15:40)
feel like it was

the perfect timing because you're outdoors, know, right? You're outdoors, you're breathing fresh air, you're not surrounded by people because you're just moving.

Teri M Brown (15:43)
It turned out to be. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

it actually turned out to be amazing. So we shipped the bicycle out to Oregon. We live on the East Coast in North Carolina. So we shipped the bicycle out. He and I flew out and packed in our duffel bags. We took duffels that we could then send home easily in boxes where all of our camping gear and all of the things that we needed. And

we got started, we had hoped to start the middle of May and we got started like on June 28th or 29th, right at the end of June. And we had decided if we could start by July 15th, that we could still make it without running into the cold weather. And so we still had another two weeks, but we got started. And on day one, I knew we had off more than we could chew. I was astounded. Even though we had practiced and practiced and practiced, we're from the coast of North Carolina, which is flat.

And Oregon is not, just in case you're wondering. And on day one, we are crossing over mountain ranges and I, ⁓ and I thought, what have I gotten into? But remember the bullheaded stubborn one that stayed in a 14 year marriage? That one kind of came out for a little while. And I decided that, you know, we're going to make this happen. And it took us 72 riding days, a little over three months of actual being out there. Cause you have to take

Jen (16:46)
Uh-uh.

Teri M Brown (17:13)
days off and sometimes the weather's bad and other things. And we're coming now into Washington DC. And we stopped at the Marine Corps Memorial because my husband was 25 year veteran and we were raising money for Toys for Tots. So it just seemed like the perfect place to stop. And he said, do you see that flag? We were going up a hill and we always ended every day up. I do not understand why or how that happens, but wherever you're going to stop, it's always up a hill.

⁓ But we're going up this hill and he said, do you see that flag? And I said, yes. And he said, that's it. That's where we're stopping. And I started to cry and then laugh and then cry and then laugh, which I did for the next hour. I mean, I was just a mess, but I thought, yeah. And I thought, you know what? I just made it across the United States on a tandem bicycle, me.

Jen (17:58)
the emotions.

Teri M Brown (18:09)
Non-athletic Terry, who hadn't been on a bicycle in 40 years when this whole idea was hatched, I did that. And if I can do that, I can do anything I put my mind to. It's not a matter of can I, it's a matter of what. What do I want? And I thought, I want to be an author. And 14 months later, my first book came out.

Jen (18:19)
That's right.

That's amazing. Yes, yes, you are a shining example of proving to yourself what you can do and what you want to do, right?

Teri M Brown (18:45)
I a lot of people feel like, and have said to me, you changed so much on that trip. Well, I did, but not really. What I did was I found myself again on that trip. I don't think that I became someone else. I think I dug through all the rubble and pulled out the little girl who thought she could be a brain surgeon and an Olympic ice skater and an author all at the same time, the little girl who had yet to be crushed by

all the things in the world, who believed in herself, I was able to like find all of that again. And so I tell people all the time, I don't think it's a matter of like reinventing yourself as much as it's a matter of finding what's already in you.

Jen (19:30)
Yeah. Can I ask you, I know these rides, you you must have so much time to think during this because you're not talking when you're biking, right? So what was it that was coming up in your mind during these rides?

Teri M Brown (19:39)
Lots of time, yeah.

I you you, I don't know how other people do life, but I'm often replaying like, you know, so it's almost like a little video going through my head of something that I didn't like that about the way either I handled life or whatever. And these things would go through and, and I would hear words like you aren't enough and you're not good enough, et cetera. And then I would think, now, wait a minute. I just made it over the Rocky mountains on a tandem bicycle. Does that

Is that really true? Am I really not enough? And so I started to be able to like put those pieces into the right boxes, which, you know, did it happen to me? Yes, that abuse happened, but it doesn't have to define me. You know, it's a thing that happened. It isn't me for like, like I tell people all the time. I don't feel like I like I'm a victim. It's it happened to me.

But it isn't really anything about me. It was way more about him. It was way more about what he did, what he felt, what he needed, how he did life. And I happened to be in the way.

Jen (20:54)
Yeah.

it's really interesting. I tell people when I'm talking about my diagnoses, I say, I live with complex PTSD. I don't say that I suffer from complex PTSD because I refuse to let it hold me down and make me, quote, suffer.

Teri M Brown (21:14)
Right, right.

Right, right, and I think that's kind of, I started realizing that I didn't have to hold on to the things that he said and believed about me. That it was more important, what did I believe about me? And that ride helped me kind of face a lot of fears. I faced a lot of fears. There were a lot of things that I found terrifying about the ride. We would go over.

we went over this one bridge and I could hardly breathe because there was so much traffic. I mean, it was, but I just kept telling myself, you can do hard things. You can do hard things. You can do hard things. And I, I made it up to the top. We walked. I couldn't even get on the bicycle. And when we got to the top, Bruce said, now I want you to look down. I can see, I can see all the way to the bottom. And I know that we have a safe spot. Can you get on the bicycle? Because if you can get on, we can get off this bridge a lot faster.

So I climbed up on the bicycle and because I'm on the back, I can close my eyes because I don't steer. And I closed my eyes and I sang hymns, children's hymns, because it was the only words that would come to me. And I sang it the whole way down and then we were down and it was like, I did it. I did it. And when you face these big fears and you come out the other side and you realize, I did it. I mean, I made it over that bridge.

then you now have a different perspective about yourself. And I did that over and over. There were all kinds of things. I mean, in the beginning, I couldn't even walk to the campground office and ask them, hey, do you have any space tonight? Like I couldn't do it. And by the end, I could ask anybody anything.

Hey, we're needing a ride because my husband here is feeling sick and we need to go three miles up the road. Would you put our stuff in your truck? You know, that's a big difference. And it wasn't like I told people that it isn't that I became someone else. It's that I discovered that voice. I've always had it. It was just buried under an avalanche of junk.

Jen (23:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's easy to go into ourselves, right? And not to come out and quote, play with others. And yeah.

Teri M Brown (23:39)
And expose

yourself because you're exposing yourself. And when you've been abused, exposure is scary. Cause what you do when you're abused is you create a shell and you make yourself small and you try to go through life quietly so as not to accidentally hit a trip wire. And so you're doing all of those things. Well, even when you leave that relationship, you've now learned how to be small and how not to, you know, and so

Jen (23:42)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Teri M Brown (24:10)
reaching out to strange people and asking for something meant they could say no. And if they say no, that feels very much like someone who, you know, I don't know, it feels abusive. It's not, but it triggers those same sensations in your body. And so it was terrifying for me. And I think Bruce knew that and there would be times like in the very beginning, he never even asked me to go up. But maybe like we're three weeks into the ride and he would say,

He'd say, I'm gonna stand here with the bike. You go up and ask them if we can, and I'm looking at him like, but I didn't wanna not to. I mean, here we're doing this together. So I'd go do it and then it'd be like, now we have a place to stay. Like I started recognizing I can do these simple things. And it sounds crazy when I look now back at it. Like, what do mean you couldn't go up and ask if they had any tent spots open? But I couldn't.

Jen (24:56)
Yeah.

Yeah, there's a fear of interaction, especially with strangers.

Teri M Brown (25:09)
Yeah. Well, and

for me, especially with men, you know, if there was a woman behind the counter, it was much easier for me. If it was a man behind the counter, I immediately assumed that this was not going to be a good interaction. And I felt myself getting stiff and uncomfortable and afraid and going over scenarios in my head of what I was going to say when he said something ugly. And then when it would go well, I would think, why did I do all of that?

Jen (25:14)
Yes.

The catastrophizing. Yeah. Yeah. So you guys went and did this amazing journey. So when you got back, what was your outlook?

Teri M Brown (25:41)
Yeah!

Amazing journey. Yeah

I really, and still today, so it's, came back now, it's been almost five years, and I still honestly believe I can do anything that I put my mind to. ⁓ And I recognize, like with this trip, it's not like we said, we're gonna go on this tandem bicycle ride and we left the next day. It took us a lot of planning. I had to find the right seat that fit. I had to find the right clothes that were right for me. I had to determine, you know, like,

Jen (26:05)
That's wonderful.

Teri M Brown (26:25)
how do I layer my clothes the right way? Because Bruce and I have different temperature feelings, right? And so he might be out there in short sleeves and I still need something long. And like, how do we do all of that? And getting myself fit enough that I could ride a bicycle for that period of time and all of those things that you have to do. So I learned from this experience that I can do anything I put my mind to, but it doesn't mean it's gonna be instantaneous and automatic. There might be a whole lot of work that goes into it.

But what I also learned is that if you really want it, then you will put the work in. And if you don't, anything can stop you.

Jen (27:02)
true.

Teri M Brown (27:03)
You know, the sun came up in the east again today. I can't do it. You know, I mean, because you don't really want it. But if you really want to do something, if you really say this is my goal and this is what I want, then you will find a way around all of the obstacles.

Jen (27:09)
Right.

So you got back and you were ready to write again? You ready to just put pen to paper and get moving?

Teri M Brown (27:27)
Yeah, and so I got my first book out, which was Sunflowers Beneath the Snow, and then a year later I had an enemy like me, and a year after that I had Daughters of Green Mountain Gap, and a year after that came out this book, Ten Little Rules for Double-Butted Adventure, which is things that I learned while on the trip. ⁓ And this was a very difficult book to launch, and you know the story, but in June of 22,

My husband was diagnosed with glioblastoma, which is an incurable brain cancer. And in January of this year, he passed away. And in February of this year, this book was supposed to launch and this book is all about our trip. And so once again, this was a whole nother, know, when not yet becomes right now kind of thing where I had to once again, figure out how to be big and bold and brave and move forward.

when what I really wanted to do was climb under the bed and cry.

Jen (28:26)
Yes, yeah, I'm so sorry. I know based on what we've talked about that Bruce was, you know, just the perfect mate for you. You were perfect for each other.

Teri M Brown (28:30)
Yeah.

He was, I tell people all the time,

he wasn't perfect, but boy was he perfect for me. And it's really hard to lose someone like that, especially to a horrible disease and especially, I'm 61 years old. My mother's 82, still lives in her own home, drives her own vehicle. So I keep thinking, I've got at least 20 more years. I can't sit on the front porch in a rocking chair and knit.

you know, like I've got to keep living and then I'm now at that spot of trying to figure out what does that look like and how am I going to do that without that cheerleader person that was standing there who helped me believe in myself again. Like, what does that look like for me? Yeah.

Jen (29:23)
Right, right, because

you guys did this together and he was your cheerleader. Like you said, you'd go up and talk to people that you were afraid would be a bad encounter. And then this February launch comes around and you need to do that again, but on your own, unfortunately.

Teri M Brown (29:28)
Yeah.

right

on my own and it's been, I'm doing it, but it hasn't felt good yet. I keep telling people I feel like I'm wearing someone else's shoes. Like I've got shoes on, but they don't feel right. And so I'm still trying to figure out what is this next piece for me look like. But I also know that I now have everything that he and I gained together.

So I'm not starting, I've started over before, but I've started over much deeper in the muck. And now, yeah, I've got muck because I've got grief and I have to figure out what to do with that. But me personally, I'm in a so much better space. Like, I feel real confident that I will eventually figure out what this next piece looks like for me. I'm not worried that I'm not going to figure it out.

And I would have been worried if I had had the mindset that I had had prior to meeting Bruce, I don't know that I would have been able to get out of something like this, but I'm in a better spot.

Jen (30:41)
Of course.

Yeah. And you know what? I think that this is a beautiful new journey that will be amazing to watch because I can't wait to see the growth that you're going through with this, with the new book and what you're going to do next. So tell me a bit about the way that you moved into writing for Empowerment.

Teri M Brown (31:25)
I don't think that I did it intentionally so much as that when I write, like even my fiction books have a lot in it that empower women. I have strong women characters and I think it comes very naturally to me. I've always been more or less a teacher. I homeschooled my kids. I've always enjoyed working with people and teaching. And so to me,

when you're reading a book, I want it to be a good book. So if you're looking for just a good story that you've got it, but that you also learn something. it's not, it's, it seemed to be very natural to bring in empowerment issues, to bring in ⁓ social issues that we're dealing with today ⁓ and to find a way to bring it to the forefront where it isn't so scary. Because a lot of times, you know, when you're faced with something and it's real,

then it becomes scary. It also becomes difficult to talk about because people have opinions and then people shove the opinions back and forth. But in fiction, it's kind of a solitary event. You're reading often alone. Every now and then people will listen to a book and have more than one person listening. But typically we're alone. We can try on characters ourselves. can, how did they feel? Would I have felt the same way? You can do all of that in your head and there isn't anyone there to judge you or to

⁓ throw their finger at you and call you a name and say for instance you're a racist or you're a whatever because you get to try on all of these characters and whatnot. So I think for me it just came very naturally to say here's a good story and here's some things in life we need to learn.

Jen (33:09)
Yeah, are the books, the three books, are they connected?

Teri M Brown (33:13)
Nope, they're not. They're all historical fiction, but one is set in the 1970s in Ukraine. And what's crazy about that story, it's Sunflowers Beneath the Snow. And what's crazy is, is that it came out one month before the current Ukrainian crisis. totally, and people say to me all the time, how did you know? And it's like, no, no, no, no, that's not the way it works. And then I have An Enemy Like Me, which is a World War II genre.

Jen (33:14)
Okay.

Wow.

Teri M Brown (33:40)
And then I have Daughters of Green Mountain Cap, which is 1890s, the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. So very, very different. ⁓ People tell me, you need to do a series. And it's like, I don't know. I get bored easily. So once I'm done with character, I'm kind of done. I'm ready to move on and try something else. And then this book came about because as I was, I kept a blog the whole way across the United States. So every day I wrote and I wrote everything. So if you want to know like,

what was the temperature and how many miles, you can go to the blog, it's Double-Butted Adventures, and you can go and read all of that. But as I was, yeah, and it's on my website, so it's easy to find, just under the About section, you can see it's Team DBA, which is Team Double-Butted Adventures. If you click there, you can go to the blog. ⁓ But as I was looking over the blog, I started seeing lessons, things that became apparent to me that I had needed to learn.

Jen (34:16)
my gosh I want to!

Teri M Brown (34:37)
And so I thought, I want to write those down. I want to write down what these lessons are. And I had them and then didn't really do anything with it because I didn't, I felt like it needed a home and I didn't know where it was. Then I met the publisher of 10 Little Rules Publishing and I loved her ideas, which were people live life. They come up with lessons that help people get through either everyday life or through particular situations.

And then at the end of each chapter, she had her authors write questions that help people come up with their own rules. So it's kind of like a guided journaling thing as well. And I loved the format. So I reached out to her and 10 Little Rules for a Double-Butted Adventure was born.

Jen (35:25)
Wow, that's amazing. Just jumping back to your books really quickly, is there a character that you feel was the closest for you, like to you?

Teri M Brown (35:41)
You know, not really. have a lot of, I'm in all of my characters. There are characters, I think like in Daughters, I mean, in Sunflowers Beneath the Snow, the youngest character eventually leaves Ukraine and comes to the United States, speaking very little English. And she ends up having to stay because Russia has invaded in 2014. She can't go home. And she somehow figures life out. And

I think that in my mind when I wrote her, because she was young, she was 19 or 20, and I kind of projected who I was at almost 60 onto this younger person because I wished that could have been me. I wished that I had had the guts to do

Jen (36:30)
That's fascinating.

Teri M Brown (36:37)
do life the way I wanted to do it instead of being so, I don't know, controlled by other people and other things and supposed to's and should've's and all of those things. And so maybe in a way her, because it's like, ooh, ooh, if I could do life over, not that I'd want to because I learned so much, et cetera, but if I could, if someone said, okay, you have to, you have to live life over, I would want to be more like her at 20.

and not have to wait until I'm almost 60 to get that figured out.

Jen (37:08)
Okay.

what are you thinking is the next step in writing for you?

Teri M Brown (37:18)
Well, I'm stuck right now. I mean, I'm just gonna be honest. I have a book, a manuscript, that's probably about 60 % complete. The problem is, is I was writing it when my husband passed, and it's humorous, and I'm not feeling overly humorous at the moment, and so I don't know what to do with it. So I've been doing some short stories and some flash fiction. I have an idea for another historical fiction that's roaming around in my head.

So I have a lot of ideas and luckily I'm getting to go to a retreat soon. So hopefully that's gonna help. Sometimes getting out of my own space and into a writing space is just a good way to like jumpstart things. But one of the other things that I really want to start doing is I'd like to start public speaking and using this 10 Little Rules book as kind of the jumping point because each of my rules would be a good public speaking.

event in in and of itself, you know, like I have one, you know, don't quit on a bad day and we could I could talk for hours on that. And so I'm I would love to find a way to maybe start doing a little bit of public speaking, which would be a whole brand new something that is kind of like like what as Terry reinvents herself instead of just being an author and a podcaster, maybe I can become an author and a podcaster and a motivational speaker, you know, like like adding another layer.

Jen (38:40)
I think you'd be fantastic. I am all for that, Terry. Go Terry. Absolutely.

Teri M Brown (38:48)
of figuring out the logistics behind it all, because there are a lot of people who want to be motivational speakers. And how do you get your foot in the door? And I've done a lot of podcasts, on lot of podcasts, and that won't hurt me any. I've done a couple of little local organizations have had me come in, which is great.

I'm trying to figure out how to parlay that into something bigger, but eventually it'll happen. So any of you out there who want me as a public speaker. ⁓

Jen (39:23)
Yes,

yes, please sign her up. So if you were to talk to someone who has been through some of the things that you've been through, that they're leaving an abusive marriage, or maybe they want to but haven't, yeah, what advice would you give them?

Teri M Brown (39:42)
Haven't yet, yeah.

think the first thing is to recognize that there is something better. Like, it's easy to begin to believe that this is the best that you can have, or this is the best you deserve, or this is just the best there really is. And it's not true. There is better out there. So if you're feeling stuck somewhere, by all means figure out how to get out of that. on the other side, and it's not, I don't mean it's easy and it's not instantaneous, but there is,

there is light on the other side. So that'd be the first thing that I would say. And then by all means, don't be afraid to talk about it. Like I couldn't have gotten better on my own. I couldn't have figured all of this out by myself. You know, there's therapists, there's friends, there's women's groups, there's the shelters that often have.

You don't have to be part of the shelter to actually go and get involved in some of their therapies and their groups and the other things like look for those kinds of things because you're not alone You're you know, your abuser has made you feel alone. They've convinced you that you're alone They've convinced you no one's going to believe you they've convinced you all of those things, but it's not true and so remember that there's a whole community of people out here who understand

domestic violence in all of its many forms and that you're not alone and that once again you have inside of you everything you need to be happy and if you can't find that on your own then reach out to people that can help you find it. It could be a pastor, a friend, ⁓ your mother, I mean someone. Like reach out to those people in your life because they can help you

find all of it. And if you have a chance to do an adventure of some kind, and by that, I don't mean you have to travel across the United States on a tandem, but something outside of your comfort zone that makes you stretch, doing that proves to you that you can do something outside of your comfort zone and you can stretch. And then you can do something else and then you can do something else. And as you do that, a lot of that junk that's covering up the real you kind of

Jen (41:45)
You

Teri M Brown (42:06)
finds a home so it doesn't bury you anymore.

Jen (42:11)
I want to ask one more piece of advice because it sounds like you just have such a wonderful mind for your creative writing and your podcast is you interview writers, right? Yeah.

Teri M Brown (42:14)
Yeah.

I do. I do. It's

called Online for Authors and I interview other authors, usually independent or small press authors who have trouble finding a way to get their work out to the public.

Jen (42:37)
What would you give for advice for someone who is maybe even writing novels and they're afraid to put them out there?

Teri M Brown (42:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, here's what I tell myself. I don't know that it helps everyone, but if I'm sitting with a manuscript and it's just sitting in my computer, it's not published and it's going nowhere. If I turn it into someone and they don't like it, my novel is still unpublished and going nowhere. Nothing has changed, right? It didn't hurt me any, but if they choose to do something with it,

Now my novel's going somewhere. It can't ever go, it can't ever, you can't ever change that, that stasis at all until you are willing to put yourself out there. The worst thing that can happen is nothing changes. And that's what I tell myself. What, what's going to happen? I still don't have a novel published. Okay. I already don't have a novel published. Right. And so

Jen (43:33)
That's true.

Right.

Teri M Brown (43:44)
That would be the first thing. And then the other thing is not everybody loves everything. So if someone doesn't like your work, it doesn't mean anything about you personally. That's a learned skill, but you're gonna have to start learning it. Like you've got to kind of get a little bit tough and recognize. So I allow myself, if I get a bad review, ⁓ I allow myself five minutes of Woe is Me.

where I am allowed to wail and gnash my teeth, call the person names in my head, do all of the things that I do. I must be a horrible writer. I throw my arms around. I'm just, know, life is over. And then when I'm done doing that, now I'm done. And I say, okay, not everybody likes everything. There isn't one writer in the world who's written something that everyone loves. And then I move on. So it feel it.

I mean, I think it's perfectly acceptable to say, ⁓ this is horrible. And then remind yourself the reality, which is not everybody's gonna like what you do and move on.

Jen (44:55)
great advice. So where can we find you?

Teri M Brown (45:01)
The easiest place is to go to my website, which is my name, terrymbrown.com. That's Terry with one R. There on my website, you can sign up for my newsletter, you can buy my books, all my social media icons are there, my podcast is there, and I even have a contact me page if you just wanted to reach out and ask me a question. And I do my best to reach back to everybody that reaches out to me.

Jen (45:26)
Well, thank you so much, Terry, for coming on the podcast. You have so much wisdom to share, and I'm so glad that you were willing to share it with us.

Teri M Brown (45:39)
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciated it so much.

Jen (45:43)
Thanks.

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (45:47)
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the podcast. This show is produced by Phoenix Freed LLC, and I'm your producer, Jen Ginty We hope you found today's conversation insightful and inspiring. If you have a story of your own about when a not yet moment became a right now, we encourage you to reach out and share it. You can find more information about being a guest on our show at whennotyetbecomesrightnow.com. Remember, you are not alone on your journey, whether it's a journey of healing,

growth or transformation. Every story matters. Thank you for listening and we'll catch you next time with another inspiring episode.