Of the Dragonfly author ready for book launch

Times Reporter         

 

The long anticipated wait for local author Reesa Bruce’s novel is almost at an end. Bruce, who writes under the pen name Audrey Gene, first began her book ‘Of the Dragonfly’ on Nov. 15, 2009, and on May 4 she will be hosting a book launch party at the Strathmore Golf Club. 

Bruce wrote the book in a mere 30 days, ending on Dec. 15, 2009. 

She had read advice on how to write a book by following the guidelines from the book ‘How to write a novel in 30 days.’ 

“I followed the book to a T. He’ll say don’t read past this chapter, and I did exactly what he said and it worked,” said Bruce. 

“I had no idea what to write and that’s the beauty of it too, he said if you have no idea you what to write, start with something you know. So that’s what I did, I used my old job, I used to work in downtown Calgary for 10 years.”

While the characters are strictly fictional, the inside knowledge Bruce has of a corporate atmosphere helped her develop the storyline. 

“Night after night the story just unfolded. I never knew what I was going to write every day.”

The story follows a young, successful corporate woman Evangeline May Sinclair who is vey unhappy in her life. She doesn’t feel like she fits in and she feels like there must be more out there. Things start to slowly change in her life, and she finds herself on a tropical island, which in turn leads to her being in a dangerous situation, and all of a sudden she is fighting for her life and the life of the man she loves. 

“When I first wrote this story it was meant to be a project only for me. But then my husband and family read it and there was this amazing enthusiasm towards it,” said Bruce. 

She then handed her manuscript to Louis B. Hobson, who read it in one day, and phoned her excited and willing to support her in any way he could. 

“It made me rethink what I was going to do with it. It had gone from a personal to something with potential,” said Bruce. 

That’s when the nerves kicked in, and it took some time for Bruce to get past the fear of criticism and self-doubt to begin pushing through and begin learning the editing process, the publishing process and everything else that comes with being an author. 

She found the more she was learning about writing and the more she learned about being a better writer, the worse her confidence was getting. She eventually had to let it go and tell herself just be a storyteller. 

Since writing her first novel, Bruce has begun two more. One of them is a sequel to ‘Of the Dragonfly,’ something she hadn’t meant to do. 

“I didn’t intend to do a second one, in fact I didn’t want to. It seems like that’s the normal thing to do now is to do a second one or a trilogy, and I thought no I just want this to be its own little thing,” said Bruce. 

But last summer, while camping with her husband Cam, the story for a sequel came to her. 

“It just came to her and she spent the whole time camping, she just poured it out,” said Cam.   

She got about halfway through the first draft and then a few other things happened in her life so she put the new books on hold and then decided to focus on the first book and start getting that out there. 

“I know where I am going with those two, I can’t wait to get on them, I just have had to shelve them for now until this gets underway,” said Bruce.

‘Of the Dragonfly’ is available online at AudreyGene.com. The book launch will be May 4 at the Strathmore Golf Club from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and everyone is welcome to attend.