Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 80

Author Photo Shoot

Since I'm getting my website redone, I knew I had to have an author photo. I've been resisting this for a really long time, since I have chubby chipmunk cheeks and dimples and would much prefer to be dramatic, angular, and perhaps tubercularly pale in the fashion of a Romantic. Also, I tend to have frozen grins.However, needs must, and I did know a photographer in Philadelphia where I live.

e.e. cummings, somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyondany experience,your eyes have their silence:in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,or which i cannot touch because they are too nearyour slightest look will easily unclose methough i have closed myself as fingers,you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first roseor if your wish be to

Edmund Blunden, "Preparations For Victory"

Preparations For VictoryMy soul, dread not the pestilence that hags The valley; flinch not you, my body young. At these great shouting smokes and snarling jags Of fiery iron; as yet may not be flung The dice that claims you. Manly move amongThese ruins, and what you must do, do well; Look, here are gardens, there mossed boughs are hung With apples who bright cheeks none might excel, And there's a

Picking Goals When the Trees Are Autumnal

The time always comes when I have to make new writing goals, but I never like it. Right now, since I'm not under contract, I am at looser ends than usual.My "business" goals are pretty well laid out for right now. I'm getting my author photo done, and my website re-design is in progress, and I've already set up a dozen or so guest blogs in conjunction with the release of my next novel, The Duke

Website Makeover

My website's makeover is in progress. The hard part, for me, was telling the designer what I want. I'm not that great with visual stuff and when I organize things, they tend to spiral on and on and on rather being laid out in tidy grids. Luckily for me, the designer had a questionnaire for me to fill out.It's much easier for me to formulate my website ideas around what I like and dislike

Persuasion 2008 - Short Attention-Span Theater

The 2008 adaptation of Persuasion is good so far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far.Though the acting is excellent, and the settings very historical and scenic, it felt like the postcard version of the novel. It's only ninety minutes long, which explains a lot. The adaptation focuses on the romance between Anne and Frederick and the rest of the characters fade into shallow background, a

Kindle-cising

Sometimes I read while I'm exercising. Usually, it's an article or newsletter I've printed out, so I can discard the pages into recycling when I'm done. Occasionally, I read a magazine, particularly thin ones like the SFWA Bulletin, because they're easy to fold flat.I've noticed that the elliptical trainers at my gym have little ledges that look broad enough to support a Kindle or other

Novelists, Inc. Guest Post

I'm a guest poster today at the Novelists, Inc. Blog on "For Love or Money?"Please drop by and check it out!

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, "Between the Lines"

Between the LinesWhen consciousness came back, he found he layBetween the opposing fires, but could not tellOn which hand were his friends; and either wayFor him to turn was chancy--bullet and shellWhistling and shrieking over him, as the glareOf searchlights scoured the darkness to blind day.He scrambled to his hands and knees ascare,Dragging his wounded foot through puddled clay,And tumbled in

Edward Thomas, "Lights Out"

Lights OutI have come to the borders of sleep,The unfathomable deepForest where all must loseTheir way, however straight,Or winding, soon or late;They cannot choose.Many a road and trackThat, since the dawn's first crack,Up to the forest brink,Deceived the travellers,Suddenly now blurs,And in they sink.Here love ends,Despair, ambition ends,All pleasure and all trouble,Although most sweet or