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: Little Moments, Brad Paisley and More

This Music Monday is full of info and includes two songs because, well, I’ll explain as we get to them. 🙂

BRADPAISLEYVEVO. “Brad Paisley – Little Moments.” YouTube. YouTube, 02 Oct. 2009. Web. 12 Feb. 2017.

First up is Little Moments by Brad Paisley.  I adore this song. It is so cute — and the ending is perfect! And, in my opinion, it is the little moments that show the greatest amount of love in a relationship.  Grand gestures like romantic plans on Valentine’s Day as well as special getaways and gifts are all wonderful. Don’t get me wrong. I love them. However, when you’re struggling to keep it together because everything has gone wrong or the kids have stomped on your last nerve, and your husband folds the laundry or does the dishes or just wraps his arms around you and listens to your mostly coherent babbling — to me, those are the whispers that shout. Those little moments are so very precious.

I do have a story connection for this song, too.  Tomorrow, February 14, is release day for So Very Unexpected. (It may actually be available already. Due to a blizzard warning being issued, I uploaded the files early just in case we run into power outage issues.)   Now, if you read this story when it was posting on Thursdays, I think you will agree with me that Marcus and Lydia will likely have a lot of little moments in their relationship.  Even the manner in which they met in his cottage because she had taken a wrong turn seem to fit quite well with this song.

I will be at Austen Authors tomorrow with an excerpt and some thoughts as well as a chance to win an ebook copy of So Very Unexpected.  Stop by if you get the chance.

So obviously, I spent time getting my post for Austen Authors ready this week. I thought I had it done before but then, changed my mind and rewrote it.  🙂  I also spent a good bit of time rereading So Very Unexpected and making the line edits. Then, I made certain the print cover was ready — the spine width could not be set until the final page number was known.  This also required the writing of a synopsis for the back of the book and the various retail sites.  By the time I got all that done it was Saturday! So, no new words on my current work in progress. 🙁

As I sat down to begin getting blog posts scheduled on Friday, I kept coming back to this thought:  “What will I share on Monday? I really want to share something new on Monday.”  Well, yesterday, I decided to give myself a writing exercise. When I have not written in a week or more, I often find a writing exercise beneficial.  Below is my writing exercise. In honor of both Valentine’s Day and the release of So Very Unexpected which is the third book in the Willow Hall Romance series, I decided to write a love letter — a particular love letter.  In book 2, Darcy leaves Willow Hall and on his way, he stops to deliver a letter to Elizabeth.  One of the readers here on my blog mentioned that they would like to see that letter (I think it was Linda who suggested it), and I wrote that idea down for later.  Well, it’s now later. 🙂  (And song two is after the letter…so keep reading.)  Continue reading Music Monday: Little Moments, Brad Paisley and More


Music Monday: Thunderstruck, 2Cellos

In this week’s Music Monday post, I am sharing a bit about what I did with my writing time this past week as well as a story snippet and a fun video that I think sums up how Elizabeth feels in the excerpt when she figures out exactly where she is.  Enjoy! And have a great Monday!

2Cellos. “2CELLOS – Thunderstruck [OFFICIAL VIDEO].” YouTube. YouTube, 18 Feb. 2014. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.

WRITING NEWS: 

This week has been a low word count week for writing. There were other things that needed doing.  One of the things that I did was create a new cover for

One of the things that I did was create a new cover forSo Very Unexpected So Very Unexpected.   I had one that I was using as I was writing and editing the book, but I wasn’t completely happy with it. I am much better pleased with this new cover.  At the same time, I also created a cover for At All Costs and for the bundled Willow Hall Romance series.  I have also started working on the print cover for So Very Unexpected as well as getting final file formats started. I should have my last edits back this week and NEXT Tuesday, the book should be published in ebook format with print being ready shortly after.

Part of my writing time this week was devoted to the new story I have started and the other part was given to preparing an Austen Author’s post for next Tuesday. The first draft of that post is ready, but it still needs graphics. And I must decide if I am going to do a giveaway.

One reason I did not get as much story written this week is that I have hit a wall of thinking (which means I must be at least halfway through as that is where this wall usually hits). There are details that need to be considered. So while my brain works on those things, I did some reading and a bit of planning.  Between this and the graphic work for the covers, my brain is feeling nearly ready to tackle those decisions.

STORY EXCERPT: Continue reading Music Monday: Thunderstruck, 2Cellos