Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 64
April 10, 2011
"The One-Legged Man," Siegfried Sassoon
The One-Legged Man
Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald;
Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls;
A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stalked field,
And sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls.
And he'd come home again to find it more
Desirable than ever it was before.
How right it seemed that he should reach the span
Of comfortable years allowed to man!
Splendid to eat and sleep and choose a wife,
Safe with his wound, a citizen of life.
He hobbled blithely through the garden g...
April 8, 2011
Digital Publishing Linkgasm
There have been some interesting and very substantial articles recently that go deeper into issues of digital publishing and how it's affecting and possibly might affect the print publishing market.
Romance author Stephanie Laurens wrote a 7-part, very thoughtful commentary on recent changes in publishing, from the point of view of a bestselling author of print genre fiction.
Authors Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath, both of whom do extremely well publishing digitally, discuss "the history a...
April 7, 2011
If You Build It, They Will Come: Worldbuilding in Urban Fantasy
If you missed it on Wednesday, I have a new post on Heroes and Heartbreakers: "If You Build It, They Will Come: Worldbuilding in Urban Fantasy."
April 6, 2011
Paranormal Allegories
I have a post on Heroes and Heartbreakers today: "If You Build It, They Will Come: Worldbuilding in Urban Fantasy."
Now, on to today's post!
What do the paranormal creatures in Paranormal Romance represent? Are they allegories?
You could say, sometimes a gorgon is just a gorgon. I think, though, it's valuable to think about paranormal creatures in fiction as allegories, symbolic representations of things from our own society that we want to examine or critique. I think that writers...
April 4, 2011
Fun With Rhetoric
As I mentioned a while ago, I've been slowly working my way through a book on rhetoric by James Phelan, Experiencing Fiction: Judgments, Progression, and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative.
I'm taking great joy in reading this book and letting the concepts sink into my mind. It's helping me to understand what happens in my mind when I read, and also giving me ideas of how that might help my writing.
Here's a bit of what it's all about:
"Although the theory behind the reading practice...
April 3, 2011
"Arms and the Man," Siegfried Sassoon
Arms and the Man
Young Croesus went to pay his call
On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall:
And, though his wound was healed and mended,
He hoped he'd get his leave extended.
The waiting-room was dark and bare.
He eyed a neat-framed notice there
Above the fireplace hung to show
Disabled heroes where to go
For arms and legs; with scale of price,
And words of dignified advice
How officers could get them free.
Elbow or shoulder, hip or knee,
Two arms, two legs, though all were lost,
They'd be...
April 1, 2011
Change in Publishing Frequency
(No, this is not an April Fool's post!)
Public Service Announcement:
Starting this month, I'm reducing my weekly blog posts from seven to four – in general, I plan to post on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, though the weekday posts might move around a little due to circumstances, or increase for special occasions (for instance, if I have photographs from a conference).
Saturdays will still be poetry days for the near future, and I'll be continuing with World War One poetry for ...
March 31, 2011
Accomplishments This Month
I haven't spent a lot of time writing this month (mostly on purpose), but I did accomplish a few things, most of them very necessary.
1. I bought some books on the craft of writing, which I haven't done in a long while. I've been reading them slowly, and really enjoying thinking about process when for so long, I've simply had to write, without much time for thinking.
2. I wrote several guest posts for different blogs, and figured out processes to keep track of my ideas, what I had...
March 30, 2011
Fashion Magazines and Writing
I have a confession to make.
I subscribe to several fashion magazines.
I keep them in the bathroom, mostly. Sometimes I take them on airplanes.
But, see, they are good for my writing. Really.
Fashion magazines are very image-heavy. They make a nice break from reading prose, and (unlike comics) let my mind wander a bit while I look at them. Fashion photography is often very strange, juxtaposing languid women in sleek outfits with bizarre settings, such as a lipstick factory. Even the m...
March 29, 2011
Coffee, Tea, and Worldbuilding
One component of worldbuilding that's often forgotten is background economics.
Take coffee, for example. Coffee originated in Africa. It wasn't readily available in Europe until after 1616, and didn't start to be cultivated on a large scale by Europeans until near the end of that century. Chocolate and tea both made it to Europe a little earlier, not much. Yet how many times do characters in fantasy novels, who are living in thinly-veiled Medieval Europe, drink coffee? Or if not...
