Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 115

Moonlight Mistress Excerpt - Arrivals

Moonlight Mistress is out December 2009 from Harlequin Spice. In this scene, Lucilla is briefly and unexpectedly reunited with her lover.#After Hailey was safe and cared for, Lucilla walked down the muddy path back to her quarters in one of the slapdash rear huts. She was dizzy from lack of sleep and reliving, in a near trance, the moments when Ashby had shifted from one form to the other. If

Nifty Women Who Fought in World War One

Along the lines of "Nifty Stuff That Ought to be in Romance Novels," there are some famous women in World War One that would be fabulous sources for heroines.I highly recommend Into the Breach: American Women Overseas in World War I if you'd like a good overview of the many non-combat roles women played in Europe during World War One. The book focuses on Americans, but I still think it's a good

My Philcon 2009 Schedule

I'll be at Philcon this weekend. My schedule is below.Fri 7:00 PM in Plaza IFANTASY BASED ON NON-EUROPEAN SOURCESVictoria Janssen (mod), Stephanie Burke, James L. Cambias, Christine Norris, Tom Doyle You don't have to go "all medieval on me" to write fantasy. What are the best examples of fantasy not based on European backgrounds to date?Fri 8:00 PM in Plaza VII THE BOOKS WE COME BACK

Edwardian/Belle Epoque Research Links

The Edwardian period in England officially lasted from 1901-1910 but is often extended through the end of World War One in 1918; another term, more applicable to the rest of the Europe, is La Belle Epoque, which stretches slightly longer. A great place to start reading about the period is the blog Edwardian Promenade. Be sure to check out the links.Simple factual research is all well and good,

Cherry-Picking Time

An editor to whom I'd previously sold reprints contacted me last week about possibly contributing to a new anthology.Immediately, this made my heart sing. It sang even more when I found out I could write any subgenre of "hot romance" that I chose. Whee! Ideas ideas ideas! I've been missing writing short fiction, and the freedom it offers to experiment.As I often do, I went promptly to my

My Top 16 Romance Novels

I'm exactly one month late posting my sixteen favorite romance novels, but, well...here they are anyway, in random order. And it was really hard and made me very sad, but I did it for you. I limited myself to books published as romance, not science fiction or fantasy or mystery that included a romance in the story. I allowed one book per author. One of my requirements was that I'd read the

Siegfried Sassoon, "Repression of War Experience"

Repression of War ExperienceNow light the candles; one; two; there's a moth; What silly beggars they are to blunder in And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame-- No, no, not that,--it's bad to think of war, When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you;And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts That drive them out to jabber among

Notes from "The Repression of War Experience" by W.H.R. Rivers, M.D.

Notes from "The Repression of War Experience" by W.H.R. Rivers, M.D. Published in The Lancet, Feb. 2, 1918NB: This document is reproduced from and held at the The Napier University War Poets site."I hope to show that many of the most trying and distressing symptoms from which the subjects of war neurosis suffer are not the necessary result of the strains and shocks to which they have been exposed

Real People as Fiction - Linkgasm #3

Timmi Duchamp on representing history in fiction, particularly using real historical personages in fiction. Here's Part Two.Are novelists entitled to use real-world characters? by Guy Gavriel Kay, an essay for The Guardian that's linked from the above post.This also brings to mind Real Person Fiction, which is not at all a new practice - for example, the Brontë juvenalia includes historical

Dream Stories

I have a mental list of stories I want to write. Also a list I'd like to revisit, that I attempted but never completed to my satisfaction. And a few files that are nothing but a few sentences, that just flowed out of my fingers in that strange, almost-subconscious way that always astonishes me when it happens.Right now, of course, those stories must remain dreams. I have a certain amount of