A Dash of Darcy – Page 3

Music Monday: Christmas Medley- London Symphony Orchestra

Christmas in July continues today with a ~~Mary~~ Merry Christmas Medley and another book giveaway. Can you guess which book? Did I give you a good enough hint?

Published to YouTube by pok12341 on December 26, 2011

There are only two books remaining on our list: A Very Mary Christmas and Two Days Before Christmas. The giveaway link is located, as always, after my writing news and just before today’s story excerpt.

Writing News:

I don’t have a lot of news for you this week. I’m still working on writing both Delighting Mrs. Bennet and Charles: To Discover His Purpose. I managed to do three days of two writing sessions each. However, I worked on Charles’s story for most of those second writing sessions since that story needs to be completed first. (I would still like to have this story ready to publish in August — it’s just turning out to be longer than expected)

Because I put extra time into that story, there were 3 chapters posted at Patreon last week, and I know I have at least 2 chapters ready or almost ready to post this week. 🙂

My goal to have the Dash of Darcy and Companions Collection all updated by next Tuesday, the end of the month, is a faint possibility for the ebooks, but the print ones might push me past that deadline as will the fact that I would like to add a couple of bundles. So a more realistic goal for completion is before August 15.

And I think that is it for the writing news. Now, for the …

CHRISTMAS IN JULY GIVEAWAY:

Did you guess the right book? 😀

CLICK HERE TO CLAIM ONE OF THE 5 COPIES OF A Very Mary Christmas.

[Oh! This free copy features the never before revealed updated cover for this book.]

The copies are available on a first come, first serve basis until all five have been claimed or the link expires on Friday, July 27, 2018.

***Update: All 5 copies have found homes***

The following has not yet been posted on Patreon and is about half of Chapter 13.

AN (longish) EXCERPT FROM Charles: To Discover His Purpose: Continue reading Music Monday: Christmas Medley- London Symphony Orchestra

Music Monday: Winter, Blackmore’s Night

Can you tell by the title of this instrumental selection which book might be today’s giveaway book? Below the video is the list of remaining book choices.

Published on YouTube, October 30, 2010, by kirelafonos.

A Very Mary Christmas

One Winter’s Eve

Two Days Before Christmas

You can find out if you have the right book by scrolling down to just before the story excerpt, but please come back and read my news and the excerpt after you take your chances at getting a copy of today’s Christmas in July giveaway book.

BOOK NEWS:

Delighting Mrs. Bennet has reached an interesting (and slightly dangerous) place in its plot. I think I can see the end coming soon, but I’m not exactly certain how long it will take to get to that ending I can see. There are still a few things to take care of. (Not the least of which is making sure that all the characters are safe. 😉 ) I will have all of October filled with scheduled Thursday posts before the week is out!

Charles: To Discover His Purpose is progressing well. I have passed the 20,000 word mark, and I have posted through chapter 7 on Patreon and should have chapter 8 posted there later today before I edit chapter 9 and then start on chapter 10. 🙂 I’m really enjoying writing this story. Charles is proving to be an interesting fellow to understand and help find his best self.

The Dash of Darcy and Companion Stories are getting a bit of a reorganization. Instead of being two separate collections, I am combining them into one and numbering them. This should make them easier for readers to find on Amazon. So, if you are looking at them over this month, you will likely see some have the new combined collection listed as the series and then a book number. These are being numbered mostly in the order they were published. The only exception to that is I am putting bundles in the line after the books which they contain rather than farther following their publication dates. All of the titles except perhaps the two Dash of Darcy Duos will be getting new covers and all of the older titles will be getting backmatter updates. The stories will stay the same. I am not redoing the books in order, so things will look odd for a while as I am working on completing this large project. I hope to be done by the end of July, but I am not certain that is a realistic goal. It might be early August before it is finished.

CHRISTMAS IN JULY GIVEAWAY:

Did you guess the right book? 😀

CLICK HERE TO CLAIM ONE OF THE 5 COPIES OF One Winter’s Eve.

The copies are available on a first come, first serve basis until all five have been claimed or the link expires on Friday, July 20, 2018.

[update: All five copies of this book have found homes. 🙂 ]

I was able to work with a couple of young boys, who helped me reveal some things about our hero in this…

EXCERPT FROM Charles: To Discover His Purpose: Continue reading Music Monday: Winter, Blackmore’s Night

Music Monday: Period Drama Men, Sharp Dressed Man

Bingley rose from his chair and crossed to the wardrobe. “Do you have a man?” he asked as he pulled the doors open.

“No, I cannot justify such a luxury.”

“You will need one,” Bingley said as he looked through Collins’s possessions. “However, we will have to make do for now. I know a thing or two.” He turned and looked at Collins with a grimace. “I think it would be best if my man had a go at your hair and taught you a few more knots.” He pointed to his own cravat. “A lady does like a well-turned-out gentleman.”

[From Master of Longbourn]

DreamyViper. “Period Drama Men // Sharp Dressed Man.” YouTube, YouTube, 24 July 2011, youtu.be/svKWGnrbVos.

Master of Longbourn is now on preorder with release day scheduled for June 28, 2018.

While Master of Longbourn has a lot of soft, sweet, and gentle moments in it, it also has a few scenes that should draw a smile or even a chuckle. Bingley tends to be the cause of those chuckles. He was such a pleasure to write in this story. He added the light-hearted balance that was needed.

Bingley laughed heartily. “You would like us to –”

“Be my tutors,” Collins pled. “I shall die a lonely old man as my father said if you do not.”

Bingley turns out to be a rather demanding tutor! 😀

However, it is not just the instruction Collins receives from his new found friends, Darcy and Bingley, that helps him to be successful. It is the acceptance he finds within the walls of Longbourn that truly propels him to transform from how he views himself to how he wishes to be.

The quotes above are from chapter 3. You can read chapter three as part of an extended preview until June 28, 2018, at this link.

In other news, I am still in the planning stages for Mr. Edwards’s story. No story words have been written on it. I’m hoping to change that this week. 🙂

I did add a few more thousand words to Delighting Mrs. Bennet last week. I am hoping to be able to work myself back into writing on two stories at a time since the cast of characters are so different. I started using a timer to limit the amount of time I was spending on Delighting Mrs. Bennet. I found myself enjoying the competition of beating the clock and still producing the number (and quality) of words I wanted to produce. 🙂 (I have a strong competitive streak even if just competing with myself. LOL)

Since the song this week is about being a sharp dresser, I thought I would share an excerpt from my writing that includes Bingley speaking about another person who is very aware of fashion. This excerpt will be included in the post on September 6.

AN EXCERPT FROM Delighting Mrs. Bennet: Continue reading Music Monday: Period Drama Men, Sharp Dressed Man

Music Monday: The Young Victoria

Happy Victoria Day! In honour of the day, I have found a music video with some scenes from one of my favourite movies — The Young Victoria.

I’m sure the Pride and Prejudice fans among us will recognize the actor who plays Prince Albert. 🙂 Who knew Wickham would rise so far! LOL 😉

I do not have a writing excerpt for you today, but I do have some writing news:

Here in Canada, the Victoria Day long weekend is the unofficial start to summer and the cottage season, and I know that Memorial Day is similar for those in the US. Spanning the time from Victoria Day to Memorial Day, Kobo is running a 40% off selected boxsets promotion, and one of my books is part of the “selected boxsets.” Just use the promo code 40MAY when purchasing A Dash of Darcy and Companions Cottage Collection 1 between now and May 28, 2018, to save 40% off the purchase price. The offer is good worldwide.

This collection includes: Finally Mrs. Darcy, Waking to Mr. Darcy, A Very Mary Christmas, Discovering Mr. Darcy, and Not an Heiress.

On Thursday of this week…

Click image to find this book at your favourite store.

Confounding Caroline will be released. Those who have preordered will have the book delivered to them, and those who like to purchase after the release day can do just that.

Which brings me to the reason why there is no writing excerpt this week. Master of Longbourn has gone to my first editor, and hopefully by the end of the week will be with my second editor. I haven’t selected a definite release date yet, but I expect it will be about one month from today or just a few days after that. Therefore, since it is in editing, I do not have anything to share from it, and…

Delighting Mrs. Bennet, which I was working on last week and am continuing to work on this week, is our current Thursday story, and I don’t want to give anything away, so I do not have anything to share from it either.

I must say, I did not get a great deal of writing done on that story this week, but I did do some brainstorming about the plot and how things might play out for a couple of characters. You (and I) will have to wait to see what happens, but there is at least one interesting little idea that popped up while I was writing on Friday. It’s one of those “Oh! This could be fun!” ideas that is accompanied by a “I wonder how many readers will find it as fun as I do?” worry. I can’t say more than that right now, other than it is an unusual pairing idea that may or may not work as I am currently thinking. These characters do tend to change things as I settle into understanding them and figure out what they will and won’t do.

I hope you have a good week! I’m hoping that since I spent that time on doing some brainstorming this past week, this week will be a better word count week despite the few last things I need to get done before Confounding Caroline’s release day.

Until next time…

Happy Reading!

Leenie

~*~*~

KOBO AMAZON NOOK IBOOKS MAILING LIST PATREON SOCIETY6

Music Monday: Period Dramas – At the Beginning

Welcome to the beginning of a new week full of possibilities. As I look forward to the week ahead, I like to start by taking inventory of where I am by looking back at what I accomplished last week. It’s a lot easier to know where you are going if you know where you are starting. 🙂

But first…

Some musical inspiration…

videosbyloo. “Period Dramas – At the Beginning (PDC).” YouTube, YouTube, 17 June 2011, youtu.be/jMLlkAMLV-Q.

And then…

Writing News:

Mr. Darcy’s Comfort released, successfully, last week on Thursday. 🙂 You can find out more about the book as well as a link that will provide all my vendor options at this link:

https://books2read.com/b/3GYBBr

My writing time focused only on Master of Longbourn this week because I actually took two nights off from writing. I did not take them off completely. I still did some other book business work, but no story was written. Launching a book can be draining (so much excitement is tiring 🙂 ) and when I combined that with a lack of sleep (because my body does that sometimes), I ended up with a mushy, not terribly creative brain. And that is not good for writing. 🙂 So, after fighting the idea for a while (I’m no quitter, you see :D) I gave in and allowed the brain to do things other than create imaginary worlds. Hopefully, this week, I will get in all five writing sessions.

Because of the book release, I did not do my regular editing time. I gave that time to book release sorts of things such as creating a graphic, posting an excerpt (which I am using for marketing purposes), sending out an email to my mailing list, making sure I had the book added to my book page and a few other things like that. (I have a list. It’s rather long.)

But that was last week, and though I will need to keep doing some marketing work for the new book, this week during editing period, I plan to begin final edits on Confounding Caroline since I have them back from my editor. I should have a publication date firmed up by next Monday!

I have also begun a project of updating book covers and reorganizing some things. This project will not be completed any time soon, but it has begun. I started by updating the cover for Listen to Your Heart. The story inside has not changed, although I did update the book list in the backmatter and added an excerpt from And Then Love.

And lastly, I created a bundle of stories — a box set of Dash of Darcy and Companion Stories. This bundle contains Finally Mrs. Darcy, Waking to Mr. Darcy, A Very Mary Christmas, Discovering Mr. Darcy, and Not an Heiress.

I have only uploaded this bundle to Kobo so far since I wish to apply to have it included in a promotion in May, but this week, I will be attempting to add it to other vendors. In fact, between when I am writing this Saturday night and Monday when you are reading this, I might have gotten part of that done. There will be a print version eventually.

Phew! You know, now that I have listed all that out I can understand better why I was so tired by the end of the day on Thursday. When I’m just working on this and that steadily through a week, I don’t see how much I am actually doing. Little by little, consistent, steady effort adds up!

Now, for…

AN EXCERPT FROM Master of Longbourn: Continue reading Music Monday: Period Dramas – At the Beginning