Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 100

For Love or Money?

This post grew out of a discussion at one of my favorite blogs, Read React Review, specifically this post, "At What Point in the Writing Process Do Writers Think About What Will Sell?" Comments in italics are from Jessica, who wrote the original post. My comment was lengthy, and I've continued to think about the issues she raised.I wonder where in the writing process writers think about this.

History as Fantasy

In many ways, writing historical fiction is like writing fantasy. And reading historical fiction is like reading fantasy.In one genre, you have to look up a lot of tiny details to make the reader accept that the world they're reading about is real/true. In the other genre, you have to make up a lot of details to make the reader accept that the world they're reading about is real/true. In both

Edward Shillito, "Hardness of Heart"

Hardness of HeartIn the first watch no death but made us mourn; Now tearless eyes run down the daily roll, Whose names are written in the book of death; For sealed are now the springs of tears, as when The tropic sun makes dry the torrent's course After the rains. They are too many now For mortal eyes to weep, and none can see But God alone the Thing itself and live. We look to seaward, and

Laurence Binyon, "Ypres"

YpresShe was a city of patience; of proud name, Dimmed by neglecting Time; of beauty and loss; Of acquiescence in the creeping moss. But on a sudden fierce destruction came Tigerishly pouncing: thunderbolt and flame Showered on her streets, to shatter them and toss Her ancient towers to ashes. Riven across, She rose, dead, into never-dying fame. White against heavens of storm, a ghost, she is

Researching the 1970s - Gwynne Garfinkle Guest Post

Please welcome my guest, Gwynne Garfinkle!#Researching the Jo BookI recently completed the second draft of a novel about a soap opera actress in mid-1970s New York City who's haunted by the ghost of her best friend who died protesting the Vietnam War. (The working title of the book is Some Misplaced Joan of Arc, but through the writing process I've mostly referred to it as "the Jo book.") I

WWI slang

Speaking Freely: A Guided Tour Of American English From Plymouth Rock To Silicon Valley. Stuart Berg Flexner and Anne H. Soukhanov, Oxford University Press, 1997.p. 82 "The use of obscenity and scatology...increased greatly during World War I and became prolific during World War II. The use of the cursing modifier fucking, for damned, first reached epidemic proportions with British soldiers

Making Time

"I have to find time to write."I don't think that's true. You don't find time. You make time. You take it. You take it for yourself.If you want to write, you have to choose time during which you will write.You have to give things up in order to make time to write. If you don't already have writing time in your schedule, then what activity is filling your schedule? Your dayjob? Childcare?

Writing Marathons

I've learned three things from writing marathons:1. I can trust my basic prose level to sound okay on first draft, without me paying too much attention to it as it flows out. I need to save my concentration for keeping the whole story in mind. Doing paper edits before the marathon helps a lot on thinking about the story's shape; so do the comments I get from my workshop on the partial. Making

Contraception in World War One

A History of Contraception: From Antiquity to the Present Day. Angus McLaren. Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1990.p. 183-184 "Bentham declared in 1797 that population could be controlled not by a 'prohibitory act' or a 'dead letter' but by 'a sponge', indicating that a range of contraceptives was already known to the late eighteenth-century, middle-class readers of the Annals Of Agriculture. Carlile, in

e.e. cummings, "the bigness of cannon "

the bigness of cannon is skilful, but i have seen death's clever enormous voice which hides in a fragility of poppies.... i say that sometimes on these long talkative animals are laid fists of huger silence. I have seen all the silence full of vivid noiseless boys at Roupy i have seen between barrages, the night utter ripe unspeaking girls.--e.e. cummings, Tulips & Chimneys (1922 Manuscript)