Every Bright And Broken Thing Release + Exclusive Interview

Hey, readers! Welcome back to my blog. *attempts to dodge flying tomatoes* Now, I know, I know, I know I've been gone for a while- okay fine a long while- but those exams that I just had were tragic to say the least. I think I'm still emotionally and psychologically recovering from the entire ordeal to be honest. My friends and family know that for sure. But, nevertheless, the bags under my eyes and my completely out of whack sleep schedule cannot keep me from telling you guys today's amazing news.

Every Bright and Broken Thing Cover Reveal + Release

The Synopsis

Haunted by the last question their mother ever asked them, the Greyson brothers struggle to cope with their grief and adjust to life after tragedy.

Semi-popular sixteen-year-old Liam spends his nights performing as the lead singer of his high school indie pop/rock band, Liam and the Landmarks. But something happened to Liam four years ago at his friend's house - a secret Liam will take to his grave. But in small towns like Summit, Colorado, secrets always seem to find their way out.

Twenty-four-year-old Ezra thought that he could cure his grief when he left Summit behind for a prestigious art school in Chicago, but things only got worse. Now a college dropout working at a gas station mini mart, he turns to alcohol, prescription painkillers, and meaningless one-night stands. But Ezra can't run forever - life always catches up with you.

With abrasively honest dual-perspective narratives, Every Bright and Broken Thing illustrates the unbreakable bond between brothers and the power in coming home.

My fellow writer, Brian McBride, author of Love and The Sea and Everything in Between, is releasing his sophomore novel, Every Bright and Broken Thing on June 11th! Yesterday, he revealed his cover and oh my god. I've posted it above so you can all feast your eyes. The thing is beautiful.

I've had the amazing privilege to be a part of Brian's Street Team to help spread the word and get you all excited about his upcoming release and it's been so much fun so far. Of course, Brian is no stranger here considering I've brought him up a number of times, most recently being my March TBR post, so we should all be familiar with him. But just in case you're not, Brian begun his writing journey on Wattpad where he won a Watty and got major buzz. Since then, he's been on a journey of self-publishing and he's probably one of the hardest working writers I know. He's so kind, humble, talented and self-less. His instagram is pretty cool too.

So now that you're all caught up head over to your Goodreads, add him to your lists and get settled bec they’ll make for some great summer reads. Now, let's get into the interview, shall we?

Exclusive Interview

Hey, Brian! Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to bring you on here to talk about your upcoming novel, Every Bright and Broken Thing. Now, I know you’re as excited as we are so let’s get started!

1. What first got you into writing as a career?

For me, I think my love and passion for writing came as a natural response to my love and passion for reading. As a child, I learned to read at a really young age. I was reading picture books at three and chapter books within a couple years. I remember begging my parents to stay up a little later so that I could read just one more chapter. I devoured stories of all kinds – mysteries, adventures, fantasy, thrillers, sci-fi. You name it, I read it. My brother, cousin, and me (we grew up together) also played outside a lot, creating our own narratives. So, storytelling was always a part of my life – I just loved using my imagination to create spectacular worlds.

I was about ten or eleven when I really started writing. My first stories were twenty-ish-page mystery books about a kid and his horse solving crimes. It wasn’t until I was 13 that I really set out to write a novel. It was a Middle-Grade Fantasy novel that was essentially a parody of Narnia. I’m still proud of it, though! It was a fun little book world and one day I hope to revisit it.

At eighteen, though, I wrote my first serious novel. Love and the Sea and Everything in Between is a YA Contemporary that deals with depression, suicide, and first love; I wrote it for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) 2015 as a way to process a difficult season I went through. In 2016, I discovered Wattpad and decided to take the leap. For a long time, I was buried beneath the never-ending stream of One Direction fan-fiction, but later that year I won the 2016 Wattys. Almost overnight, the responses to my work multiplied until I hit the multi-thousands. That was the first time that I realized I had a story to tell and that there were people willing to listen.

2. Do you find it challenging or overwhelming being a male in a female-dominated industry?

I think there are some challenges that come with that. The biggest thing I’ve faced as an up-and-coming male author is the struggle to break free of expectations and stereotypes and develop my own style and voice. I think that readers and those in the publishing industry expect very little from male writers. People sub-consciously think male writers belong in genres that are all about blood and war and sex. As a man who writes emotional, character-driven YA Contemporaries, I think people underestimate my ability to tell a meaningful story.

3. What was the transition like from Wattpad to self-publishing? What made you make that big change and how'd you make it work for you?

In all honesty, the transition felt very natural. For a couple years as I was editing Love and the Sea off and on, my platform on Wattpad kept growing, I received dozens of messages weekly from readers who were inspired by my story to really learn to live. Thousands and thousands of comments came in and, even though the story wasn’t what it needed to be yet – there was a lot of editing to be done – I knew this was a story that I could publish and potentially see a lot of success. I did try to pursue a literary agent for a few months and received some great feedback that actually inspired significant revisions to the story, but after a while, I kind of gave up and put it all aside for a long time. When I came back to it, I realized it was time to move forward. At the time, I didn’t know how much I was being held back by the fact that Love and the Sea was still “in-process.” Before I could move onto one of my dozens of story ideas, I needed to let it go. I chose self-publishing, for a variety of reasons. I’m a very hands-on person who really wanted to be as deeply involved in the process as possible. I also knew that, if I were successful, I could earn more royalties as a self-published author. The biggest reason that I chose self-publishing, though, is because in a lot of ways I feel like the stories I write don’t fit into the ideals of mainstream fiction. I confront some heavy and tough stuff and I do include faith to some degree in what I write, which is something that the mainstream market just isn’t looking for – despite the great reception I received on Wattpad.

4.  First, you published your debut, Love and the Sea and Everything in Between, and now, Every Bright and Broken Thing and you're even working on your third novel, Sons of Slaughter. How do you keep up that schedule and what motivates you to keep writing?

It’s been a whirlwind this last year! After a long, long hiatus from Love and the Sea, I decided in September of 2018 to dive into it and just finish it. When I finally published it in the beginning of November, I felt like I had been set free to finally move on. So, I wrote Every Bright for NaNoWriMo 2018. It’s a story that had been on my heart and mind for about two years, so I was so happy to finally get it out there. By this time, I already knew that I wanted being an author to be a viable and sustainable career for myself. It was a challenge editing Every Bright while simultaneously drafting Sons and even planning for my fourth novel, Pack Animals. The biggest motivation for me has been being a part of the ever-growing community I’ve found on Instagram. Seeing my friends succeed and grow constantly inspires and challenges me! As for my writing schedule, I don’t have anything too strict – I work a 9-5 job, so I write as much and as often as possible. Sometimes, I send emails to myself from work. (Shhhh.) But I have become a lot more organized in planning things out and what’s really helped me not get so lost when I’m writing a first draft, is doing some plotting before-hand and having at least a rough outline to follow. Also, forcing myself to JUST DO IT.

5. What were your inspirations for writing Every Bright and Broken Thing and how do you think it will differ from your debut?

Every Bright was inspired by my own relationship with my family and my own experiences with trauma. For Liam, he was grieving not only the loss of his mother, but also the loss of his big brother and hero. There have been many friends in my life that I looked up to, who chose to walk away from our relationship. I wanted to write a story about the grief that can come when rifts are formed in platonic or familial relationships. For Ezra, he was grieving the loss of his mother too, but his spirit was also broken by a life that didn’t turn out how he intended no matter how hard he fought. This, too, is based off my own experiences these last 6 years where life really just kept taking detour after detour. For a long time, I was lost. I sought healing in all the wrong places as a way to cope with the fact that I wasn’t who I was supposed to be, that my life had gone in a direction it wasn’t supposed to. Every Bright is going to be far more intense than Love and the Sea. It has a greater range of issues that it deals with – from grief to trauma to poverty to broken family relationships and more. It’s a wild ride. Another way it differs is that, being my sophomore novel, my voice as a writer is much more developed and refined.

6. Alright, describe Every Bright and Broken Thing in a three-word alliteration.

Finding family and future.

7. Okay so, time for the real questions. If your main characters were to be sorted into a Hogwarts House, which houses would the Sorting Hat put them in?

Haha! Liam would be Hufflepuff and Ezra would be Gryffindor. I’ll go ahead and throw my side characters in as well. Theo would be Slytherin, Elaine would be Gryffindor, Lincoln would be Hufflepuff, Stacy would be Ravenclaw, Jace would be Slytherin, and Will would be Ravenclaw.

8. Who are your biggest writing inspirations?

The famous people? John Green, Stephen Chbosky, S.E. Hinton, J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, C.G. Drews, Pierce Brown, Nic Sheff, and Neal Shusterman. But in everyday life, my biggest inspirations are my family and friends, the community of authors I’ve connected with on Instagram, and my small-but-growing fan base!

9. What is your advice for other writers whether on Wattpad or otherwise?

First and foremost, write for you. When you’re just starting out as a writer it’s important to learn to develop your voice outside of the expectations of others. People can always distinguish between an honest story and a dishonest one, between a story that’s been manufactured to fit a certain mold and one that’s been cultivated to break the mold.

10. Lastly, when people read your sophomore novel, Every Bright and Broken Thing, what do you want them to take away from it?

The number one thing: when bad things happen, you have a choice to either run from it, a refugee from your own pain, or lean into it and pioneer the way to healing. You are not a refugee; you are a pioneer.

Conclusion

And there we have it! The man, the legend, the one and only, Brian McBride! Readers, be sure to follow him on Instagram and subscribe to his blog to keep up to date with all his works!

Also, I want to hear what you guys think? Will you be adding Brian to your summer reading lists or have you already? Let me know in the comments below and hit that like button if you think I should interview more writers just like me who are making huge waves!

Lastly, don't forget to follow me on Wattpad to read all my works and Twitter and Instagram where I occasionally rant, share music and discuss the pains of being a creator. Oh, also, I share sneak peeks of my novel and new blog posts at times too, if you're interested in that. That's it Have a great weekend, readers!