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: Emma 2009 – If You’re Not the One

Last year, I participated in Austen Authors’ read along of Emma. It was my second reading of the novel. It’s a very good story — but a long one, and, to be honest, one that I struggled with at times just because it seemed to not move along fast enough for me, and there were some characters (including Emma) who aggravated me. 🙂 However, I did find this second reading gave me a better appreciation for some of them.

Elementoffun. “Emma 2009 – If You’re Not the One.” YouTube. YouTube, 04 Jan. 2010. Web. 27 May 2017.

I think my favourite character was Miss Bates. She often shared some information in her long meanderings that hinted at what was really happening, and if other characters had paid closer to attention to her rather than tuning out her babblings, they might have discovered things before they did. But, Miss Bates was not a character designed to be listened to.  I find that so clever of Miss Austen to use such a character in this fashion.

Today, I have chosen to share one of the three aimagined scenes that I wrote during the read along. There is a place where Miss Bates leaves her house to meet up with Emma and is engaged in talking outside of her home for some time — since you know Miss Bates is not a lady of few words — and Frank and Jane are left alone with a slumbering Mrs. Bates.  Rebecca Jamison who was the discussion leader that week asked what we thought happened in that little interlude in chapter 28 when the two true lovers were left alone.  Below you will find my answer — in vignette format.

The reason I have chosen to share this particular piece of writing instead of something I wrote this week is because, well, my brain seems to be in a little slump, and it was occupied for most of the week with the publication of both Better Than She Deserved and At All Costs.

I did sit down with a story I wrote some time ago and have always wanted to extend into a novelette or novella, but as I started rewriting it, I was finding that the story was not capturing my imagination. I believe my writing suffers when I am not fully engaged in the story, so I decided to tuck that story away for now. I also think the story needs an expanded concept and better conflict/plot development before I go back to it.  This means, however, that I am back to needing to decide on a writing project.  So far, I haven’t landed on anything, and I am attempting to just relax and refill the creative well with things like music videos such as the one above, reading, movies, and fun activities.

So, while my brain rests and recovers from the workout I have given it of late, enjoy this little scene of what might have been in Emma.

An Interlude Between Acts: Continue reading Music Monday: Emma 2009 – If You’re Not the One


Music Monday: Pachelbel in the Garden

Happy Victoria Day! Today, the plan is that I will be spending some time in the garden with my husband getting some things cleaned up and planted.  I am not a great gardener, but I appreciate a good garden — and writing scenes that happen in gardens (see the excerpt below).  I also appreciate lovely, relaxing, imagination-stimulating music.  The video below is the soundtrack that has been playing in the background as I wrote this week.

Crystalkaleidoscope. “Pachelbel in the Garden (relaxing Music, Sounds of Nature).”YouTube. YouTube, 11 Apr. 2014. Web. 20 May 2017.

Pachelbel’s Canon in D is a favourite of mine, so I was delighted to stumble across this music on YouTube this week.  It makes great background music, so click play and read on to see what I managed to accomplish this week.

It was another good productive week for me.  I finished edits on Better Than She Deserved.  I got the print copy of At All Costs finished, proofed, and approved — it is all ready for release day this THURSDAY! [You can get your copy at this link.] 🙂

And then, I managed to almost finish writing the first draft of the story I started last week! It is amazing how just a couple thousand words a day adds up! It appears that it is going to be a short novella, but I never expected it would be very long for a couple of reasons. First, I like LOVE novellas, and I tend to write what I like. Second, it is the first story of this type that I have written, so short seemed a good place to begin my learning journey.  (Of course, I might find I like writing these just as short novellas — there is a very good chance that might happen.)

Now, having reached nearly the end of that story, I am faced with the need to design a cover and give it a title.  I had given it a name that went well with the idea I had in mind as I began typing words into my document. However, the characters as I got to know them lead me down a different path. So, that title no longer fits the idea of the book. I think I am going to call it His Beautiful Bea because the main element that I took from Mansfield Park when planning this story was to model my heroine after the quiet, reserved Fanny Price. I have tried out a couple of other ideas and my mind keeps coming back to this one.

So, here is part of a garden scene from His Beautiful Bea that I wrote this week: Continue reading Music Monday: Pachelbel in the Garden