Welcome to A Brighter Shade of Beige

Hello! I’m D.R. Levi, author of A Brighter Shade of Beige. This is a blog I started back in 2015 but pulled it into a hiatus around 2021. Now with a new focus, it’s relaunching on the Substack medium as a newsletter.

So, this publication is for ordinary women (like me) who are pushing themselves to be something just a little bit more, something — well, a little less beige. What does that mean, you ask? I meet women all the time who, after getting to know them, will hear them state, “I always wanted to do that.” I hear myself saying it too. Well, why aren’t we doing it, whatever it is we always wanted to do? As women mature, I feel like we start to become deflated at our own doing by the words we state, (“I’m too old, too busy, etc.”) and the self-limiting beliefs we instill in ourselves.

To be honest, I’m also relaunching this for myself. I was an avid reader as a child, and knew I wanted to be an author. At the age of 20, I knew what the story of my first book would be, but I took no action to write it. I remember being very upset and crying at a difficult point in my life, telling someone who was consoling me about the book I would write … someday. Now, as a middle-aged woman, I’ve been writing that book for a few years amid a busy career and mothering a school-age child.

Join me on this (mildly terrifying) journey. Every couple of weeks, you’ll hear about my quest to launch my passion project (writing my first novel), get excerpts of the book prior to its launch, and learn stories of other women who are pushing themselves to pursue their own passion projects or live more authentic and meaningful, soulful lives. Hopefully you’ll also gain a bit of inspiration to pursue the dreams (big and small) you hold in your own heart, making your own life a brighter shade of beige.