Tag Archives: Reading

Thought of the Week: Supporting Independent Artists

I’d like to introduce you to a favorite music genre of mine: doom metal. If you haven’t heard of it, don’t worry—it’s not the sort of music that’s likely to show up on the Billboard Top 100 any time soon. You have to hunt for it, though not too far—there’s a lot to be found. The incredibly dedicated website doom-metal.com has nearly 2,000 bands listed that classify as doom metal of some kind.

Doom metal itself has its roots in the late seventies/early eighties, and is defined by Wikipedia as:

… an extreme form of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much “thicker” or “heavier” sound than other metal genres.

Doom metal can be split into a variety of sub-genres (sub-sub-genres?), including (again according to doom-metal.com) atmospheric doom, death doom, epic doom, funeral doom, sludge doom and stoner doom. Many of these have overlapping elements, and I wouldn’t blame the uninitiated for failing to understand how funeral doom can have death metal elements, yet not be classified as ‘death doom’. In fact, to the untrained ear most doom metal would likely sound similar: heavy guitars, thumping bass, and comparatively slow tempos.

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The Redemption of Erâth: Stalling

As I sit here in my basement, cold and hungry, four empty mugs sitting on the desk beside me, it occurs to me that I’m doing just about everything I can to not write any more of The Redemption of Erâth: Ancients and Death. I tinkered with this website all morning (do you like it?), updated my status on Facebook and Twitter a bit, watched some of Alexandra Corinth’s book videos (well-worth the watch, by the way), and twiddled my thumbs.

It seems I’m stalling.

I feel depressed about the whole thing (outside of my usual depression). I don’t like where I’m going with the book, which is unfortunate because it all started so promising. Elven was on his own, there were some very disturbing deaths, and he came to a new kingdom and became a part of the country there. I enjoyed the writing, and enjoyed the story. Elỳn’s magic came to the front, and was spectacular.

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Thought of the Week: Fame and Humanity

A thing happened last week that did something for me I’ve not been able to achieve myself for a lifetime. It rekindled my faith in my own abilities, in a way; it made me rethink what it means to achieve success, and how one goes about it. It made me think twice about myself and my craft.

I was spoken to by a famous person.

In case you forgot (or didn’t read—shame on you!), last week I posted a review of the book Her: A Memoir by Christa Parravani. In it, I described how I was heartbroken and torn by her story, and that I was likely to worry about her and her family for some time. I wrote these words for you, my readers, and like I often do, I shared my heart.

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