Author: Leenie Brown

Leenie Brown fell in love with Jane Austen's works when she first read Sense and Sensibility followed immediately by Pride and Prejudice in her early teens. As the second of five daughters and an avid reader, she has always loved to see where her imagination takes her and to play with and write about the characters she meets along the way. In 2013, these two loves collided when she stumbled upon the world of Jane Austen Fan Fiction. A year later, in 2014, she began writing her own Austen-inspired stories and began publishing them in 2015. Leenie lives in Nova Scotia, Canada with her two teenage boys and her very own Mr. Brown (a wonderful mix of all the best of Darcy, Bingley and Edmund with healthy dose of the teasing Mr. Tillney and just a dash of the scolding Mr. Knightley).

Music Monday: Period Drama, Once Upon a December

Welcome to December — the month in Pride and Prejudice where, in volumes I and II, Netherfield sits empty, Mr. Collins returns to Longbourn for a short visit, Jane receives Caroline’s letter about Bingley not returning, and the Gardiners come for Christmas and leave with Jane. What a dreadful month! But then, what a difference a year makes! For in volume III, all is right by December, making it an exceedingly happy month. In fact, the Gardiners are expected at Pemberley for Christmas.

lilian hearts. “• Period Drama | Once Upon a December ♡.” YouTube, YouTube, 7 June 2015, youtu.be/_SLyhgk6fp4.

I’ve been stuck in the month of December for some time now, writing-wise. Two Days before Christmas (TDBC), which I began writing on October 24, takes place in December.  It begins with Darcy’s arrival at home at the end of November and concludes on December 23. The sequel to TDBC, One Winter’s Eve (OWE), begins on December 23 and will conclude in January. However, I am still in December in that story, and I do not see me finishing the first draft of that story for another week and a half or two weeks — and then I will have to edit that book. By the time all is said and done for these two books, it will likely be halfway through January 2018, meaning I will have been in December for almost three months! 🙂  But I have to say, my stay in writing-land December has not been dreadful but, for the most part aside from a few misty-eyed moments, exceedingly delightful!

Starting today, I will be working feverishly on final edits to TDBC because my timeline for accomplishing tasks for that book has adjusted forward by an email I received from Draft2Digital, whom I use to publish on iBooks and Nook, informing me that to ensure books are processed before various companies shut down for the holidays, all books should be uploaded by December 11! Yikes!

Therefore, I hope to have a preorder setup with a final ebook version of the story uploaded by December 11 for Draft2Digital and by December 12 for Kindle and Kobo. Then, I will work on the print book to get it uploaded, proofed, and ready to release before December 21. Here’s hoping all goes according to plan! 🙂 (And I suppose I need to toss some finishing up school units and preparing for Christmas in there as well — I am going to be one busy girl!)

I may have to take a pause in writing OWE to get the editing done that needs doing this week, but I am hopeful that I will be able to continue rolling along in that story. It has been keeping me up at night as possible scenarios for dealing with a couple of “issues,” aka plot points like Wickham, have been attempting to work themselves out in my brain. However, I am enjoying the story. Colonel Fitzwilliam is pretty awesome — as always — and I am liking (yes, I said liking) Caroline. Getting to know the characters as I wish to portray them is one of the fun parts of a challenging couple such as this — it is also the source of the story-induced lack of sleep as the actions and decisions in the story have to be true to the characters who are revealing themselves to me as I write.

Below, is a lengthy portion from what I wrote this week. In this excerpt, Richard has also been attempting to discover Caroline’s character. He thinks he has reached a correct conclusion. Caroline insists he is mistaken. But who is right — the colonel (and Caroline needs to discover some things about herself) or Caroline (and Richard will have to form a new hypothesis)?

AN EXCERPT FROM One Winter’s Eve:  Continue reading Music Monday: Period Drama, Once Upon a December


Music Monday: What Kinda Love, Dallas Smith

What kind of love is this story going to have? What is it going to look like? How is it going to develop and be realized? How is it going to be demonstrated? Those are questions I and my characters often wrestle with I’m writing — such as we were this past week and will continue to do this next week. To be honest, my current work in progress, One Winter’s Eve, is pushing me a little more in this area than some do because this is not an easy couple. They shouldn’t really like each other, but they seem to. I really do wonder at this point in the story, what kind of love this one is going to be (which is what led me to share the song below 🙂 )

DallasSmithVEVO. “Dallas Smith – What Kinda Love.” YouTube, YouTube, 5 Feb. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=csE5oAoDjow.

I’m going to share a little bit of Richard and Caroline’s relationship in the excerpt at the end of this post, but first I have some other writing news to share.

First and most importantly — This book goes “live” tomorrow!

Becoming Entangled can be preordered today and ordered tomorrow HERE.

The release day of any book is rather exciting because finally, the story gets to be enjoyed by others. Hopefully, Anne and Alistair will find many readers to enjoy their fun journey to happily ever after.  I know I loved writing their story and wanted to just stay there with them at the end of the book.

Next in excitement level on the writing list is the fact that Two Days before Christmas is out of my hands and into the hands of my first editor. That book will be out in December — and I have a kind of exciting plan for it, which I can’t tell you about yet.  🙂 Keeping exciting secrets is so hard! 🙂

I think that’s all the news I have, which means, we can now get to that story excerpt I told you I would share.

AN EXCERPT FROM One Winter’s Eve:  Continue reading Music Monday: What Kinda Love, Dallas Smith