Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 119

Me and The Doctor

This post originally appeared at Amanda McIntyre's House of Muse Blog, 10/1/09.My name is Victoria and I am a Dr. Who fan.If you've never seen the show, it began on the BBC in 1963 and continued until 1989, with a series of different actors in the lead role. The show was revived on BBC One in 2005.No, I'm not British. I never watched the show as a child, so I don't have the excuse of having

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, "Hit"

HitOut of the sparkling sea I drew my tingling body clear, and lay On a low ledge the livelong summer day, Basking, and watching lazily White sails in Falmouth Bay.My body seemed to burn Salt in the sun that drenched it through and through, Till every particle glowed clean and new And slowly seemed to turn To lucent amber in a world of blue...I felt a sudden wrench-- A trickle of warm blood-- And

Moonlight Mistress Excerpt - Danger

For a LiveJournal charity auction, I am offering your name as a character in The Duke and the Pirate Queen. You do not need a LiveJournal account to bid. How To Bid. Information about the auction itself and its purpose. Bidding closes TODAY, October 10, 2009, Saturday, 11:59 p.m. Pacific time.Moonlight Mistress is out December 2009 from Harlequin Spice. In this scene, Noel Ashby has recently

Robin Bradford Guest Post - Audiobook & E-book Pricing

Please welcome my guest, Robin Bradford!#The price of sharingFor years, there have been two markets for audiobooks. There was the retail market, which sold audiobooks at around $39.99/title. This was higher and lower, of course, depending on the length of the book, the author, the narrator, etc. The average retail price was in that area. However, the big companies (Recorded Books, Brilliance,

Anne Sexton, "The Black Art"

The Black ArtA woman who writes feels too much,those trances and portents!As if cycles and children and islandsweren't enough; as if mourners and gossipsand vegetables were never enough.She thinks she can warn the stars.A writer is essentially a spy.Dear love, I am that girl.A man who writes knows too much,such spells and fetiches!As if erections and congresses and productsweren't enough; as if

Living/Writing Balance

I sing in a choir.I would have more time to sing and practice music if I didn't spend so much time writing. Or vice versa. And if I didn't spend so much time reading, I would have more time to write. And so on.I don't want to give up any one of those things. I don't think I can. I did go without a choral group for a year--between the end of graduate school and when I auditioned for my current

Sisyphus, Writing

I dug into my journal entries of six years ago for this post. I was working on, at the time, the first novel I ever actually completed.Looking back, I seem to have had much more anxiety over the process of writing back then, probably because I hadn't had nearly so much experience with my own process. Looking back, it really helps me to have records of what I did and how I felt about it.#August,

Stories in the Head

I used to make up stories before I went to sleep every night. Usually I didn't get very far. Sometimes I would barely arrange the scene before drifting off, and would start in approximately the same place on the following night. Serials, in a way, but I almost never finished one of those mental stories; certain moments of the story seemed to be enough to hold my attention, and I would even

An Experiment in Second-Person Present

This is an old essay I unearthed and from the depths of my laptop.#Point of view and tense have a dramatic effect on a story's tone.The following excerpt comes from the first typed draft of my short story "Camera," dated March 2001 (it was originally drafted by hand, in a notebook). The story was science fiction, and aimed at an anthology titled Tough Girls. The heroine needed to be emotionally

Moonlight Mistress excerpt - Dialogue

Moonlight Mistress is out December 2009 from Harlequin Spice. This scene takes place as Crispin's regiment is heading to France, in the early days of World War One.#Crispin mentally shook himself and joined a group of the men lounging on the deck, some of them smoking in tense silence, some talking with nervous energy, some alternating both activities. ... Crispin was surprised when Hailey sat