Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 80

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.

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