My first Guest Blogging! Come play!

Hello friends!

It's my first guest blogging and it would really make my day if you
could bop on over to WeWriteRomance and tell me YOUR thoughts on the Brain-Soup! When does reality not seem real to you?

Yes, I fear I've been on a Brain-Soup kick of late,



it's just where I am.

Come on over and tell me where you are!

NY is funny and I'm in the Brain-Soup

That's it. From now on, I'm writing down striking things I hear on the streets of New York for posterity, contemplation, anger or amusement. Today: Amusement.

The scene:
Adorable one-ish year old little girl in burgundy velvet dress being held up by Dad as she tests out walking her little, bare feet on 28th street. Mother approaches, grinning and bending down to daughter.

Quote from grinning Mom to said child:

"This isn't Burma! You can't walk around without shoes in Manhattan!"

Now this phrase has its truths, and its untruths. True, 28th street is not Burma, and I also agree that you can't walk around barefoot in Manhattan.

But personally, I think the maximum amusement potential of this quote comes from the fact that it's not Burma anymore, it's Myanmar.

(Left: proposed new flag of Myanmar)

(Unless you listen to the BBC. They still call it Burma. I assume because they can't quite get over the fact that they're just not the same 'sun never sets on the Empire' anymore, so maybe Mum was a Brit. I couldn't tell with the baby-talk-tone colouring her voice - see, I put a 'u' in colouring. I'll be the first to admit to severe Anglophile tendencies so don't think I'm being a hater here. Either I had an awesome or a traumatic past life in England because the land calls to me like a Siren. And my upcoming book is set in London, as a matter of fact. However I shall call the former land of "Burma" Myanmar.

My friend Jeff Tanenhaus, travel-writer and photographer extraordinaire adores Myanmar and has taken incredible photos of the land and the beautiful people. (Note, many photos of Myanmar show strong evidence of shoe-wearing).

---

Another recent, great "Only In New York" moment, I was escorting my dear friend, talented actress/singer Kate to her bartending gig at the St. James theatre, and she leads me in through the darkened house of the Broadway theatre, where only the single Ghost Light is on the stage. It's a neat and eerie thing to see, the Ghost Light:

Mesmerised by the Ghost Light, hoping to see and actual ghost, I trip and fall in the dark and cavernous space.

We giggle like kids tresspassing.

All the while we are serenaded as Tony award winning actress and awesome diva Patti LuPone warms up for Gypsy by belting her guts out two floors up.

I get to see the show next week!

---

Still another momentous Only In New York moment?

Walking into the offices of Dorchester, my coveted, debut "New York publisher" for the first time last week! I could be all suave and say I wasn't excited and giddy, but that would be an outright lie. My eyes were sparkly.

---

Okay.

In other news. Now comes the part where Leanna admits she's being a space-cadet.

So where have I been?

...That's right, my friends.

The Brain-Soup...

I'm in the midst of edits for my upcoming 2009 Dorchester release THE STRANGELY BEAUTIFUL TALE OF MISS PERCY PARKER. And I have to shift major emotional arcs for my main characters because my editor is really smart and it will be a better book when done. (He is smart, I'm not just saying that because I'm still sparkly-eyed, it's true.)

To do this with any degree of decency, (I'm clothed while I edit, get your mind out of the gutter) or skill, I have to be really IN it. THICK in Victorian England. THICK into my character's heads. A Soupy kind of mental thickness. Going into the world that I love so dearly (I really, really love it) is great. It's the coming out of it and back to real-world that kinda sucks. I work as a tour guide and there are moments when tourists blink at me and ask me where the Empire State Building is and all I want to do is shake them and say "DON'T YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND I NEED A CUT-SCENE BETWEEN CHAPTERS SEVEN AND EIGHT AND I DON'T CARE IF YOU MISS YOUR FERRY TO THE STATUE OF LIBERTY..."

*sigh* I never say that. But I want to.

I've described my state of Soupness kind of like the Matrix... where all those green binary numbers just keep scrolling... scrolling... And that's the pages of my book in my head... scrolling and I'm in that wierd bullet-time where Neo can alter stuff, and I swoop one scene in and swoop another one out as it all just keeps scrolling and I could look at it forever...

So that's where I am. Brain-Soup. And where are you?

Blog Action Day - Join up!

Because we all need to talk about the bigger stuff.

Review-Tastic!

You know, for being a newbie, I'm just thrilled with the fact that I'm getting some great exposure.


First, Barbara Vey at Publisher's Weekly, now RomanceNovel.TV!


DARK NEST is under RomanceNovel.tv's "Books We're Pimping" home-page column for this week! Here's what the lovely Maria has to say:

"Here's a fresh new voice on the scene. This romance fantasy novella hits all the right notes. Leanna has created a world that is so descriptive it will dance before your eyes. Set in the future, newly evolved psychically gifted humans are sent by the Homeworld to charter new territory. But as they discover betrayal, they also realize their true potential. I say pick this one up."


Awesome! Thanks Maria!

Six Q's and a Fire-drill

My dear buddy Maya Rodale, talented authoress, has been asking a bunch of authors the same six questions, and it's fascinating to see the variety of results.

Learn a bit about me you may not have known...

So there's this other thing I do sometimes. What I got my degree in. Theatre.

Now let's be clear; what I did yesterday at Silvercup Studios in Queens was not acting, it was just showing up and bringing a cute outfit to the set of Gossip Girls. OMFG! The food was really good.

It was indeed a lot of fun. There was a Screen Actors Guild waiver waiting for me, (one step closer to SAG, baby), a wide pan shot through our bunch-o'-actors-way-older-than-high-school-playing-seniors crowd, a bit of a screen shot with Blair - we'll see if it survives the editing process, don't get too excited but you might actually see me on screen, and a 9 hour day paycheck. (I got a scene in a new novella written in the down-time, see how studious?)

The funniest thing about the day? The random fire-drill at the studio. Yep. Just like High-School, only with more costumes. Lots of people lookin' pretty n' preppy filing down 4 floors and outside to gather across the street as a storm brews over Astoria. Dramatic, eh?

I can't wait 'til the next set.

My first review is up at Publisher's Weekly!

Wow, when it rains it pours I guess. :)

Hello friends!

My first ever review, for my futuristic fantasy novella DARK NEST is up here at Barbara Vey's Publishers Weekly blog!

It's even the headliner!

Hop on over, check it out, and while you're there, leave a comment about all the great blurbs!

Thanks and love!

*dance dance dance*




DARK NEST blurb:

Chief Counsel Ariadne Corinth has just found out her long-time lover, the powerfully gifted Chief Counsel Kristov Haydn, has died. Newly evolved psychically gifted humans have been sent by the Homeworld on a space mission aboard two distinct “Nests”. Relationships between the Light Nest and the Dark Nest have faltered and Ariadne is sure there’s something insidious behind it. In a matter of hours, Ariadne must find out what really happened to Kristov, unite her people to discover vast new powers the Homeworld denied them, or else submit to genocide.

DARK NEST available for download at Crescent Moon Press or order In Print!

Okay. Best. Day. Ever. For. Real.

Okay, so meeting the Muppets was like the best day ever.

What could be the more Best Day Ever?

Selling a book to a New York publishing house!

YES!!!

After more years of dogged determination than I care to mention, I've landed a two book contract with DORCHESTER PUBLISHING here in New York. And can I say, beside myself? Beside myself. Me. Then Self. Beside.

I'll be hitting the scene slated for a fall 2009 debut with the first of my historical fantasy romance series: The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker. (At least, for now, that's the title, my agent says long titles are in).

My book in two words? Victorian Ghostbusters.

Yes, it's that cool.

So the moment I found out about this, I had to share it with a couple of friends on the inside loop before I could tell the world.

Liz Maverick and Marianne Mancusi, certainly no strangers to publishing, took pictures of me in my ridiculous bliss. This is what it looks like to have a dream come true. Yes, it's that rabid-joy look again that you'll recognize from the previous post. Now that I can officially shout this news to the rafters, there will be more celebratory pictures to come with many other wonderful friends.

So I want to thank the academy... my family, my boyfriend, God, my friends, etc.

No really.

I'm really, really thankful and blessed.

For those of you also wanting what I've wanted as long as I can remember, keep on keeping on.

Persist.

Because your dreams want to meet you.