Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 111

Looking Backwards

I've been looking at the statistics for this blog, and selected some of the year's most-visited posts for your delectation.My Favorite Girls Dressed As Boys - romance edition.Nifty Stuff That Ought To Be In Romance Novels.Normative Heterosexuality and the Alpha Male Fantasy.Georgette Heyer Recommendations.The Intricacies of Marriages of Convenience.Online Promotion - Is It Worth It?The Romance

Visiting Leah Braemel's Blog

I'm a guest today over at Leah Braemel's Blog, chatting about some of my writing goals for the new year.

Setting and Characterization Through Food

This post was originally written for the Romance Junkies blog.I love food, both eating it and reading about it, and that interest sometimes translates into my work. I use food for several different purposes, most notably to establish setting and to deepen characterization.My book The Moonlight Mistress is set in the early days of World War One, and there are scenes set in Germany, England, and

Did You Know Bach Had a Father?

I post this section from Patrick O'Brian's The Ionian Mission because I love it for what is says about Bach (Johann Sebastian) as well as about Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin.O'Brian was an incredible writer, and I think this passage shows it.#'[London Bach:] wrote some pieces for my uncle Fisher, and his young man copied them out fair. But they were lost years and years ago, so last time I was

Charlotte Mew, "The Cenotaph"

The Cenotaph September 1919Not yet will those measureless fields be green againWhere only yesterday the wild sweet blood of wonderful youth was shed;There is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain,Though for ever over it we may speak as proudly as we may tread.But here, where the watchers by lonely hearths from the thrust of an inward sword have more slowly bled,We shall build

Rumi, "Love Is the Master"

I've always thought this poem would be a great background or theme for a romance novel.#Love is the MasterLove is the One who masters all things;I am mastered totally by Love.By my passion of love for LoveI have ground sweet as sugar.O furious Wind, I am only a straw before you;How could I know where I will be blown next?Whoever claims to have made a pact with DestinyReveals himself a liar and a

Father Christmas, 1914

Christmas, 1914: Father Christmas putting presents in soldiers' boots.

Be Like a Bug

"All that energy we expend to keep things running right is not what's keeping things running right. We're bugs struggling in the river, brightly visible to the trout below. With that fact in mind, people like to make up all these rules to give us the illusion that we are in charge. I need to say to myself, they're not needed, hon. Just take in the buggy pleasures. Be kind to the others, grab the

Alas, Poor Wallis

I'm on vacation until the new year, but I set up some blog posts anyway. There will be a slight lack of introspective musings on writing and genre in them, but hopefully some entertainment value.Behold one of the most amusing examples of dialogue I have ever read.#"Wallis," said Maturin. "I am happy to find you here. How is your penis?" At their last meeting he had carried out an operation on

Excerpt from a War Nurse's Diary: The Retreat

In The Moonlight Mistress, it's mentioned in passing that Antwerp fell to the Germans. Here's a first-person account about that event which I didn't get to use in my novel (yet!).###Excerpt from A War Nurse's Diary: Sketches From A Belgian Field Hospital (1918):"We felt in taking these buses that we were no longer robbing the Marines. Many of them were with us; many more were dead and had no