Siegfried Sassoon, "Dead Musicians"

Posted on May 16, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

Dead Musicians

I
From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart,
The substance of my dreams took fire.
You built cathedrals in my heart,
And lit my pinnacled desire.
You were the ardour and the bright
Procession of my thoughts toward prayer.
You were the wrath of storm, the light
On distant citadels aflare.

II
Great names, I cannot find you now
In these loud years of youth that strives
Through doom toward peace: upon my brow
I wear a wreath of banished lives.
You have no part with lads who fought
And laughed and suffered at my side.
Your fugues and symphonies have brought
No memory of my friends who died.

III
For when my brain is on their track,
In slangy speech I call them back.
With fox-trot tunes their ghosts I charm.
‘Another little drink won’t do us any harm.’
I think of rag-time; a bit of rag-time;
And see their faces crowding round
To the sound of the syncopated beat.
They’ve got such jolly things to tell,
Home from hell with a Blighty wound so neat…

. . . .

And so the song breaks off; and I’m alone.
They’re dead … For God’s sake stop that gramophone.

–Siegfried Sassoon, Counter-Attack and Other Poems, 1918

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Pirate Romance For The Win!

Posted on May 15, 2009 by Victoria Janssen


I think romances with pirates in them, or at least sea adventure, have some of the best backcover copy ever.

These are best enjoyed if read with great expression and appropriate emphasis on any use of pirate/sea/sailing terminology. Bonus emphasis on the word pirate whenever it occurs.

And if you have other examples, please share!

1. Susan Grant, Once A Pirate
Love Spell Timeswept, November 2006

Once A Pirate

Andrew Spencer sailed the seas seeking revenge and there were very few merchant’s treasures that he hadn’t given a jolly rogering. But on this particular voyage, he found his task harder than usual. As a brown-eyed beauty was hoisted from the waves, he found his pirate’s soul plundered from without and a fiery need conjured up from within.

Forever Her Man

The freak storm that caused her plane to go down in the Atlantic sent fighter pilot Carly Callahan’s life spinning out of control as well. Pulled from the freezing ocean, she found herself in the hot embrace of an Adonis. But his eyes were cold and hard, and the man’s burning lips swore she was someone else before he claimed her as his own. Carly knew she had one chance to go home, but there was so much to see and feel here–and the best was yet to come.

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2. Jennifer Ashley, Perils of the Heart
Leisure, November 2002

Uncharted Territory

Evangeline Clemens knew she tread in dangerous waters. Sent to seduce the captain of the merchantman Aurora, the English governess trembled in her innocence. Her stepbrother’s life–and the life of the rugged sailor she must tempt–depended on her success. She swore to surrender her body, her virtue…anything Austin Blackwell demanded. But she never expected to relinquish her heart.

On a mission for the American Colonies, Austin suspected the timid temptress was a skilled spy ordered to sabotage his plans. She played the part of an untried miss to perfection, her inexperienced fumbling driving him wild with desire. But after sampling her sweetness, after one harrowing night fraught with passion and peril, the commander vowed to navigate any course to discover the truth. For his soul mutinied at the prospect of sailing into the future without the courageous lady at his side.

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3. Claudia Dain, Tell Me Lies
Leisure, March 2000

They were pirates–lawless, merciless, hungry. Only one way offered hope of escaping death, and worse, at their hands. Their captain must claim her for his own, risk his command, his ship, his very life, to take her.

And so she put her soul into a seduction like no other–a virgin, playing the whore in a desperate bid for survival. As the blazing sun descended into the wide blue sea, she was alone, gazing into the eyes of the man who must lay his heart at her feet….

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4. Julie Garwood, Guardian Angel
Pocket, 1990

The Emerald flew across the seas, carrying the pirate Pagan–despised by the ton, whose riches he plundered, and beloved by the poor, whose plight was eased by his gifts.

The Marquess of Cainewood vows to hunt down the pirate wretch in revenge for his brother’s death. But when Jade, an enchanting vision of rippling red hair and eyes of jewel-green, appears at his door to beg desperately for his protection, the Marquess agrees to keep her safe from the villains who want her dead. Jade is infuriating, exasperating, and gorgeous; Caine is noble, strong-willed, and powerful. No woman has ever befuddled him so, nor so deeply aroused his desire. But as Jade answers his knowing caresses with an innocent, wild abandon, they are drawn into a web of treachery that will test the very heart of their love!

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Werewolves in Moonlight Mistress

Posted on May 14, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

The first thing I like about werewolves is that, unlike vampires, they are alive. And they will eat you. All up.

Second, I like the fur. Who wouldn’t? Warm, furry werewolf to snuggle up to at night? And when they purr…oh, wait. That’s cats. Well, you get the idea. Can any romance heroine resist digging her fingers into her werewolf boyfriend’s plush pelage?

Third, I like that erotic wet dog smell…no, wait. The rich odor of raw meat…wait. Oh, yeah. That wonderful scent of pine forests and crisp mountain breezes.

Really, none of those things show up in Moonlight Mistress. What I like about werewolves are the same things I like about wolves. Wolves love their families. Wolves can be playful. Wolves put females in charge of many important duties, such as locating suitable dens with adequate nearby food supplies and controlling the pack’s matings and thus its future genetic health. For that reason, I’m rarely fond of werewolf heroes in romance who are overwhelmingly dominant.

Those are the traits I borrowed for my werewolves in Moonlight Mistress. The first werewolf character is female, and though so far her attempts to start a family have been disastrous, it’s an important goal for her; in their world, werewolves are rare, and must be born rather than made. The second werewolf character, male, is a bit of a rake but that behavior is related to his search for another werewolf with whom he can create a family. He’s playful, and willing to let her control him in certain things. Their shared goal leads to her accepting a marriage of convenience, so they can have children who are also werewolves. Someday, I’d like to write a novel about their marriage of convenience and how it progresses, which wasn’t within the scope of Moonlight Mistress.

Related post:

Of Wolves and Men.

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Of Wolves and Men

Posted on May 13, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

This post includes some of my research on wolves, for Moonlight Mistress.

I particularly liked Of Wolves and Men by Barry Holstun Lopez, because it featured a lot of observations he and others had made in the wild. The book is from Charles Scribner’s Sons, NY, 1978.

Some quotes:
p. 53 “Wolves do not get hungry in the way we normally understand hunger. Their feeding habits and digestive systems are adapted to a feast-or-famine existence and to procuring and processing massive amounts of food in a relatively short time. They are more or less always hungry. Wolves commonly go without food for three or four days and then gorge, eating as much as eighteen pounds of meat at one sitting.” Digestion then takes 2-3 hours.

“A Russian record reports a wolf going without food for seventeen days….”

p. 54 “Wolves consume an average of 5-10 pounds of meat a day and wash it down with large quantities of water to prevent uremic poisoning from the high production of urea associated with a meat diet. The wolf has a large liver and pancreas to aid digestion….”

p. 59 “If the prey runs, it is almost certain to be chased. If it refuses to run, or approaches the wolves, it may be left alone…signals, perhaps, between predator and prey.”

p. 67 .”The wolf seems to have few relationships with other animals that could be termed purely social, though he apparently takes pleasure in the company of ravens.”

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Resting, or Not-Writing

Posted on May 12, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

There’s an expression British actors use: when they’re out of work, they don’t say that they’re unemployed, they say that they’re “resting.” I like that for more than one reason.

“Resting” is an active verb. You’re doing something if you’re resting. In other words, if I’m not writing, I am resting. I am making an effort to not-write.

(Remember how I keep saying writing is all about psyching yourself into it?)

Things happen when I’m resting. My conscious mind might not be grinding away at a story, but I feel that underneath, story is happening, coalescing from disparate thoughts and experiences like a weird plankton colony. When the colony of ideas is big enough, they show up in my conscious mind, and that’s when I “have an idea.” So to get ideas, I have to rest. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Sometimes, resting seems to happen spontaneously. I don’t mean that I suddenly can’t write; it’s that I suddenly don’t want to write. My creative feelings are knotted together, and every sentence is a struggle, even if I know what I’m supposed to be writing and have a good plan for achieving it. When that happens, if the deadline allows, I stop. I put the writing aside for a few days, or even a week. I allow myself to read books (see yesterday’s post!) and go out and socialize. It isn’t the same feeling as when I’ve just finished a novel and am completely empty; it’s more of a tense waiting feeling. That’s when I know I need rest.

Once I give myself permission to stop for a little while, a level of tension vanishes. And when I go back to writing, my love of writing and of my story is renewed.

Related Posts: Synergy in Writing and Research, Reading for the Writer, and Shopping and Recharging. The Art of Waiting.

Posted in writing process | 5 Comments

Reading For The Writer

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

One of the most important things I do as a writer is read.

I don’t think it’s possible to become a writer unless you’re a reader first, and for most writers, reading is as integral to their development as writing itself.

But what should a writer read?

The short answer is everything. That, of course, isn’t really possible; and also, writing takes up a great deal of time, so reading time has to be prioritized in the same way. So. Allow me to pontificate on this subject.

First, a writer reads in the genre she is writing. That only makes sense. You needs to know what’s there so you don’t write the same story as everyone else. I think it’s important to read what are considered the best examples of your subgenre, because the best books can give you something to strive for. However, the worst examples are important, too; the “worst” books might be doing something new and exciting, even if it didn’t work out in the end, and they might inspire you even more than the “best” books.

I also think it’s important to know the history of your genre, particularly the early examples of it: for instance, Regency authors ought to at least have read Jane Austen, who actually wrote during their period, and Georgette Heyer, who recreated the period for a modern audience. Authors of paranormal romance might find it useful to read non-romantic fantasy. Fringe examples are also useful. For example, Mary Stewart wrote an early example of a paranormal romance, Touch Not the Cat. Nora Roberts also wrote some paranormal romances long before the current boom. Early and fringe examples can reinvigorate a writer’s idea of what their genre is and can be.

Reading classics can’t hurt, either. Great themes in literature usually remain great themes, and can provide fodder for your future work. If you’ve read Jane Eyre or Pamela or Persuasion, even if you’re not consciously using that knowledge when writing a historical romance, unconsciously it might make a difference by giving your work a little extra depth or resonance.

From a directly practical standpoint, reading is also an important part of learning to write, if you can remember to read as a writer and not solely as a reader. How do other writers handle pacing and transitions, and how they balance between telling and showing? How do they depict character traits? Describe things? Express themes? What can you learn from their plot structure? Do they use any interesting vocabulary that’s new to you? What makes you angry about the book, and makes you want to write a better/different book in reaction?

Writers, what do you read?

Related Post: Synergy in Writing and Research.

Posted in reading, research, writing, writing craft | 2 Comments

Siegfried Sassoon, "The Investiture"

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

The Investiture

God with a Roll of Honour in His hand
Sits welcoming the heroes who have died,
While sorrowless angels ranked on either side
Stand easy in Elysium’s meadow-land.
Then you come shyly through the garden gate,
Wearing a blood-soaked bandage on your head;
And God says something kind because you’re dead,
And homesick, discontented with your fate.

If I were there we’d snowball Death with skulls;
Or ride away to hunt in Devil’s Wood
With ghosts of puppies that we walked of old.
But you’re alone; and solitude annuls
Our earthly jokes; and strangely wise and good
You roam forlorn along the streets of gold.

–Siegfried Sassoon, Counter-Attack and Other Poems, 1918

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Siegfried Sassoon, "Dreamers"

Posted on May 9, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

Dreamers

Soldiers are citizens of death’s grey land,
Drawing no dividend from time’s to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.

–Siegfried Sassoon, Counter-Attack and Other Poems, 1918

Posted in sassoon, wwi poetry | 1 Comment

Happy Divaversary to Me!

Posted on May 8, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

Happy Divaversary to Me!

Today is the first anniversary of when I joined the Romance Divas, a free forum for writers.

Stop by the forums if you’re interested in why I love this site so much.

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Today is Star Trek Movie Day!

Posted on May 8, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

Mr. Spock (in reruns) was one of my earliest crushes, and the show one of my favorites for many years. Isn’t he yummy? You really need to hear his speaking voice to get the full effect.

I might not get quite the same buzz from the new Star Trek movie, but nostalgia moves me to go and see it anyway. If I don’t like it, I can take the traditional Trekker approach and complain about it bitterly afterwards.

And who knows, maybe I will like the new movie in a whole new way. It’s definitely got some actors I enjoy watching. Sadly, though, I can’t see it tonight–my choir has a dress rehearsal for our Saturday performance. But soon. Soon I shall see it! Soon it shall be mine!

It is illogical to think Friday should be happier than any other day of the week.

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