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: Enchanted ~ Period Drama Montage

Today, along with writing news and a writing excerpt, I thought I would share this fan video that YouTube was so kind as to suggest that I needed to view. 🙂 I think it is very well done —

SpellboundStudios. “Enchanted ~ Period Drama Montage.” YouTube. YouTube, 31 July 2012. Web. 22 Apr. 2017.

— and I enjoyed the song, so I added this video to my Music Meets Movies playlist. I’m up to 72 videos on that list now. It’s a great place to take a short break between writing projects. And this was a week full of projects.  Let me list a few of them for you.

  • Tuesday was the official release day for Discovering Mr. Darcy on all retailers. It was a good launch with the book ranking fairly high in some of its categories, and it already has 7 reviews the last time I looked.  Thank you to all who purchased and to those who reviewed as well.
  • The print copy of that book finally came and, after a slight tweak, it was approved and is now available for purchase.
  • Because of the way the epilogue flows from Discovering Mr. Darcy to Not An Heiress, I wanted to have Not an Heiress available for people to preorder when they finished reading Discovering Mr. Darcy.  That meant getting a file transferred into the proper format, writing a book description, filling in all the information required on all my retailers, and setting a date.  As it is booked right now, Not an Heiress will release on June 20, 2017.  This is the first time I have placed a book on preorder before it has entered the final stages of editing, so I will admit to being a bit nervous. However, I believe, I have set aside enough time to complete all the editing that needs to be done before the deadline for the final manuscript upload. In fact, I should have first round edits completed by the end of this week.
  • I mainly focused on With the Colonel’s Help during my writing hours this past week, but I did write a few words that are the beginning of what I am planning to make a short story to go with At All Costs, although I have this sneaking suspicion it could end up being a bit longer than a short story. 🙂  Oh, and At All Costs has been sent to my final editor for reading. That story will be available May 18, 2017 (hopefully 😉 ).

So, as you can see, this was a busy week of varied activities, which meant lots of opportunities to watch Music Meets Movies videos as I transitioned from one activity to another. 🙂

Now, to chose a bit of the writing that I did this last week.  While I managed to add around four thousand words to With the Colonel’s Help, I think I will give you a peek at those first 700+ words from the rough draft of the story about Caroline, which has no title as of yet. Be prepared for a surprising Mr. Hurst in this scene.

EXCERPT FROM Caroline’s Tale:  Continue reading Music Monday: Enchanted ~ Period Drama Montage


Music Monday: Let Her Go, Passenger/Break of Reality

Today, along with some writing news and a short story excerpt, I have the same song two times for you.  The first video is an instrumental cover of Passenger’s “Let Her Go” by Break of Reality. This video is on my writing playlist (no lyrics means it can play while I write).

Break of Reality. “Let Her Go – Passenger Cello Cover by Break of Reality.” YouTube. YouTube, 13 May 2014. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.

The second video (below) is a lyrics video that someone created. I thought I would share that one for those who might be curious as to what the words to the song are. It’s not a happy song, but I have not been writing happy stuff this week (see excerpt), so it fits.

Marcohordijk. “Passenger – Let Her Go (Lyrics).” YouTube. YouTube, 15 Dec. 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.

So what have I been doing this week in my writing life?

  • I was worked on getting the print version of Discovering Mr. Darcy ready.  That was not easily done as my computer did not wish to play nice with CreateSpace for a couple of days, and then, I forgot to change the font colour on the spine and didn’t notice until I got the digital proof back. That has been fixed, and I finally have a print proof on its way for approval. They say that I should have it by April 25th.  I am hoping I have it sooner. 😉

 

  • I finished Not An Heiress — the epilogue is done! And it was fun writing a little bit about the Darcy and Fitzwilliam children. 🙂  And I began first round edits on the story in preparation for June publication. Although this story will not be ready to release for a couple of months, I am hoping to have a preorder up for it by Tuesday, so that when readers finish DMD, they can order NAH and be ready to continue the story that the epilogue of DMD hints at.

 

  • I returned to writing With the Colonel’s Help just in time for the story to take a sad, angsty turn. As a result, writing times have been shorter and word counts have been less because I struggle with the emotions of writing things like this in large doses. I internalize the emotions — happy or sad — when writing and reading. I have needed a longer “decompression” time after those sections. The good news is I think the story should be through its darkest part very soon, and then I can get things set right. That should be easier (and faster) to write.

And now for…

A SHORT EXCERPT FROM With The Colonel’s Help:  Continue reading Music Monday: Let Her Go, Passenger/Break of Reality