Pride and Prejudice Variation – Page 29

Music Meets Movies Monday: Elinor&Edward, It’s You

Today, we have a little twist to the Music Monday video selection. This is the most recent addition to my Music Meets Movies playlist on YouTube. I find this playlist to be a wonderful place to take a few minutes break before I begin writing or between writing activities such as switching from editing to writing.

Catchingraindrops24. “Elinor & Edward | It’s You.” YouTube. YouTube, 04 Oct. 2014. Web. 01 Apr. 2017.

I find listening to song lyrics is a great source of creative inspiration — especially when they are paired with lovely images from a favourite Jane Austen adaptation. However, I can’t actually listen to music with words when I write because it is too distracting, so I leave them for those times when I’m not writing.

For the past three weeks, I have been trying out a new routine for my writing work time — breaking it into sections dedicated to various things that need doing. Two of those sections are editing and writing new things. When I have to transition from editing to writing, I need to have something to calm the critical section of my brain and help me relax into the creative part of my brain. Music works very well for this.

During my editing time slots this week, I was able to complete the first round of edits on At All Costs, and in one writing section, I wrote its epilogue. That story has now been sent off to my first reader, and I am waiting to get her comments back before I will touch it again. I will be putting Discovering Mr. Darcy in the editing time slot this next week as I got that manuscript back from my second reader. Hopefully, I will have news about a preorder of that book by next Monday.

My writing time this week focused on Not An Heiress, the sequel to Discovering Mr. Darcy, and I managed to add about 8,000 words to it. I think I am on the downward side of the story hill and should have the story wrapped up in another week or a bit more. And then it can slip into that editing slot. 🙂

Below is one day’s worth of words from my writing times this week, and, I think, the song above matches up pretty well with what has been happening in this section of the book. (I also happen to envision Mary as looking a lot like Elinor in this version of Sense and Sensibility.)

A Word of Warning: I am at least halfway through this story, so, as always when we get to the second part of a story, this excerpt will contain spoilers. 🙂

EXCERPT FROM Not An Heiress:
Continue reading Music Meets Movies Monday: Elinor&Edward, It’s You

Music Monday: The Northern Mist, Dan Gibson

Last Saturday, a friend and I visited a local thrift store. They were having a twenty percent off everything sale — how can you resist that! As is my normal habit on entering a thrift store, I began my perusal of items with the books, DVDs, music CDs, and paintings. In other words, all the imagination inspiring treasures.

“Dan Gibson The Northern Mist.” YouTube. Ed. RELAX NATURE MUSIC -Emmaqui3♥. YouTube, 21 Aug. 2015. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

I found two CDs of instrumental music. They have both found their way onto my mp3 player on my desk, and I have been listening to birds while writing every day this week. The song in the video above is track two on Songbirds at Sunrise. In my opinion, which is the one that matters when the music is for my writing time 😉 , I think these songs are perfect for imagining a scene in a garden or meadow, and part of what I wrote did take place in a garden. However, only a small part. So, apparently, the music is equally as effective when plotting compromising scenes in libraries. Sadly, I am only going to share the garden portion today.

The story I was focusing on writing this week is called Not an Heiress and is a sequel to the story Discovering Mr. Darcy — this story got its epilogue and has been sent off to my last editor. It should be published sometime around the middle to latter part of April.

Other than writing just over 7,000 words on this new story, I also added close to 1,000 to With the Colonel’s Help and edited six chapters of At All Cost, which should be starting the editorial rounds by the beginning of April. Needless to say, it was a busy and tiring week, but it was also extremely enjoyable. I am quite excited about all four of the projects that demanded my attention this week. So excited, that I have had trouble sleeping. The good colonel has been assisting me with working out plot ideas when I should be sleeping. I have asked him to wait until a more appropriate time of day, but it seems an impatient colonel outranks a mere authoress. 🙂

Now, shall we get on to the longish excerpt from Not an Heiress? This sequel will focus on Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mary Bennet and will feature a compromise. As you should all know by now if you have read my secondary character stories, don’t expect a completely typical Mary. This Mary reads sermons and is rather serious, but she has a particular reason, at least when Richard is around, for reading this material. (Also, Lady Catherine in this story and in Discovering Mr. Darcy is also not typical — demanding and all, but not typical. This is definitely Austen with a twist.)

EXCERPT FROM Not an Heiress:
Continue reading Music Monday: The Northern Mist, Dan Gibson

Music Monday: My Heart’s in the Highlands, The Barra McNeils

Research and writing go hand in hand. You read something that sparks an idea, and a story is born. Or, you begin to write something and find you need to go in search of some details. In the process, you can get lost for hours on interesting tangents, or you can stumble across exactly what you need in a relatively short amount of time. Below is a song I stumbled across when I found I needed some details for my story on Friday evening.

Barramacneils. “My Heart’s in the Highlands.” YouTube. YouTube, 15 Mar. 2007. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.

I was working on With the Colonel’s Help. In it, Darcy has loaned Elizabeth a book of poems written by William Wordsworth. As my characters were settling in to ride to London, I decided it might be nice to have Darcy read to Elizabeth. But what was he going to read?

Thankfully, there are search engines to help with such issues. I typed in my search phrase, pressed enter and ta-da! lots and lots of poems by Wordsworth. So, I picked “The Solitary Reaper”, read it, and liked it well enough to allow it to be what Darcy would read to Elizabeth.

But then Darcy had to ask what song the young lady in the poem might have been singing.

Oy! These characters! 🙂

So, it was off to do another search.

A random click of a mouse on a song title, “My Heart’s in the Highlands”, in a list of traditional Scottish songs brought me this bit of information:

Written by Burns in 1789 to a traditional Gaelic tune. Burns was a Lowland Scot from Ayrshire, but he toured in the Highlands for a month in 1787.

Ah, Robert Burns! Perfect.

Colonel Fitzwilliam, however, wished to sing the song. Which brought me to another question: what does the song sound like when sung?

That required a trip to YouTube.

In the list of results, I noticed this one by The Barra McNeils. I knew that name and was familiar with their Celtic style of music. (They’re from Cape Breton.) So, I clicked play.

As you will see in the excerpt I have included below, the song goes well with the Wordsworth poem, and I have Colonel Fitzwilliam beginning to sing before asking Elizabeth to continue — so while you listen to the recording above, imagine the colonel starting the song with the chorus, and then Elizabeth picking it up on the verse and being joined by the others on the choruses.

I am including the words to the Robert Burns poem below so you can see the words that are being sung, and below that you will find the excerpt from this week’s writing session.

My Heart’s In The Highlands

Chorus:
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe –
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go!

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of worth!
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Chorus

Farewell to the mountains, high-cover’d with snow,
Farewell to the straths and green vallies below.
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods!

Chorus

EXCERPT FROM With The Colonel’s Help: Continue reading Music Monday: My Heart’s in the Highlands, The Barra McNeils

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 for 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