Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 70
February 7, 2011
My Recent DNFs
DNF is an abbreviation for "Did Not Finish." I know my books have been DNFd by readers; lately, I've had a fair number of DNFs in my own reading.
No, I am not going to name titles or authors! And I'm going to do my best to obscure details so you can't tell which books these were.
1. Too shallow.
I like fluff. But this book was so fluffy that I couldn't take the pov character or her problem seriously. In fact, I felt so manipulated by the author that I was inclined to mock the pov...
February 6, 2011
Siegfried Sassoon, "Secret Music"
Secret Music
I keep such music in my brain
No din this side of death can quell;
Glory exulting over pain,
And beauty, garlanded in hell.
My dreaming spirit will not heed
The roar of guns that would destroy
My life that on the gloom can read
Proud-surging melodies of joy.
To the world's end I went, and found
Death in his carnival of glare;
But in my torment I was crowned,
And music dawned above despair.
–Siegfried Sassoon, The Old Huntsman and Other Poems, 1918
February 5, 2011
Siegfried Sassoon, "Before the Battle"
Before the Battle
Music of whispering trees
Hushed by a broad-winged breeze
Where shaken water gleams;
And evening radiance falling
With reedy bird-notes calling.
O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams.
I have no need to pray
That fear may pass away;
I scorn the growl and rumble of the fight
That summons me from cool
Silence of marsh and pool
And yellow lilies is landed in light
O river of stars and shadows, lead me through the night.
June 25th, 1916
–Siegfried Sassoon, The Old...
February 4, 2011
Stories Available For Nook
I've made several more of my erotic short stories available electronically. These were all originally published under my Elspeth Potter pseudonym.
The following are now available for the Nook:
Poppet. Near-future science fiction. Male/female pairing. Sort of.
Twisted Beauty, about a man who became disabled and is gaining back his sex life. Male/female pairing.
Worship, about an older couple who overcome a disability to revitalize their sex life. Male/female pairing.
February 3, 2011
The Birth of Characters
Tumperkin asked if I would blog about characterization.
Having recently been inspired with a new project, I decided to set down my thoughts while I was still in the thick of creation. The way I form characters changes from project to project, but this is how I came up with characters for this project. Minute by minute! In excruciating detail!
When I said I was recently inspired, that inspiration actually resulted from several months of making lists of items/history/situations/issues I...
February 2, 2011
Thousands of Stories Are Waiting For You…
…in The Agony Column of the Times, 1800-1870, collected by Alice Clay, at the Internet Archive.
If you were lacking in story ideas, you lack no more!
Tuesday, November 10, 1850: E.R.C.—CONSENTS.
Saturday, January 4, 1851: P.P.P. is implored, for mercy's sake, to WRITE AGAIN. If not, your wretched father will be a maniac, and your poor unhappy mother will die brokenhearted.
Monday, January 27, 1851: To C.—it's all right; the danger you apprehended is stopped; nothing is known; every...
February 1, 2011
Shades of Critique
I recently read a novel manuscript for an experienced novelist; this novelist has turned the manuscript in to the editor, but it's not yet in its final version. That made me think about critiquing, and all the different shades of critique depending on what the author needs.
How deeply do you read? What aspects of the story do you focus upon?
First and foremost, I tailor the critique to what the author has asked for, which is often related to the state of the manuscript. In this case, it's ...
January 31, 2011
Writing About Writing When You're Writing
I hadn't been writing for a while when I started up again a week or so ago. There are a lot of reasons, among them needing a break, coming up with my next big project (still working on that!), and achieving distance from a project so I could rework it into another form.
All those things take up a lot of my backbrain, which means that I haven't been consciously thinking about writing very much, lately. Which is why I haven't been writing about it much lately, either.
It's hard for me to...
January 30, 2011
Siegfried Sassoon, "The Heritage"
The Heritage
Cry out on Time that he may take away
Your cold philosophies that give no hint
Of spirit-quickened flesh; fall down and pray
That Death come never with a face of flint:
Death is our heritage; with Life we share
The sunlight that must own his darkening hour:
Within his very presence yet we dare
To gather gladness like a fading flower.
For even as this, our joy not long may live
Perfect; and most in change the heart can trace
The miracle of life and human things:
All we have held to ...
January 29, 2011
Edgell Rickword, "Winter Warfare"
Winter Warfare
Colonel Cold strode up the Line
(tabs of rime and spurs of ice);
stiffened all that met his glare:
horses, men and lice.
Visited a forward post,
left them burning, ear to foot;
fingers stuck to biting steel,
toes to frozen boot.
Stalked on into No Man's Land,
turned the wire to fleecy wool,
iron stakes to sugar sticks
snapping at a pull.
Those who watched with hoary eyes
saw two figures gleaming there;
Hauptmann Kalte, colonel old,
gaunt in the grey air.
Stiffly, tinkling spurs...
