Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 110

Charles Sorley, "All the Hills and Vales Along"

All the Hills and Vales AlongAll the hills and vales along Earth is bursting into song, And the singers are the chaps Who are going to die perhaps. O sing, marching men, Till the valleys ring again. Give your gladness to earth's keeping, So be glad, when you are sleeping. Cast away regret and rue, Think what you are marching to. Little live, great pass. Jesus Christ and Barabbas Were found the

Moonlight Mistress Excerpt - Explosions

Moonlight Mistress is from Harlequin Spice. In this scene, three soldiers are causing a distraction at one site while a more secret operation happens at another. Note there's been a change to this excerpt to protect a plot detail.#It would have been better to have grenades thrown from all directions, but it hadn't been practical with only the three of them. Meyer had insisted that one of them

Why No, My Face Is NOT Red

Back in December, I was involved in a discussion about (I paraphrase) how to get used to using "naughty" words in your writing, when they weren't in your everyday vocabulary."Naughty" words should be treated just like any other words, as tools to get meaning across, to communicate meaning as accurately as possible.For instance, do those particular words suit the story you're writing? If your

Goals and Deadlines

This post was originally written for Leah Braemel's Blog.A writer's work is never done, and neither is her goal-setting. I have one goal staring me in the face right now: the deadline to turn in the manuscript of The Duke and the Pirate Queen. It's due February 1, which means I'll be spending January writing the last scenes as well as cleaning, tweaking, revising, and polishing. A deadline

Worthy Transgressions

People have been talking for a while about how there's more erotica being published in both print and electronic formats, and how more people are reading erotica and talking about it, and how erotica is getting more and more explicit and transgressive.transgression: (noun) an act of transgressing; violation of a law, command, etc.; sin. Or, in the case of published erotica, exploring the limits

The Bust Bodice

If you've read The Moonlight Mistress, you know that Lucilla, rather than a corset or brassiere, wears a bust bodice. Below, a picture of a bust bodice.Some models reached as low as the waist, and some were worn in addition to corsets. They were popular through the 1920s.

Multi-Purpose Worldbuilding

This post was originally written for Star-Crossed Romance.In The Moonlight Mistress, werewolves are an important element. However, the world they live in is much like our world; the werewolves exist as "secret history." Though several of the characters know about the existence of werewolves, and one finds out about them in the course of the novel, for the most part they exist out of sight.The

Ivor Gurney, "Strange Hells"

Strange HellsThere are strange Hells within the minds War made Not so often, not so humiliating afraid As one would have expected - the racket and fear guns made. One Hell the Gloucester soldiers they quite put out; Their first bombardment, when in combined black shoutOf fury, guns aligned, they ducked low their heads And sang with diaphragms fixed beyond all dreads, That tin and stretched-wire

Black Wine opening

I really love the opening to Candas Jane Dorsey's Black Wine (1997).#There's a scarred, twisted old madwoman in a cage in the courtyard. The nurse throws a crust at her as he passes, therefore so does the girl. Others bring a can of water, or a trencher of meat cut up small, to stuff through the bars. The woman shoves the food into her mouth, dribbling and drooling and muttering."Why do they keep

Take All Chances

Happy New Year!This post originally appeared at Crista McHugh's blog on November 30, 2009, but I felt it was especially appropriate for New Year's Day.Today's topic is lessons I've learned about being a professional writer. After "butt in chair, fingers on keyboard," the most important lesson I've learned is to take every chance.That means a lot of different things, and all of them are