Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 103

e.e. cummings, "may my heart always be open to little"

may my heart always be open to littlebirds who are the secrets of livingwhatever they sing is better than to knowand if men should not hear them men are oldmay my mind stroll about hungryand fearless and thirsty and suppleand even if it's sunday may i be wrongfor whenever men are right they are not youngand may myself do nothing usefullyand love yourself so more than trulythere's never been quite

e.e. cummings, "you being in love... (XII)"

you being in lovewill tell who softly asks in love,am i separated from your body smile brain hands merelyto become the jumping puppets of a dream? oh i mean:entirely having in my careful howcareful arms created this at lengthinexcusable, this inexplicable pleasure-you go from severalpersons: believe me that strangers arrivewhen i have kissed you into a memoryslowly, oh seriously-that since and if

Write Your Bliss

You can have all the craft in the world but your writing won't sing if you're not writing your bliss, your joy, the one thing you love more than anything else in the world.It's no good to say, "vampire novels always sell so I will write a vampire novel" if you don't love vampires. Love them. Okay, some people manage it, and they sell, and they sell well, but that's not my point here.My point

How Publishing Works, via Charles Stross

I don't usually post a set of links from a single author, but in this case, I am, because I think these are excellent reference posts that go a long way to explaining common misconceptions to those who have not yet experienced the wonder and confusion and WTF that is print publishing.Some very informative and useful posts by science fiction/fantasy Charles Stross about print publishing:Common

I'd worry if they talked back.

Today I'm in the Author Spotlight at Jessica Freely's blog Friskbiskit, talking about the male/male relationship aspects of The Moonlight Mistress, among other things.#And for today's pondering:How do we visualize (mentalize?) characterization? I've heard people say things like, "My characters refused to do that," or "they said they wanted to do this instead."So, for those of you who use that

Research Books Whee!

I'm in a research flurry, collecting materials that I hope will be helpful in writing my second erotic novel set during World War One.I do the dance of new books!The Belgian Army in World War I is another Osprey book. These are slender but packed, packed I tell you, with detailed information and drawings. Since my heroine is Belgian, I wanted to do a little more work on the army from her

The Trapped Protagonist

Over at the Romance Divas forum for the next three months, I'm serving as mentor to another writer. As a result, I've been thinking about plotting and how to plot and how to teach to plot. And how to teach one to teach one's self how to plot. *whew*To help out my thinking, I've been browsing among various articles, books, saved messages, etc. that I saved thinking I would get to them later,

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, "The Messages"

The Messages"I cannot quite remember.... There were five Dropt dead beside me in the trench--and three Whispered their dying messages to me...." Back from the trenches, more dead than alive, Stone-deaf and dazed, and with a broken knee, He hobbled slowly, muttering vacantly: "I cannot quite remember.... There were five Dropt dead beside me in the trench--and three Whispered their dying messages

Art has a shape.

"One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape; they have beginnings, middles, and endings. Whereas in life, things just drift along. In life, somebody has a cold, and you treat it as insignificant, and suddenly they die. Or they have a heart attack, and you are sodden with grief until they recover to live for thirty petulant years, demanding you wait on them.

Maintaining Sexual and Romantic Tension

I think that all Romance plots ultimately involve deferring consummation of the relationship, whether the desired consummation is intercourse, marriage, a marriage proposal, or simple acknowledgement by the couple that they are in love. If a consummation happens at the novel's beginning, then either internal or external circumstances must conspire to prevent a second, deeper consummation until