Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 79

Spotlight on Shveta Thakrar

I first met fantasy writer Shveta Thakrar when her writing group invited me to give a reading or talk about my writing. I chose to answer their questions about writing and my experiences with publishing, and a good time was had by all. My life is the richer for the friends I made that day.I was thinking about Shveta's journal recently as I gave advice to someone about their blog. Shveta

Reading Lessons

One of the reasons for my reading vacation was to refill my brain with stuff that I will, eventually, use to write. Letting new water seep into the well, as it were. Eventually, I will write again, and I don't want to have to dig that writing out of the dry and cracked ground of my brain with a pickaxe.(Another reason was that if I didn't get some hermit-time, I was going to start banging

Linkgasm of Fun

...sounds naughty, doesn't it?It's been a while since I posted a linkgasm, and in keeping with my recent week of vacation, here are some fun websites.Paula's Art and Illustration includes links to a large number of Flickr groups for vintage photos and illustrations.Old Time Candy from the 1950s on. I haven't yet ordered anything from them, but I have been tempted. It could be research.Radio Guy

Books Books Books

I had the most awesome vacation ever. Also, it was cheap!I traveled in my imagination, just like those library posters always told me I could. For an entire week, I did nothing much but read.I could very easily do it again. Right now.I began with White Cat by Holly Black, which I think is her best book so far (Though Valiant remains my favorite of her novels.) For such a short novel, it packs

Reading Vacation!

I am on vacation this week, and so is my blog. (Its first vacation ever!)I'll resume posting on November 1. If all goes well, at some point during November, the blog will migrate to my website URL as part of the website reorganization. I'll put pointers here for a bit after that happens, so hopefully there won't be too much discombobulation.I'm not going anywhere in particular for my vacation,

"Only a Boche," Robert Service

Only a BocheWe brought him in from between the lines: we'd better have let him lie;For what's the use of risking one's skin for a tyke that's going to die?What's the use of tearing him loose under a gruelling fire,When he's shot in the head, and worse than dead, and all messed up on the wire?However, I say, we brought him in. Diable! The mud was bad;The trench was crooked and greasy and high, and

My New Socks!

A friend knitted me these socks. I am so excited. For many months, it was only one sock (she has two small children, and I was impressed she even finished one of them). Then I mentioned my sock again, and she finished the other one. Aren't they beautiful?The socks are relevant because I plan to wear them while sitting at home writing. I think they will make me an absolutely brilliant

Staying on Top of Blog Reading

I could easily spend hours every day reading other people's blog posts. Plus, I'm always finding new blogs, often through interesting links I'm given on Twitter or LiveJournal. After a long weekend, where I may or may not have gone online, it gets worse.I add links to my blog reader probably a lot more often than is good for me. Luckily, not every blog has a new post every day, or even every

Talent versus Marketability

All of us are good at something. Sometimes the hard part is recognizing what we're good at, and not only what we're good at, but what we're really good at. You can be good at a lot of things, but only one or two of those things sing.For a writer, fiction that sings is the fiction that engages and involves people on a deeper level than most of their everyday reading. Naturally, that varies

Author Headshots

Behold! I have headshots! Well, really, head-and-torso-shots.Tell me in comments which one you like best, and why. Thanks!All photos by Kyle Cassidy.