Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Cover Reveal for My New Wattpad Experiment!

Hi all!

Well here's something that excites me and I hope you'll like it too. Today, I am sharing with you the cover for a new experiment I'm going to be doing on Wattpad... that being, posting a story in segments as I am still revising it!

Basically a digital ARC, if you will, Each Little Soul will be imperfect, (it will be the first thing I post on Wattpad that has not been professionally proofread first, so I am a nervous but excited wreck) and hopefully, it will be beautiful :~)

So here you go. I'll even give you the blurb, too... thanks to Ida Jansson at Amygdala Design for another amazing cover!





Blurb:

Foster Standish has lost all sense of direction.

After the death of his young son, he’s left doubting everything about his life: his teaching career, his future path, and every decision he’s ever made.

Consumed by grief, Foster sets out on a quest to find the person who hand-made the donated teddy bear that became his son’s most prized possession.

When the trail leads him to an unexpected, unsuspecting woman, he soon discovers he’s not the only one life has stolen from, and that healing can be found in the most surprising places.

~*~

Looking forward to beginning this journey with you on Wattpad soon... stay tuned for updates!

xoxo

bru 

P.S. Don't forget to grab your free copy of Wishing Cross Station! The eBook is free on Amazon WORLDWIDE until the end of this Friday, 1/29! Don't miss it!

Monday, January 25, 2016

Wishing Cross Station eBook FREE This Week on Amazon!

Hi everybody!

Just a quick note to let you all know that the eBook of my bittersweet time travel romance, Wishing Cross Station, is FREE on Amazon sites worldwide from today, 1/25 through Friday, 1/29. So have a box of tissues handy and nab your copy now! Here's a link for the US Site...

All aboard!



I'll be back soon to post about a new story experiment I'll be bringing to Wattpad, what I've been reading, (non-fiction) and more! 

xoxo

~bru

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Friday, January 15, 2016

New Interview Today at Paperbacks And Wine

Hi all, happy Friday!

While I'm here, I'll share a recent painting: "Let the Storm Rage On"


Please stop by Paperbacks And Wine today, where I am talking about writing Fantasy/Romance, stuff, and/or things with blogger/reviewer/writer/All Around Amazing Person Melissa Flickinger!

Here's the link: Paperbacks And Wine

Thank you so much to Melissa for hosting me today.

Hope to see you there!

xoxo

bru


Wednesday, January 13, 2016

#WordlessWednesday

"Lost in the Crowd" FG 2016 Acrylic on canvas 8X10

Sunday, January 10, 2016

That Time I Set Myself on Fire...

Hi all, Happy Sunday!

Today I am honored to be guest posting over at author EC Moore's blog. I wrote a piece called That Time I Set Myself on Fire... and it's about what it's really like to lose your eyesight.

You can see how thick my Aphakia glasses are, but I am grateful for them. Heavy, cumbersome and disfiguring though they are, without them I will always be legally blind. Read more about how I got some of my vision back after going blind by visiting the link below!

Please do stop by and say hello! And thank you so much to EC Moore for hosting me!

Here's the link, see you there!

xoxo 

bru 

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

My First #WordlessWednesday Post

"Crossroads" by February Grace 2016

Monday, January 4, 2016

Not Waiting “Until”



“Until” is a very slippery, almost impossible place to reach.

It IS an impossible place in which to live.

If you wait until everything is perfect to do the thing you’ve been wanting to do, then nothing will ever get done, because (as many wiser people have said before me) the time is never perfect to do anything.

So I’ve decided I’m not going to wait until I feel the timing is just right to try to do things I would like to do any more.

Case in point: cutting my hair.

Realllllly short. Like I wore it a long time ago.

Some would say that I should wait until I lose weight (which is probably not going to happen; my bad health prevents working out and the Bipolar meds are the reason for the extra weight, not my diet) to wear a really cute short, cropped haircut.

But let’s face facts. My glasses aren’t going to get any thinner, my face isn’t going to go back to being oval (it is rounder than it’s ever been) and I’m going to look how I look.

So why should I also have hair that I dislike? To try to hide behind it? That’s funny, because it would kind of be like an elephant trying to hide behind a palm tree. Everyone can still see me, no matter how invisible I feel at times. I look how I look, it is what it is.

I was young and cute once though I didn’t realize it at the time (and THANK YOU to Carrie Fisher for her brave stand and tweets about aging this week: if you haven’t heard about it, look it up. She said what we all needed to hear/read. But I digress.) I may not be either now, but I’m still me.

Why should I wait to wear the cute top and hat or the high tops I love or the new dress I bought for an occasion I didn’t end up going to or… whatever.

I’m glad I decided not to wait on the hair. Now, after a session with an expert, gifted stylist, I feel free.




I’m taking this a step further, as well. I listened to a bunch of TED talks last night so maybe I’m especially inspired (that and picking up a Real Simple magazine today that declares on the cover “THIS YEAR IS FOR YOU” that I can’t wait to start reading.) Maybe I’m just a little more revved up today than usual but I am thinking that I am going to apply this “not waiting UNTIL” thing to other parts of my life, especially creatively.

I’m not going to wait until I feel like I can write another novel to write anything at all. I’m going to write what comes to me, as it comes to me. Lots of flash and poetry in my future.

I’m not going to wait to paint until I have an idea what the painting is going to become. I’m going to get out the colors, the brushes, and the canvas, and I am going to play.

I’m not going to wait until I know where my weird little crocheted mini-blankets will go to keep making them. I worry a little that no one will want them (I make them in a simple square pattern of necessity or I can’t crochet much at all, and it’s one that even the animal shelters are reluctant to take because there are spaces between the stitches) but I’m going to go on with them anyway. I like this size because it’s a good one for toddlers to carry around for comfort (it’s not meant to be a blanket for warmth, really) and once upon a life gone by, they were well received by some pretty cool charities. So I’m hoping maybe they can be, again.



I’m not going to wait until I can finish a whole book to start reading a new one. I’m not going to force myself to finish a new one before I can go back to an old one for comfort if my mood calls for it.

I’m not going to wait until there’s an occasion to drink my favorite tea.

TODAY is an occasion.

Being alive is an occasion.

Being aware, definitely an occasion.

We have no promise of a future, tomorrow is guaranteed to no one. So why wait UNTIL when UNTIL may be somewhere you never get to—or that you waste a lot of valuable time you could have enjoyed DOING THINGS on the way as you make your way there? If you get there, great! If not, what might you have missed along the way if you hadn’t just gotten on with things in the meantime?

If my father’s recent passing has done anything for me, (it’s done a lot TO me, but now I’m talking about FOR me) it has once again reinforced something that I hadn’t really wanted to think about for a long while; the permanence of death. Whatever you may or may not believe about an afterlife no one can deny that our days on this earth are limited (no religious debates, those are off-limits here in my safe-space. Please and thank you) so we need to make the most of them.

Especially for someone who grapples often with trying to see the value of their own life through the skewed lens of Bipolar Disorder, this is something significant. It’s not just words. It’s action.

For me, renewing my commitment to making the most of today and not waiting UNTIL began with shedding several inches of hair and what feels like a huge weight from my shoulders.

What are you waiting UNTIL to do?

Please, don’t wait. Start today. Right now. Even if all you do it grab the nearest scrap of paper and write down the thing you’ve been waiting to do, do that. Think about something you’ve been putting off; as small as trying a new shade of lipstick or as huge as undertaking a creative project or moving or… you fill in the blank.

Then ask yourself if there isn’t some small way that you can move forward toward that goal today, right now. This hour, this minute, this second. Can you start doing research? Can you order a book on the subject? Can you sign up for a class? Can you ask someone for guidance?

What would you do if you weren’t waiting UNTIL?

If you think about it, you might be surprised just how much you’re putting off because you don’t think you’re perfect enough yet to go after it. Now I’ve got to tell you something you might not want to hear; none of us will ever be perfect, no matter how hard we try, because we are human. Humans come in a wide array of beautifully flawed variations.

Celebrate the differences, don’t be paralyzed by the imperfections. They’re what make us real.

And if I’ve learned anything as I approach my 45th birthday later this year, it is that I want to become as real as I can be.

Don’t wait UNTIL.

Do it today.

Next thing I’m not going to wait to do is have that cup of tea I mentioned earlier.

I wish we could share a pot of it together.

xoxo

bru