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: Saint-Saëns ~ The Swan

I’m sharing two stumbled upon videos today — one is a music video and the other is a talk about music. I know you may not have time for both videos, so go ahead and listen to the music video as you read my writing news and the story excerpt. Then, when you have time (about 21 minutes of time) come back and listen to the second video. The speaker has some very good points that he presents in an entertaining fashion.

Brooklyn Duo. “Saint-Saëns: The Swan (Cello and Piano) – Brooklyn Duo.” YouTube, YouTube, 29 May 2015.
TEDtalksDirector. “The Transformative Power of Classical Music | Benjamin Zander.”YouTube, YouTube, 27 June 2008.

I feel like I have a lot of “disjointed” material to cover today, so I think I will use sections and headers instead of attempting to make to flow together cohesively. Up first…

Music

Let me tell you how I came upon the first video since that is one that has been added to my Music to Write By Playlist.  I went out with a friend this week. We did some shopping and had lunch.  One of the places we stopped at was a thrift store. I always peruse the CD rack when I go into thrift shops. I have found lots of good music that way.  This time was no exception. I came out with five CDs — four for when I am writing and one for my husband — and they only cost me $2.50 total! (I know, that’s a great bargain!)

One of those CDs is called “Provence: A Romantic Journey” which is comprised of fifteen French classical pieces of music.  The first song on that CD is the one in today’s music video.

(By the way for those who do listen to the second video, which was a YouTube suggestion to me this week, track 5 on my CD is the piano piece he plays in the video.)

Next…

Writing News

I had a good writing week this last week. I did not get as many words written as I wanted to. However, I did get a good number of words added to Dash of Darcy #4 (which has a title now…see below), and I managed to get half way through final edits for Henry: To Prove Himself Worthy.  I call that a good productive week!

August is scheduled to be a busy month of Tuesdays for me.  It started with the release of His Beautiful Bea and an Austen Authors post last Tuesday and will continue with a couple of book sales, a Facebook Austen in August Garden Party (August 15th from 3 PM ET to 5 PM ET), and a book release on August 22nd before finishing up with another Austen Authors post on August 29th.

The first book sale will be this Tuesday. It will be a TWO-DAY Kindle sale (or just about a two-day sale as it does take a bit of time before and after to get prices adjusted). Watch for details about this sale on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as well as in your inbox if you are on my mailing list.

And now…

A STORY EXCERPT FROM Unravelling Mr. Darcy:   Continue reading Music Monday: Saint-Saëns ~ The Swan


Music Monday: Turn Around, Look at Me, The Vogues

Today’s musical selection is a song that a reader suggested would go very well with His Beautiful Bea.  Of course, as soon as she mentioned it in a comment on darcyandlizzy.com, I had to go on a YouTube search for it.  I found several versions of the song.  And you know what?  Carmalee was so right! This song is perfect for Graeme, absolutely perfect!  After listening to several of the versions, I settled on this video because I liked both the sound quality and the pictures. 🙂

MsDarlin45. “The Vogues – Turn Around Look at Me.” YouTube. YouTube, 26 Aug. 2012. Web. 29 July 2017.

His Beautiful Bea will be “LIVE” on all my sales channels tomorrow, August 1, 2017.

Also happening tomorrow:

It is my day at austenauthors.net, so there will be an excerpt — from the card playing scene for those who have been fortunate enough to read the book — and a giveaway as well as an explanation of what the Touches of Austen books are.

If you’ve been following my blog or have subscribed to my newsletter, you are very familiar with what a Touches of Austen book is. However; not everyone is. So, I will be explaining my take on Austenesque as it pertains to this collection of stories.

Hopefully, there will be those readers who will be daring enough to try something new from me and come to love Graeme and Bea as much as I do.  🙂

Getting everything ready for the print version of my release and making certain all the preorder things were in place took a good bit of time this week, but I still managed to learn some new stuff (Photoshop related), and I didn’t have to miss my writing time to do it!

I am about 10K shy of having the first draft of Dash of Darcy #4 done. (No, still no title — I need to see if the idea behind the working title still holds true when I reach the end before I commit to it.)

Dash of Darcy #4 is shaping up to be a fun tale with some commotion and upsets but nothing “dire” or “grave” or “life threateningly dramatic.” However, though these disturbances are more amusing than angst-inducing, they still do their work to draw out a different side of Darcy and to show him to Elizabeth as a man she can and does love.

(Side note: The story starts at the conclusion of that horrid proposal and refusal, so I think, ODC started out at the worst point in their story. And to me, when I consider the purpose of the story, there seems to be no need to delve deeper into drama. I believe the results can be achieved through lighter events.)

Below is a scene from this week’s writing that I think shows a bit of how Darcy is changing. Continue reading Music Monday: Turn Around, Look at Me, The Vogues


Wordless Wednesday: The Colonel’s Boots and Coat

Uniform Coats, Sword, and Boots, Uniacke Estate Museum, Mount Uniacke, NS; picture taken by Leenie Brown

Another bonus “picture” made from the picture above and with a quote from tomorrow’s story installment

~*~*~

Leenie B Books

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Music Monday: SHINE, The Washboard Union

This is not the song I had thought I would be sharing today.  However, when it popped up in my YouTube notifications, I changed my original plans because I have heard this on the radio lately, and I have been eagerly awaiting the video so that I could share it. I love how upbeat both the tune and the words are. It’s a great pick me up song for any time of the day, but I do think Monday mornings are probably more in need of picking up than most (except maybe Wednesday afternoons as your energy flags in that midweek slump — or is that just me?)

TheWashboardUnion. “The Washboard Union – Shine – Official Lyric Video.” YouTube. YouTube, 21 July 2017. Web. 22 July 2017.

So, while you’re tapping your toes to this happy song, let me tell you briefly what I have been up to this past week in my writing life.

During my editing block:

First, I finished first round edits on Henry’s story and sent it to my first reader, who messaged me that she enjoyed it and has some notes for me, which we will discuss probably this evening.

Then, I pulled up the copy of His Beautiful Bea with all its line edits and began a final read through of that before working on the formatting.  It looks like everything but the print edition should be ready for release day, August 1, 2017. (Hopefully, by the time this post goes live, both the e-book and print files will be uploaded and just awaiting review and proofing for appearance.)

I also sent out a sneak peek at chapters one and two of His Beautiful Bea to my mailing list, and I set up a Touches of Austen Readers Group on Facebook where readers can discuss elements of Austen they find in the book as they read.

Note: If you would like to read my explanation of what the Touches of Austen Collection of books is and the first chapter of His Beautiful Bea, you can do that at this link: His Beautiful Bea Preview

I’m rather excited about taking this step into writing Austenesque stories.  I just hope I survive the Mrs. Bennet-like fit of nerves that accompanies doing something new!

And then in my writing block:

I’m still working on what will be my next Dash of Darcy novella. I think I might have finished the cutting and splicing of the previous stories into the new story phase at least for now, and depending on how long this story ends up being in the end, I am at the “one-third to one-half done” mark. 🙂

The excerpt below is an entirely new part that I added to the story this week. (No, the story does not yet have an official title. 🙂 )

EXCERPT from Dash of Darcy #4:  Continue reading Music Monday: SHINE, The Washboard Union