Music Monday: Relaxing Celtic Music, Peder B. Helland

Helland, Peder B. “Relaxing Celtic Music: Fantasy Music, Flute Music, Harp Music, Beautiful Music, Relaxing Music ★91.” YouTube. Soothing Relaxation, 17 Sept. 2016. Web. 15 Jan. 2017.

This is a fanciful piece of music, is it not?  I found this video about two months ago, and it has become a standard go-to piece of music for getting my mind into writing mode.  There is something about it that just grabs my imagination and leads it down the creative path. It is also calming which helps me shift from the busyness of a family to the right frame of mind to think and create. (Seriously, it almost magical how well it works for me.) Because of these things, it has a place near the top of the playlist on the old mp3 player that lives on my writing desk.  This piece of music does have a connection to some of the writing I did this week — in a roundabout way.  I’ll get to that in a minute.

First, to give you an update on my current writing projects, I have been editing, editing, and editing.  I have completed the first round (the most strenuous round) of edits for chapters 1- 12 of So Very Unexpected.  The story,  which when it completed posting here was around 36,600 words, is up to about 39,300 words currently, and I have several more chapters to go before I am done editing. I think it is very safe to say that this story will cross that 40,000-word novel threshold.  I haven’t made any big changes. It has been more of a refining of what was there — adding details, rewording, smoothing, making certain that Lydia’s eyes which started as blue and ended hazel in the first draft are now hazel throughout — those sorts of things.  I has also been helpful to know exactly what happens in book four before doing these edits since some things tie together there. So, I am happy I decided to finish book four’s first draft before picking up my editing pen on So Very Unexpected.  I will continue editing this week and will more than likely share an excerpt of this story with you next week instead of this week since today, I have something else planned to share with you.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 17, 2017, is my day to post on austenauthors.net. My post is about my writing plans for this year.  Part of these plans involves attempting to write Austen-inspired fairy tales.  If you are listening to the music video, do you see how this music could play a part? This music makes me think of fairies and magic and all things fanciful (and romantic 🙂 ).  Another part of my plans for this year involves the creation of a special Facebook Group,

Another part of my plans for this year involves the creation of a special Facebook Group, Leenie’s Sweeties. It is primarily for those who are fans of my books and would like to help promote them, but it is also a place where I hope to interact with readers while I work on putting my writing plans into action over the course of the year.

Now, in place of a story excerpt this week, I am sharing a link below to a story I placed on the Austen Author’s Writer’s Block Forum for my post tomorrow (which means you get to read it early).   This story is an Austen-inspired fairy tale that I wrote a couple of years ago in response to a writing challenge.

Enjoy the story, and I hope to see you at Austen Authors tomorrow!

Miss Contentment: An Austen-Inspired Fairy Tale
Click to read this story on Austen Authors Writer’s Block Forum

~*~*~

Leenie B Books

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Music Monday: Have Yourself a Very Merry Christmas, Brett Eldredge

CMA Country Christmas. “Brett Eldredge Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas CMA Country Christmas 2016.” YouTube. YouTube, 28 Nov. 2016. Web. 17 Dec. 2016.

On Friday night, my husband and I were watching CMA Country Christmas along with about three other shows since my husband had the remote 😉 when, as chance and commercials on other stations would have it, we landed back on this program in time to hear this song. As you can probably imagine, this song has been in my mind a lot over the last couple of months as I wrote and edited A Very Mary Christmas. 

Since I loved this performance of the song, and A Very Mary Christmas will be available to read this Tuesday, I decided that this song must be the one I shared today. (Even if I did share another singer’s performance of this song a couple of weeks ago. 🙂 )So, as the song plays, or after you watch the video, let me share part of what has been going on in my writing life. (And yes, there is a story snippet.)

First, A Very Mary Christmas will be live on Tuesday. If you have not yet ordered a copy, you can do that at this link –> Get A Very Mary Christmas . Making certain that everything is ready for the release of this book has taken a good amount of my time this week because I was preparing a special giveaway to celebrate the launch.  This giveaway will be hosted on AustenAuthors.net on Tuesday, December 20.

Next, along with getting that blog post ready for next Tuesday, I also started the discussion for the Austen Author’s Emma Read Along this past Wednesday. We only have two more weeks of reading and that novel will be done — which means we are at the “good part” IMO. This week, we read Frank Churchill’s letter of explanation and Mr. Knightley’s reaction.

Last, I did manage to squeeze in a little writing time yesterday (finally).  I am still working on the Willow Hall Book 4 story with no title. 🙂  So, that is what I will share a little snippet of today.  If you are following along with the Thursday’s Three Hundred posts, this one is from way down the road, so read at the risk of spoilers. 🙂 Continue reading Music Monday: Have Yourself a Very Merry Christmas, Brett Eldredge


Movie Meets Music Monday: Emma and Knightley – Obvious

TheAlena31. “Emma & Knightley – Obvious.” YouTube. YouTube, 13 Feb. 2011.

This Wednesday on Austen Authors, we will be concluding our read along of Lady Susan. Next up is Emma.  I admit that I am not overly familiar with this novel. I have only read it once and that was a long time ago, so I look forward to the reintroduction to the story. I would love to see you join us on this reading journey.  Along with the discussion thread on the Austen Authors Writer’s Block Forum, you can often find my thoughts as I read on Twitter following the #AuAuReadAlong, and you can add your own thoughts to the discussion using that hashtag as well.