Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 101

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)

Siegfried Sassoon, "The Hawthorn Tree"

The Hawthorn TreeNot much to me is yonder lane Where I go every day; But when there's been a shower of rainAnd hedge-birds whistle gay,I know my lad that's out in FranceWith fearsome things to see Would give his eyes for just one glanceAt our white hawthorn tree.. . . .Not much to me is yonder lane Where he so longs to tread: But when there's been a shower of rainI think I'll never weep again

Saskia Walker - Guest Post

Please welcome my guest, Saskia Walker!#When I started out on my writing journey I used to fret about how the fantasy or paranormal elements of a story would mesh with the more everyday aspects. As writers we want our stories to flow seamlessly for the reader, and for them to accept what is way beyond the norm alongside the more rational elements. This is a skill that my hostess has, in spades!

Romance Series-Itis

Series-itis: there's entirely too much wordcount devoted to reminding us what happened to the hero when he was a minor character in a previous book, and setting up various other characters for their roles in future books, not to mention the obligatory mentions of previous romantic couples in the series. I'm not sure why I like and continue to read series of linked books when what I really want

Where Are the Older Heroines?

Where are the older heroines in romance novels?Not there. Not often. Not that I've seen.And by older I only mean, like, getting close to forty. It seems to be okay for romance heroes to be forty or above - though I've noticed the author may let you know only once or twice and then not mention it again - but heroines? Not so much. Fifty and above? Even close to fifty? Where are they? Are