Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 36

A Diary without Dates, Enid Bagnold – WWI Challenge

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My most recent book for The WWI Challenge was Enid Bagnold’s A Diary Without Dates, which is out of copyright and available for free download. It’s a famous work (the author also wrote National Velvet) and one I’ve meant to read for some time. I’m glad the challenge gave me a push!

Bagnold worked as a V.A.D. at the beginning of the war, but after this memoir was published, she was dismissed because her writing was seen as too critical of the hospital administration. She then volunteered a...

Language Linkgasm

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Speech Accent Archive at George Mason University.

“Golgotha,” Siegfried Sassoon

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Golgotha

Through darkness curves a spume of falling flares

That flood the field with shallow, blanching light.

The huddled sentry stares

On gloom at war with white,

And white receding slow, submerged in gloom.

Guns into mimic thunder burst and boom,

And mirthless laughter rakes the whistling night.

The sentry keeps his watch where no one stirs

But the brown rats, the nimble scavengers.

–Siegfried Sassoon

The Old Huntsman and Other Poems, 1918

Some Practical Worldbuilding Techniques

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I recently was asked about worldbuilding. To answer the question, I wrote up a list of techniques I’ve used, and seen used, that I thought would be generally helpful, whether you’re writing historical fiction or speculative fiction (or even fiction in a contemporary setting). These are not all the techniques there are; just a few I’ve been considering lately.



–In dialogue, take note when your supernatural beings come up in conversation, particularly if one or both of the speaking characte...

Stable! Boy!

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Evidence! I wasn’t the first person to think stableboys are hot. ETA: Though it has been pointed out to me that the stableboy looks like a black man…which makes the term “boy” racist, and much squickier. ETA2: and Martha Wells has found a source on the book – Beacon Books, 1954, and it is listed as “inter-racial” romance. Fascinating.

“Conscientious Objector,” Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Conscientious Objector

I shall die, but

that is all that I shall do for Death.

I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;

I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.

He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,

business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.

But I will not hold the bridle

while he clinches the girth.

And he may mount by himself:

I will not give him a leg up.

Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,

I will not tell him which way the fox ran.

With his hoof on my breast, I will n...

“When I’m among a Blaze of Lights,” Siegfried Sassoon

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When I’m among a Blaze of Lights

When I’m among a blaze of lights,

With tawdry music and cigars

And women dawdling through delights,

And officers in cocktail bars,

Sometimes I think of garden nights

And elm trees nodding at the stars.

I dream of a small firelit room

With yellow candles burning straight,

And glowing pictures in the gloom,

And kindly books that hold me late.

Of things like these I choose to think

When I can never be alone:

Then someone says ‘Another drink?’

And turns my living heart to...

Periphery anthology re-release

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I’m at WisCon this weekend – which also means I can visit two of my favorite stores ever, A Room of One’s Own and The Soap Opera.

Also, the Periphery anthology – lesbian science fiction edited by Lynne Jamneck – has been re-released in a wide variety of e-formats. My story “Silver Skin,” which is really three very short stories tied together with additional material, is in the anthology.

Full Table of Contents:

Origins | Marianne de Pierres

The Voyage Out | Gwyneth Jones

They Came From Next D...

My WisCon 2012 schedule

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If you’re attending WisCon this weekend, you can find me at the following panels:

Anti-Heroism Defined

Fri, 4:00–5:15 pm, Room 629

Moderator: Victoria Janssen; Rosemary / Sophy; Kelly Sue DeConnick; Lesley Hall; Chris Hill

What is an anti-hero, and what makes a character an anti-hero? How do you know an anti-hero when you see one? Can an anti-hero become a regular garden-variety hero, and if so, how? What is the appeal of an anti-hero? Are anti-heroes more realistic than heroes, and how does...

Guest Post Roundup – Heroes & Heartbreakers, The Criminal Element

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I haven’t done this in a while; here are my recent posts over at Heroes & Heartbreakers and The Criminal Element.

A bit of commentary on Jo Goodman’s A Place Called Home (romance).

Alyssa Everett’s Ruined by Rumor (romance).

Edge of Light by Cynthia Justin (romance).

Historical Mysteries in the Aftermath of World War One.

Boys of Summer, edited by Steve Berman (romance).

Fatal Induction by Bernadette Pajer (mystery).

Hunting the Shadows by Alexia Reed (romance).

Lynn Shepherd’s The Solitary Hous...