Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 132

Edward Thomas, "The Owl"

The Owl

Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;
Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof
Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,
Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.
All of the night was quite barred out except
An owl's cry, a most melancholy cry

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
But one telling me plain what I escaped
And others could not, that night,

Ann Aguirre Guest Post - On Worldbuilding

Please welcome my guest Ann Aguirre, author of futuristic romance and urban fantasy.

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Some people make exhaustive lists before they start writing. They chart things and color code them and write them on cards. I'm not one of them.

For me, world-building comes as an extension of character development, and I only know things about my world that my character does. The details come in a sieve-trickle, revealed as they become pertinent to the story. Of course, once a fact has been established, I'm com

Striving for Perfection

Striving for absolute shiny perfection is the worst thing for me.

No, really. My idea of perfection is just a little too perfect. I could go mad, trying to write the Platonic ideal story; I know I could. I could work and work and work on the same story until the stars grow cold, and never feel as if I was finished with it.

So I don't try to make any single story perfect. I know it's never going to happen. My brain can always think of something more that's required.

What I do instead is work my way

The Faces of World War One

This post originated as a guest post for Lust in Time in December, 2008.

I rarely use photographs to give me character ideas, though occasionally after the story is in progress, or finished, I realize the character looks like a particular person. I do use photographs a lot, though, to both see details of clothing and weapons and to just get a feel for the period, and sometimes for inspiration. I like portraits best. I wonder what the people were thinking, and what their lives were like.

Here are s

On writing The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover

This post originated as a guest post for Lust in Time in December, 2008.

The inspiration for The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover was in a contest; I think it was in 2001. I am often inspired to write something by a call for submissions, even today. There was a five dollar fee, and you had to submit the story on a diskette, so it was rather a pain, but the prize was $1000. I believe the theme was "danger," though I might be remembering wrong; it doesn't matter now, because the story d