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355 results for “fathomier”
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Gundam will be showing at some theaters.
Iron Blooded Orphans: Urdr Hunt, and Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz will show one after the other in a double feature. Some nights, the dub. Some nights, the sub.
Check below for avail.
https://www.fathomentertainment.com/releases/gundam-premiere-night/
#Anime #Gundam #Animation #IronBloodedOrphans #GundamWing #Mecha #Action #SciFi
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In over a month, #ParaNorman will be returning to theaters, remastered. But with an extra surprise added in. Before the movie, a 3D short will be shown called The Thrifting. With Anna Kendrick reprising Courtney. And Finn Wolfhard in an undisclosed part.
The movie will be back in cinemas Oct 25-28. Check Fathom for locations.
🖼️ Laika
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He did not stop on the steps either, but went quickly down; his soul, overflowing with rapture, yearned for freedom, space, openness. The vault of heaven, full of soft, shining stars, stretched vast and fathomless above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from the zenith to the horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the earth.
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He did not stop on the steps either, but went quickly down; his soul, overflowing with rapture, yearned for freedom, space, openness. The vault of heaven, full of soft, shining stars, stretched vast and fathomless above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from the zenith to the horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the earth.
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He did not stop on the steps either, but went quickly down; his soul, overflowing with rapture, yearned for freedom, space, openness. The vault of heaven, full of soft, shining stars, stretched vast and fathomless above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from the zenith to the horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the earth.
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He did not stop on the steps either, but went quickly down; his soul, overflowing with rapture, yearned for freedom, space, openness. The vault of heaven, full of soft, shining stars, stretched vast and fathomless above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from the zenith to the horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the earth.
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He did not stop on the steps either, but went quickly down; his soul, overflowing with rapture, yearned for freedom, space, openness. The vault of heaven, full of soft, shining stars, stretched vast and fathomless above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from the zenith to the horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the earth.
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Legend has it that the Scottish flag came into being before a battle when the sun shining through the clouds formed what's known as St Andrew's cross, and blessed the Scots with certain victory.
Total myth of course. The flag design in fact originates from Scotland being a land of rock, sheep and fathomless bog. The warning sign to travellers "pass ye not the bog" was an obvious form for the national flag to take to warn off the English.
From today's bog walk:
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⚓️ Last Salute to the Commodore (Columbo, season five, episode six, May 1976) closed the season with a bizarre story directed by Peter Falk’s friend and trusted collaborator Patrick McGoohan, star of cult 1960s series The Prisoner. Commodore is divisive fare and many fans would gladly see it sunk to the fathomless deeps never to be seen again! Any fans?
www.speckled.band
#columbo #peterfalk #television #tv #tvshow #PoliceDrama #1970s #70s #patrickmcgoohan #theprisoner #DangerMan #prisoner
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The Reverend Richard Coles (no relation), former Communard, ordained priest, broadcaster and TV celebrity recently turned his hand to writing murder mysteries. I bought his first crime novel, Murder Before Evensong, featuring Canon Daniel Clement, a couple of years ago but only got around to reading it recently. It caught my eye for two reasons, one that I am quite partial to whodunnits, and the other that I read and enjoyed the first volume of the author’s autobiography, Fathomless Riches, which showed him to be a very good writer.
As you might have guessed, Murder Before Evensong, is a kind of homage to the old-school Agatha Christie village murder typical of the Miss Marple stories. Murder at the Vicarage came immediately to mind when I first saw the book, but the story is not set so far in the past – more eighties than thirties. Richard Coles is also far wittier than Agatha Christie, with a definite touch of PG Wodehouse in his style. When I got into the book it reminded me very much of the original Midsomer Murders novels written by Caroline Graham, which I think are excellent; with somewhat whimsical plots, and populated with somewhat eccentric characters; the long-running TV series has long since run out of ideas, and is now tired and formulaic, but the books on which it is based are very good indeed. Like the original Inspector Barnaby stories, Murder Before Evensong is very funny in places, but less of a parody and more of an affectionate tribute to the genre. Coles also writes movingly about grief, and its effect on a close-knit rural community, no doubt informed by his own personal life and experiences as a parish priest. Canon Clement obviously has a lot of Richard Coles in him, including a love of dachsunds.
It’s difficult to review a murder mystery without giving a way the plot, so I’ll just say that it is well constructed. I narrowed the list of possibilities down to two very early on, and was proven right, but I didn’t really get the motive right.
Anyway, it’s an enjoyable read and recommended for enthusiasts. I gather that more Canon Clement stories are on the way. That reminds me of a line in an episode of Midsomer Murders, when Barnaby is joined by a new Detective Sergeant, just up from London, who is immediately plunged into the investigation of a killing spree. He turns to his Chief Inspector and says words to the effect of ‘For a small village there are a lot of murders around here’ to which Barnaby raises an eyebrow and says ‘Yes, that has been remarked upon…’
https://telescoper.blog/2024/07/19/murder-before-evensong-by-the-reverend-richard-coles/
#AgathaChristie #bookReview #Books #CarolineGraham #DetectiveFiction #MidsomerMurders #MurderBeforeEvensong #mystery #ReverendRichardColes
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The Reverend Richard Coles (no relation), former Communard, ordained priest, broadcaster and TV celebrity recently turned his hand to writing murder mysteries. I bought his first crime novel, Murder Before Evensong, featuring Canon Daniel Clement, a couple of years ago but only got around to reading it recently. It caught my eye for two reasons, one that I am quite partial to whodunnits, and the other that I read and enjoyed the first volume of the author’s autobiography, Fathomless Riches, which showed him to be a very good writer.
As you might have guessed, Murder Before Evensong, is a kind of homage to the old-school Agatha Christie village murder typical of the Miss Marple stories. Murder at the Vicarage came immediately to mind when I first saw the book, but the story is not set so far in the past – more eighties than thirties. Richard Coles is also far wittier than Agatha Christie, with a definite touch of PG Wodehouse in his style. When I got into the book it reminded me very much of the original Midsomer Murders novels written by Caroline Graham, which I think are excellent; with somewhat whimsical plots, and populated with somewhat eccentric characters; the long-running TV series has long since run out of ideas, and is now tired and formulaic, but the books on which it is based are very good indeed. Like the original Inspector Barnaby stories, Murder Before Evensong is very funny in places, but less of a parody and more of an affectionate tribute to the genre. Coles also writes movingly about grief, and its effect on a close-knit rural community, no doubt informed by his own personal life and experiences as a parish priest. Canon Clement obviously has a lot of Richard Coles in him, including a love of dachsunds.
It’s difficult to review a murder mystery without giving a way the plot, so I’ll just say that it is well constructed. I narrowed the list of possibilities down to two very early on, and was proven right, but I didn’t really get the motive right.
Anyway, it’s an enjoyable read and recommended for enthusiasts. I gather that more Canon Clement stories are on the way. That reminds me of a line in an episode of Midsomer Murders, when Barnaby is joined by a new Detective Sergeant, just up from London, who is immediately plunged into the investigation of a killing spree. He turns to his Chief Inspector and says words to the effect of ‘For a small village there are a lot of murders around here’ to which Barnaby raises an eyebrow and says ‘Yes, that has been remarked upon…’
https://telescoper.blog/2024/07/19/murder-before-evensong-by-the-reverend-richard-coles/
#AgathaChristie #bookReview #Books #CarolineGraham #DetectiveFiction #MidsomerMurders #MurderBeforeEvensong #mystery #ReverendRichardColes
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Box Office - February 2-4, 2024: ARGYLLE, THE CHOSEN, THE BEEKEEPER, & More
#FilmBook #AmericanFiction #AnyoneButYou #AquamanandtheLostKingdom #Argylle #BoxOffice #FathomEvents #MeanGirls #MGM #Migration #MovieNews #ParamountPictures #PoorThings #SearchlightPictures #SonyPictures #TheBeekeeper #TheChosen #UniversalPictures #WarnesBros. #Wonka
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I've released Pythia, an open source web API/service for running #MachineLearning inference on images using #yolov5. The repo and instructions for running your own model are at https://github.com/mbari-org/pythia. We have a demo sever UI running on a small VM at http://fathomnet.org:7777 that can id #deepsea #benthic animals off the coast of California.
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I've released Pythia, an open source web API/service for running #MachineLearning inference on images using #yolov5. The repo and instructions for running your own model are at https://github.com/mbari-org/pythia. We have a demo sever UI running on a small VM at http://fathomnet.org:7777 that can id #deepsea #benthic animals off the coast of California.
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I've released Pythia, an open source web API/service for running #MachineLearning inference on images using #yolov5. The repo and instructions for running your own model are at https://github.com/mbari-org/pythia. We have a demo sever UI running on a small VM at http://fathomnet.org:7777 that can id #deepsea #benthic animals off the coast of California.
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I've released Pythia, an open source web API/service for running #MachineLearning inference on images using #yolov5. The repo and instructions for running your own model are at https://github.com/mbari-org/pythia. We have a demo sever UI running on a small VM at http://fathomnet.org:7777 that can id #deepsea #benthic animals off the coast of California.
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Desaster – Kill All Idols Review
By Steel Druhm
Every 4 years or so, Germany’s rabid blackened thrash slime eaters Desaster drop a new album on the revolted masses. Their berserk take on speed borrows greatly from the original Destruction EP, Sentence of Death, and they festoon the unhinged recklessness with blackened blisters and classic heavy metal influences for a sound that slaps, slices, and shits on your floor. It’s not subtle, nor is it “thinking man’s music.” Instead, it murders the thinking part of your brain and activates the most base and perverse instincts. On odious gems like Divine Blasphemies and The Arts of Destruction, they pour all the world’s bile and crust-poo into a pressure cooker, cover the steam valve, and turn it to 12. The resulting explosion is predictable and unsurvivable. At their best, Desaster bring a level of sheer mayhem few bands can match. Will 10th album, Kill All Idols be another nuclear crematorium eruption, or has advanced age finally slowed the bloodlust of these inveterate axe murderers?
Speaking of a lack of subtlety, things open savagely with “Great Repulsive Force,” and damn if it doesn’t live up to its moniker. This is ferocious blackened thrash with absolutely no fucks given. It tries to turn your ears into gumpaste with blasting speed and subhuman vocals before sliding into a doomy mid-tempo slog, and just as you breathe a sigh of relief, the blinding speed and deathhammers are back for the attack. It’s the entire Desaster experience distilled into a 3-plus-minute toxic gummy slug. It segues seamlessly into “Emanations of the Profane,” which prominently features their penchant for slick traditional metal riffing overlaid by vocals that foam at the mouth, nostrils, and nipples. The bouncingly jaunty riffs pair well with the extreme vocal terror, and there’s a weirdly joyous vibe to the whole thing that almost conceals the hideousness of the purgatorial abominations it summons. It’s macabre yet unnaturally appealing (much like this here blog).
Other classic Desaster disasters include the rough n’ raw “Towards Oblivion,” which sounds like early 1980s Sodom grossly copulating with the prize-winning filth-hog at the Iowa State Fair as thousands of appalled spectators look on.1 The lead riff is especially tasty and sticks in the mind trap quickly. The title track sounds like classic Desaster trying to steal 664 of Bütcher’s 666 goats for a sleazy goat swap party, and the brutish, unrefined caveman thrash flies at unsafe speeds. Songs that didn’t hit hard immediately due to their reliance on milder traditional metal idioms, like “Fathomless Victory,” soon grew on me because of their cool, creepy mood. Yet not everything sticks like blood blasphemy on the church wall. The short and ugly “They are the Law” is a by-the-numbers speedster that lacks memory anchors, and penultimate track “Stellar Remnant” is too mellow for a Desaster release, even though vocalist Sataniac does his best to compel you with his lunatic theatrics. That these two cuts ride side-by-side creates a late-album valley that the interesting instrumental outro can’t recover from. At 40 minutes, Kill All Idols packs about 33 minutes of successful Bathory bathing in moldy Sodom Sauce, and that’s not a terrible ratio.
As ever, Sataniac is the star attraction of this unholy freak show. The dude is one of the most unhinged vocalists in metal, and though he must be getting up there in years, he still sounds like a complete nutter on a nut-finding expedition. Blackened snarls, proto-death roars, hysterical screams, throaty bellows; he uses them all and sometimes all in the same lyrical refrain. He always sounds like he’s being recorded from a nervous hospital, and on the best tracks, he adds to the body count. On the lesser tracks, he still stacks corpses like a remorseless corpse staker, and for his efforts, he should be canonized by the fucking Pope while alive. Left-hand man, Infernal does his best to keep pace with unending thrash and black metal leads, and when he isn’t burning up the fretboard, he’s tossing out stadium-rocking trad metal riffs. The only impediment to the album is the uneven songcraft, which drops the severed head from time to time.
Desaster will always have a special slot in the Crypt ov Steel, and there’s always grotesque fun to be found on their albums. Kill All Idols is a small step down from 2021s Churches Without Saints, and it seems their wellspring of demonic inspiration is slowly bleeding out, but the hellfire burns bright enough to score some wins. These olde hellhounds still have enough teeth to rip you open, so give this a spin and send bystanders into a terror-tizzy.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Metal Blade
Websites: total-desaster.jimdofree.com | desaster.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/666Desaster666
Releases Worldwide: August 22nd, 2025#2025 #30 #BlackMetal #Bütcher #ChurchesWithoutSaints #Desaster #Destruction #GermanMetal #KillAllIdols #MetalBladeRecords #Review #Reviews #Sodom #TheArtsOfDestruction #ThrashMetal
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Desaster – Kill All Idols Review
By Steel Druhm
Every 4 years or so, Germany’s rabid blackened thrash slime eaters Desaster drop a new album on the revolted masses. Their berserk take on speed borrows greatly from the original Destruction EP, Sentence of Death, and they festoon the unhinged recklessness with blackened blisters and classic heavy metal influences for a sound that slaps, slices, and shits on your floor. It’s not subtle, nor is it “thinking man’s music.” Instead, it murders the thinking part of your brain and activates the most base and perverse instincts. On odious gems like Divine Blasphemies and The Arts of Destruction, they pour all the world’s bile and crust-poo into a pressure cooker, cover the steam valve, and turn it to 12. The resulting explosion is predictable and unsurvivable. At their best, Desaster bring a level of sheer mayhem few bands can match. Will 10th album, Kill All Idols be another nuclear crematorium eruption, or has advanced age finally slowed the bloodlust of these inveterate axe murderers?
Speaking of a lack of subtlety, things open savagely with “Great Repulsive Force,” and damn if it doesn’t live up to its moniker. This is ferocious blackened thrash with absolutely no fucks given. It tries to turn your ears into gumpaste with blasting speed and subhuman vocals before sliding into a doomy mid-tempo slog, and just as you breathe a sigh of relief, the blinding speed and deathhammers are back for the attack. It’s the entire Desaster experience distilled into a 3-plus-minute toxic gummy slug. It segues seamlessly into “Emanations of the Profane,” which prominently features their penchant for slick traditional metal riffing overlaid by vocals that foam at the mouth, nostrils, and nipples. The bouncingly jaunty riffs pair well with the extreme vocal terror, and there’s a weirdly joyous vibe to the whole thing that almost conceals the hideousness of the purgatorial abominations it summons. It’s macabre yet unnaturally appealing (much like this here blog).
Other classic Desaster disasters include the rough n’ raw “Towards Oblivion,” which sounds like early 1980s Sodom grossly copulating with the prize-winning filth-hog at the Iowa State Fair as thousands of appalled spectators look on.1 The lead riff is especially tasty and sticks in the mind trap quickly. The title track sounds like classic Desaster trying to steal 664 of Bütcher’s 666 goats for a sleazy goat swap party, and the brutish, unrefined caveman thrash flies at unsafe speeds. Songs that didn’t hit hard immediately due to their reliance on milder traditional metal idioms, like “Fathomless Victory,” soon grew on me because of their cool, creepy mood. Yet not everything sticks like blood blasphemy on the church wall. The short and ugly “They are the Law” is a by-the-numbers speedster that lacks memory anchors, and penultimate track “Stellar Remnant” is too mellow for a Desaster release, even though vocalist Sataniac does his best to compel you with his lunatic theatrics. That these two cuts ride side-by-side creates a late-album valley that the interesting instrumental outro can’t recover from. At 40 minutes, Kill All Idols packs about 33 minutes of successful Bathory bathing in moldy Sodom Sauce, and that’s not a terrible ratio.
As ever, Sataniac is the star attraction of this unholy freak show. The dude is one of the most unhinged vocalists in metal, and though he must be getting up there in years, he still sounds like a complete nutter on a nut-finding expedition. Blackened snarls, proto-death roars, hysterical screams, throaty bellows; he uses them all and sometimes all in the same lyrical refrain. He always sounds like he’s being recorded from a nervous hospital, and on the best tracks, he adds to the body count. On the lesser tracks, he still stacks corpses like a remorseless corpse staker, and for his efforts, he should be canonized by the fucking Pope while alive. Left-hand man, Infernal does his best to keep pace with unending thrash and black metal leads, and when he isn’t burning up the fretboard, he’s tossing out stadium-rocking trad metal riffs. The only impediment to the album is the uneven songcraft, which drops the severed head from time to time.
Desaster will always have a special slot in the Crypt ov Steel, and there’s always grotesque fun to be found on their albums. Kill All Idols is a small step down from 2021s Churches Without Saints, and it seems their wellspring of demonic inspiration is slowly bleeding out, but the hellfire burns bright enough to score some wins. These olde hellhounds still have enough teeth to rip you open, so give this a spin and send bystanders into a terror-tizzy.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Metal Blade
Websites: total-desaster.jimdofree.com | desaster.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/666Desaster666
Releases Worldwide: August 22nd, 2025#2025 #30 #BlackMetal #Bütcher #ChurchesWithoutSaints #Desaster #Destruction #GermanMetal #KillAllIdols #MetalBladeRecords #Review #Reviews #Sodom #TheArtsOfDestruction #ThrashMetal
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Desaster – Kill All Idols Review
By Steel Druhm
Every 4 years or so, Germany’s rabid blackened thrash slime eaters Desaster drop a new album on the revolted masses. Their berserk take on speed borrows greatly from the original Destruction EP, Sentence of Death, and they festoon the unhinged recklessness with blackened blisters and classic heavy metal influences for a sound that slaps, slices, and shits on your floor. It’s not subtle, nor is it “thinking man’s music.” Instead, it murders the thinking part of your brain and activates the most base and perverse instincts. On odious gems like Divine Blasphemies and The Arts of Destruction, they pour all the world’s bile and crust-poo into a pressure cooker, cover the steam valve, and turn it to 12. The resulting explosion is predictable and unsurvivable. At their best, Desaster bring a level of sheer mayhem few bands can match. Will 10th album, Kill All Idols be another nuclear crematorium eruption, or has advanced age finally slowed the bloodlust of these inveterate axe murderers?
Speaking of a lack of subtlety, things open savagely with “Great Repulsive Force,” and damn if it doesn’t live up to its moniker. This is ferocious blackened thrash with absolutely no fucks given. It tries to turn your ears into gumpaste with blasting speed and subhuman vocals before sliding into a doomy mid-tempo slog, and just as you breathe a sigh of relief, the blinding speed and deathhammers are back for the attack. It’s the entire Desaster experience distilled into a 3-plus-minute toxic gummy slug. It segues seamlessly into “Emanations of the Profane,” which prominently features their penchant for slick traditional metal riffing overlaid by vocals that foam at the mouth, nostrils, and nipples. The bouncingly jaunty riffs pair well with the extreme vocal terror, and there’s a weirdly joyous vibe to the whole thing that almost conceals the hideousness of the purgatorial abominations it summons. It’s macabre yet unnaturally appealing (much like this here blog).
Other classic Desaster disasters include the rough n’ raw “Towards Oblivion,” which sounds like early 1980s Sodom grossly copulating with the prize-winning filth-hog at the Iowa State Fair as thousands of appalled spectators look on.1 The lead riff is especially tasty and sticks in the mind trap quickly. The title track sounds like classic Desaster trying to steal 664 of Bütcher’s 666 goats for a sleazy goat swap party, and the brutish, unrefined caveman thrash flies at unsafe speeds. Songs that didn’t hit hard immediately due to their reliance on milder traditional metal idioms, like “Fathomless Victory,” soon grew on me because of their cool, creepy mood. Yet not everything sticks like blood blasphemy on the church wall. The short and ugly “They are the Law” is a by-the-numbers speedster that lacks memory anchors, and penultimate track “Stellar Remnant” is too mellow for a Desaster release, even though vocalist Sataniac does his best to compel you with his lunatic theatrics. That these two cuts ride side-by-side creates a late-album valley that the interesting instrumental outro can’t recover from. At 40 minutes, Kill All Idols packs about 33 minutes of successful Bathory bathing in moldy Sodom Sauce, and that’s not a terrible ratio.
As ever, Sataniac is the star attraction of this unholy freak show. The dude is one of the most unhinged vocalists in metal, and though he must be getting up there in years, he still sounds like a complete nutter on a nut-finding expedition. Blackened snarls, proto-death roars, hysterical screams, throaty bellows; he uses them all and sometimes all in the same lyrical refrain. He always sounds like he’s being recorded from a nervous hospital, and on the best tracks, he adds to the body count. On the lesser tracks, he still stacks corpses like a remorseless corpse staker, and for his efforts, he should be canonized by the fucking Pope while alive. Left-hand man, Infernal does his best to keep pace with unending thrash and black metal leads, and when he isn’t burning up the fretboard, he’s tossing out stadium-rocking trad metal riffs. The only impediment to the album is the uneven songcraft, which drops the severed head from time to time.
Desaster will always have a special slot in the Crypt ov Steel, and there’s always grotesque fun to be found on their albums. Kill All Idols is a small step down from 2021s Churches Without Saints, and it seems their wellspring of demonic inspiration is slowly bleeding out, but the hellfire burns bright enough to score some wins. These olde hellhounds still have enough teeth to rip you open, so give this a spin and send bystanders into a terror-tizzy.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Metal Blade
Websites: total-desaster.jimdofree.com | desaster.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/666Desaster666
Releases Worldwide: August 22nd, 2025#2025 #30 #BlackMetal #Bütcher #ChurchesWithoutSaints #Desaster #Destruction #GermanMetal #KillAllIdols #MetalBladeRecords #Review #Reviews #Sodom #TheArtsOfDestruction #ThrashMetal
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Desaster – Kill All Idols Review
By Steel Druhm
Every 4 years or so, Germany’s rabid blackened thrash slime eaters Desaster drop a new album on the revolted masses. Their berserk take on speed borrows greatly from the original Destruction EP, Sentence of Death, and they festoon the unhinged recklessness with blackened blisters and classic heavy metal influences for a sound that slaps, slices, and shits on your floor. It’s not subtle, nor is it “thinking man’s music.” Instead, it murders the thinking part of your brain and activates the most base and perverse instincts. On odious gems like Divine Blasphemies and The Arts of Destruction, they pour all the world’s bile and crust-poo into a pressure cooker, cover the steam valve, and turn it to 12. The resulting explosion is predictable and unsurvivable. At their best, Desaster bring a level of sheer mayhem few bands can match. Will 10th album, Kill All Idols be another nuclear crematorium eruption, or has advanced age finally slowed the bloodlust of these inveterate axe murderers?
Speaking of a lack of subtlety, things open savagely with “Great Repulsive Force,” and damn if it doesn’t live up to its moniker. This is ferocious blackened thrash with absolutely no fucks given. It tries to turn your ears into gumpaste with blasting speed and subhuman vocals before sliding into a doomy mid-tempo slog, and just as you breathe a sigh of relief, the blinding speed and deathhammers are back for the attack. It’s the entire Desaster experience distilled into a 3-plus-minute toxic gummy slug. It segues seamlessly into “Emanations of the Profane,” which prominently features their penchant for slick traditional metal riffing overlaid by vocals that foam at the mouth, nostrils, and nipples. The bouncingly jaunty riffs pair well with the extreme vocal terror, and there’s a weirdly joyous vibe to the whole thing that almost conceals the hideousness of the purgatorial abominations it summons. It’s macabre yet unnaturally appealing (much like this here blog).
Other classic Desaster disasters include the rough n’ raw “Towards Oblivion,” which sounds like early 1980s Sodom grossly copulating with the prize-winning filth-hog at the Iowa State Fair as thousands of appalled spectators look on.1 The lead riff is especially tasty and sticks in the mind trap quickly. The title track sounds like classic Desaster trying to steal 664 of Bütcher’s 666 goats for a sleazy goat swap party, and the brutish, unrefined caveman thrash flies at unsafe speeds. Songs that didn’t hit hard immediately due to their reliance on milder traditional metal idioms, like “Fathomless Victory,” soon grew on me because of their cool, creepy mood. Yet not everything sticks like blood blasphemy on the church wall. The short and ugly “They are the Law” is a by-the-numbers speedster that lacks memory anchors, and penultimate track “Stellar Remnant” is too mellow for a Desaster release, even though vocalist Sataniac does his best to compel you with his lunatic theatrics. That these two cuts ride side-by-side creates a late-album valley that the interesting instrumental outro can’t recover from. At 40 minutes, Kill All Idols packs about 33 minutes of successful Bathory bathing in moldy Sodom Sauce, and that’s not a terrible ratio.
As ever, Sataniac is the star attraction of this unholy freak show. The dude is one of the most unhinged vocalists in metal, and though he must be getting up there in years, he still sounds like a complete nutter on a nut-finding expedition. Blackened snarls, proto-death roars, hysterical screams, throaty bellows; he uses them all and sometimes all in the same lyrical refrain. He always sounds like he’s being recorded from a nervous hospital, and on the best tracks, he adds to the body count. On the lesser tracks, he still stacks corpses like a remorseless corpse staker, and for his efforts, he should be canonized by the fucking Pope while alive. Left-hand man, Infernal does his best to keep pace with unending thrash and black metal leads, and when he isn’t burning up the fretboard, he’s tossing out stadium-rocking trad metal riffs. The only impediment to the album is the uneven songcraft, which drops the severed head from time to time.
Desaster will always have a special slot in the Crypt ov Steel, and there’s always grotesque fun to be found on their albums. Kill All Idols is a small step down from 2021s Churches Without Saints, and it seems their wellspring of demonic inspiration is slowly bleeding out, but the hellfire burns bright enough to score some wins. These olde hellhounds still have enough teeth to rip you open, so give this a spin and send bystanders into a terror-tizzy.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Metal Blade
Websites: total-desaster.jimdofree.com | desaster.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/666Desaster666
Releases Worldwide: August 22nd, 2025#2025 #30 #BlackMetal #Bütcher #ChurchesWithoutSaints #Desaster #Destruction #GermanMetal #KillAllIdols #MetalBladeRecords #Review #Reviews #Sodom #TheArtsOfDestruction #ThrashMetal
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By Steel Druhm
Just when I thought I’d make it to May without awarding the coveted Steel ov Approval, an unheralded project erupts from the Netherlands and forces my unwilling hand. Structure is the labor of love of Bram Bijlhout, who served seven years as a guitarist in atmo-doom deathers Officium Triste. Now he’s putting his own spin on the genre, handling everything save for vocals and drums. In comes the esteemed Pim Blankenstein, also of Officium Triste and The 11th Hour, to handle the former, with Dirk Bruinenberg (Elegy, ex-Adagio) manning the latter. On the full-length debut, Structure prove this project can honor the doom Heritage that birthed it. This is a massive, monolithic slab of doom that paints a sweeping mural across your head and heart, all in gray and black. Crushing and gorgeous in equal parts, Heritage takes you on an immersive journey through the human experience, teaching you about fathomless despair, undying hope, and ultimately, redemption. It’s a staggering work of heartbreaking genius, and something every doom fan needs to know about.
The album opens with what may be the hands-down winner of Song o’ the Year, “Will I Deserve It.” It’s a monumental doom epic that caves in your chest with its raw power and brings a tear to the most jaded eye with its heart-wrenching beauty. Vaguely Bathorycore riffs thunder away as Pim emits inhumanly death bellows, and soon the melancholic trilling calls to the sadperson in all of us. It’s heavy as fook but maintains a forlorn, tragic air, taking one back to the glory days of the Peaceville Three and those early My Dying Bride and Anathema gems. When Bram cuts loose with his soloing at the 4-minute mark, bittersweet beauty blooms like springtime flowers over the grave of a dearly departed, like a gift to remind you that, no matter where their spirit roams, they’re with you always. I could write 750 words about this song alone, but suffice it to say, it’s brilliant. It’s the rare album that can match a radiant moment like this one, but Heritage is far from done with its smoke show. “What We Have Lost” drags things down into funeral doom territory for rib-cracking density before gradually evolving into a more melodic voyage. Bram’s emotive guitar weaves throughout the heaviness as minimalist piano lines plink mournfully, and Mr. Pim shakes the rafters with unbearable pain. It’s a wonder something this intensely despondent can be so captivating, but despite its nearly 8-minute runtime, when it ends, you’ll wish it hadn’t.
“Long Before Me” is even longer yet no less stunning. It’s so morose and gloriously depressive, it’s almost exhilarating. It sucks you in with its funereal trilling and carries you away in its dark embrace. The guitars from 5 minutes onward are so minimalist but pure perfection. The title track borrows much from Warning’s timeless Watching from a Distance, replicating that album’s unrelenting glumness perfectly, only to switch to Bolt Thrower-esque power chugs that threaten your very existence. Surrounding these moments are bright, melodic bits that take me back to Edge of Sanity’s Crimson. Closer “Until the Last Gasp” is a somber instrumental that imparts the same grim emptiness evoked by the denouement of Agalloch’s Ashes Against the Grain, making one feel as if they stand at the precipice of a swirling, matter-annihilating black hole. As the track advances, small hints of hope creep into the droning doom, imparting faint rays of light into the inky blackness. The album climaxes with horns blaring a sad but cautiously uplifting note, giving you the perfect ending to a truly stupendous journey. At 50 minutes, Heritage somehow feels much shorter, and despite the harrowing despair, you won’t want to escape its bleak cocoon. It almost hurts to hear the last strains fade away into silence. I haven’t had that experience in a long time. I’m at a loss to find flaws, and no song feels overlong or bloated. This is an album you must experience as a whole, and it’s shockingly easy to digest in its entirety.I’m nothing but impressed by what Bram accomplished here. His writing is at another level, and his guitar work is stunning. He does so much by doing so little, always opting for feeling over showboating. His melodic touches are perfect and arrive at ideal times to take some of the burden from the listener’s shoulders. His heavy riffing is spot on, oppressive, pulverizing, and inevitable. He shows a great ability to inject real emotion into the music without leaning too much on Goth idioms. It’s all so well-crafted and defined that Heritage is more like a master’s canvas than a recording. Many moments triggered an emotional response in me, though I strenuously resist such things. Mr. Blankenstein was the perfect choice to provide vocals. His ungodly death roars are powerful and tooth-rattling, and he pairs superbly with the larger-than-life material. He’s the ideal doom-death front man, and this may be his finest hour. Ayreon / Star One singer Robert Soeterboek provides very sparse, understated, clean vocals and does a fine job.
When you spin an album as heavy and depressive as this and immediately want to hit replay, there’s something very right about it, and something very wrong with you. Heritage is as close to flawless as it gets, and I’m unable to pinpoint any areas that could be improved upon. This is a stunning accomplishment, and I can’t do Heritage justice with mere words. You need to experience this yourself. A MUST HEAR.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Ardua Music
Websites: structure-doom.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/structure.doom
Releases Worldwide: April 25th, 2025#2025 #45 #Anathema #Apr25 #ArduaMusic #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #DutchMetal #Heritage #MyDyingBride #OfficiumTriste #Review #Reviews #Structure #The11thHour #Warning
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By Steel Druhm
Just when I thought I’d make it to May without awarding the coveted Steel ov Approval, an unheralded project erupts from the Netherlands and forces my unwilling hand. Structure is the labor of love of Bram Bijlhout, who served seven years as a guitarist in atmo-doom deathers Officium Triste. Now he’s putting his own spin on the genre, handling everything save for vocals and drums. In comes the esteemed Pim Blankenstein, also of Officium Triste and The 11th Hour, to handle the former, with Dirk Bruinenberg (Elegy, ex-Adagio) manning the latter. On the full-length debut, Structure prove this project can honor the doom Heritage that birthed it. This is a massive, monolithic slab of doom that paints a sweeping mural across your head and heart, all in gray and black. Crushing and gorgeous in equal parts, Heritage takes you on an immersive journey through the human experience, teaching you about fathomless despair, undying hope, and ultimately, redemption. It’s a staggering work of heartbreaking genius, and something every doom fan needs to know about.
The album opens with what may be the hands-down winner of Song o’ the Year, “Will I Deserve It.” It’s a monumental doom epic that caves in your chest with its raw power and brings a tear to the most jaded eye with its heart-wrenching beauty. Vaguely Bathorycore riffs thunder away as Pim emits inhumanly death bellows, and soon the melancholic trilling calls to the sadperson in all of us. It’s heavy as fook but maintains a forlorn, tragic air, taking one back to the glory days of the Peaceville Three and those early My Dying Bride and Anathema gems. When Bram cuts loose with his soloing at the 4-minute mark, bittersweet beauty blooms like springtime flowers over the grave of a dearly departed, like a gift to remind you that, no matter where their spirit roams, they’re with you always. I could write 750 words about this song alone, but suffice it to say, it’s brilliant. It’s the rare album that can match a radiant moment like this one, but Heritage is far from done with its smoke show. “What We Have Lost” drags things down into funeral doom territory for rib-cracking density before gradually evolving into a more melodic voyage. Bram’s emotive guitar weaves throughout the heaviness as minimalist piano lines plink mournfully, and Mr. Pim shakes the rafters with unbearable pain. It’s a wonder something this intensely despondent can be so captivating, but despite its nearly 8-minute runtime, when it ends, you’ll wish it hadn’t.
“Long Before Me” is even longer yet no less stunning. It’s so morose and gloriously depressive, it’s almost exhilarating. It sucks you in with its funereal trilling and carries you away in its dark embrace. The guitars from 5 minutes onward are so minimalist but pure perfection. The title track borrows much from Warning’s timeless Watching from a Distance, replicating that album’s unrelenting glumness perfectly, only to switch to Bolt Thrower-esque power chugs that threaten your very existence. Surrounding these moments are bright, melodic bits that take me back to Edge of Sanity’s Crimson. Closer “Until the Last Gasp” is a somber instrumental that imparts the same grim emptiness evoked by the denouement of Agalloch’s Ashes Against the Grain, making one feel as if they stand at the precipice of a swirling, matter-annihilating black hole. As the track advances, small hints of hope creep into the droning doom, imparting faint rays of light into the inky blackness. The album climaxes with horns blaring a sad but cautiously uplifting note, giving you the perfect ending to a truly stupendous journey. At 50 minutes, Heritage somehow feels much shorter, and despite the harrowing despair, you won’t want to escape its bleak cocoon. It almost hurts to hear the last strains fade away into silence. I haven’t had that experience in a long time. I’m at a loss to find flaws, and no song feels overlong or bloated. This is an album you must experience as a whole, and it’s shockingly easy to digest in its entirety.I’m nothing but impressed by what Bram accomplished here. His writing is at another level, and his guitar work is stunning. He does so much by doing so little, always opting for feeling over showboating. His melodic touches are perfect and arrive at ideal times to take some of the burden from the listener’s shoulders. His heavy riffing is spot on, oppressive, pulverizing, and inevitable. He shows a great ability to inject real emotion into the music without leaning too much on Goth idioms. It’s all so well-crafted and defined that Heritage is more like a master’s canvas than a recording. Many moments triggered an emotional response in me, though I strenuously resist such things. Mr. Blankenstein was the perfect choice to provide vocals. His ungodly death roars are powerful and tooth-rattling, and he pairs superbly with the larger-than-life material. He’s the ideal doom-death front man, and this may be his finest hour. Ayreon / Star One singer Robert Soeterboek provides very sparse, understated, clean vocals and does a fine job.
When you spin an album as heavy and depressive as this and immediately want to hit replay, there’s something very right about it, and something very wrong with you. Heritage is as close to flawless as it gets, and I’m unable to pinpoint any areas that could be improved upon. This is a stunning accomplishment, and I can’t do Heritage justice with mere words. You need to experience this yourself. A MUST HEAR.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Ardua Music
Websites: structure-doom.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/structure.doom
Releases Worldwide: April 25th, 2025#2025 #45 #Anathema #Apr25 #ArduaMusic #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #DutchMetal #Heritage #MyDyingBride #OfficiumTriste #Review #Reviews #Structure #The11thHour #Warning
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By Steel Druhm
Just when I thought I’d make it to May without awarding the coveted Steel ov Approval, an unheralded project erupts from the Netherlands and forces my unwilling hand. Structure is the labor of love of Bram Bijlhout, who served seven years as a guitarist in atmo-doom deathers Officium Triste. Now he’s putting his own spin on the genre, handling everything save for vocals and drums. In comes the esteemed Pim Blankenstein, also of Officium Triste and The 11th Hour, to handle the former, with Dirk Bruinenberg (Elegy, ex-Adagio) manning the latter. On the full-length debut, Structure prove this project can honor the doom Heritage that birthed it. This is a massive, monolithic slab of doom that paints a sweeping mural across your head and heart, all in gray and black. Crushing and gorgeous in equal parts, Heritage takes you on an immersive journey through the human experience, teaching you about fathomless despair, undying hope, and ultimately, redemption. It’s a staggering work of heartbreaking genius, and something every doom fan needs to know about.
The album opens with what may be the hands-down winner of Song o’ the Year, “Will I Deserve It.” It’s a monumental doom epic that caves in your chest with its raw power and brings a tear to the most jaded eye with its heart-wrenching beauty. Vaguely Bathorycore riffs thunder away as Pim emits inhumanly death bellows, and soon the melancholic trilling calls to the sadperson in all of us. It’s heavy as fook but maintains a forlorn, tragic air, taking one back to the glory days of the Peaceville Three and those early My Dying Bride and Anathema gems. When Bram cuts loose with his soloing at the 4-minute mark, bittersweet beauty blooms like springtime flowers over the grave of a dearly departed, like a gift to remind you that, no matter where their spirit roams, they’re with you always. I could write 750 words about this song alone, but suffice it to say, it’s brilliant. It’s the rare album that can match a radiant moment like this one, but Heritage is far from done with its smoke show. “What We Have Lost” drags things down into funeral doom territory for rib-cracking density before gradually evolving into a more melodic voyage. Bram’s emotive guitar weaves throughout the heaviness as minimalist piano lines plink mournfully, and Mr. Pim shakes the rafters with unbearable pain. It’s a wonder something this intensely despondent can be so captivating, but despite its nearly 8-minute runtime, when it ends, you’ll wish it hadn’t.
“Long Before Me” is even longer yet no less stunning. It’s so morose and gloriously depressive, it’s almost exhilarating. It sucks you in with its funereal trilling and carries you away in its dark embrace. The guitars from 5 minutes onward are so minimalist but pure perfection. The title track borrows much from Warning’s timeless Watching from a Distance, replicating that album’s unrelenting glumness perfectly, only to switch to Bolt Thrower-esque power chugs that threaten your very existence. Surrounding these moments are bright, melodic bits that take me back to Edge of Sanity’s Crimson. Closer “Until the Last Gasp” is a somber instrumental that imparts the same grim emptiness evoked by the denouement of Agalloch’s Ashes Against the Grain, making one feel as if they stand at the precipice of a swirling, matter-annihilating black hole. As the track advances, small hints of hope creep into the droning doom, imparting faint rays of light into the inky blackness. The album climaxes with horns blaring a sad but cautiously uplifting note, giving you the perfect ending to a truly stupendous journey. At 50 minutes, Heritage somehow feels much shorter, and despite the harrowing despair, you won’t want to escape its bleak cocoon. It almost hurts to hear the last strains fade away into silence. I haven’t had that experience in a long time. I’m at a loss to find flaws, and no song feels overlong or bloated. This is an album you must experience as a whole, and it’s shockingly easy to digest in its entirety.I’m nothing but impressed by what Bram accomplished here. His writing is at another level, and his guitar work is stunning. He does so much by doing so little, always opting for feeling over showboating. His melodic touches are perfect and arrive at ideal times to take some of the burden from the listener’s shoulders. His heavy riffing is spot on, oppressive, pulverizing, and inevitable. He shows a great ability to inject real emotion into the music without leaning too much on Goth idioms. It’s all so well-crafted and defined that Heritage is more like a master’s canvas than a recording. Many moments triggered an emotional response in me, though I strenuously resist such things. Mr. Blankenstein was the perfect choice to provide vocals. His ungodly death roars are powerful and tooth-rattling, and he pairs superbly with the larger-than-life material. He’s the ideal doom-death front man, and this may be his finest hour. Ayreon / Star One singer Robert Soeterboek provides very sparse, understated, clean vocals and does a fine job.
When you spin an album as heavy and depressive as this and immediately want to hit replay, there’s something very right about it, and something very wrong with you. Heritage is as close to flawless as it gets, and I’m unable to pinpoint any areas that could be improved upon. This is a stunning accomplishment, and I can’t do Heritage justice with mere words. You need to experience this yourself. A MUST HEAR.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Ardua Music
Websites: structure-doom.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/structure.doom
Releases Worldwide: April 25th, 2025#2025 #45 #Anathema #Apr25 #ArduaMusic #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #DutchMetal #Heritage #MyDyingBride #OfficiumTriste #Review #Reviews #Structure #The11thHour #Warning
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By Steel Druhm
Just when I thought I’d make it to May without awarding the coveted Steel ov Approval, an unheralded project erupts from the Netherlands and forces my unwilling hand. Structure is the labor of love of Bram Bijlhout, who served seven years as a guitarist in atmo-doom deathers Officium Triste. Now he’s putting his own spin on the genre, handling everything save for vocals and drums. In comes the esteemed Pim Blankenstein, also of Officium Triste and The 11th Hour, to handle the former, with Dirk Bruinenberg (Elegy, ex-Adagio) manning the latter. On the full-length debut, Structure prove this project can honor the doom Heritage that birthed it. This is a massive, monolithic slab of doom that paints a sweeping mural across your head and heart, all in gray and black. Crushing and gorgeous in equal parts, Heritage takes you on an immersive journey through the human experience, teaching you about fathomless despair, undying hope, and ultimately, redemption. It’s a staggering work of heartbreaking genius, and something every doom fan needs to know about.
The album opens with what may be the hands-down winner of Song o’ the Year, “Will I Deserve It.” It’s a monumental doom epic that caves in your chest with its raw power and brings a tear to the most jaded eye with its heart-wrenching beauty. Vaguely Bathorycore riffs thunder away as Pim emits inhumanly death bellows, and soon the melancholic trilling calls to the sadperson in all of us. It’s heavy as fook but maintains a forlorn, tragic air, taking one back to the glory days of the Peaceville Three and those early My Dying Bride and Anathema gems. When Bram cuts loose with his soloing at the 4-minute mark, bittersweet beauty blooms like springtime flowers over the grave of a dearly departed, like a gift to remind you that, no matter where their spirit roams, they’re with you always. I could write 750 words about this song alone, but suffice it to say, it’s brilliant. It’s the rare album that can match a radiant moment like this one, but Heritage is far from done with its smoke show. “What We Have Lost” drags things down into funeral doom territory for rib-cracking density before gradually evolving into a more melodic voyage. Bram’s emotive guitar weaves throughout the heaviness as minimalist piano lines plink mournfully, and Mr. Pim shakes the rafters with unbearable pain. It’s a wonder something this intensely despondent can be so captivating, but despite its nearly 8-minute runtime, when it ends, you’ll wish it hadn’t.
“Long Before Me” is even longer yet no less stunning. It’s so morose and gloriously depressive, it’s almost exhilarating. It sucks you in with its funereal trilling and carries you away in its dark embrace. The guitars from 5 minutes onward are so minimalist but pure perfection. The title track borrows much from Warning’s timeless Watching from a Distance, replicating that album’s unrelenting glumness perfectly, only to switch to Bolt Thrower-esque power chugs that threaten your very existence. Surrounding these moments are bright, melodic bits that take me back to Edge of Sanity’s Crimson. Closer “Until the Last Gasp” is a somber instrumental that imparts the same grim emptiness evoked by the denouement of Agalloch’s Ashes Against the Grain, making one feel as if they stand at the precipice of a swirling, matter-annihilating black hole. As the track advances, small hints of hope creep into the droning doom, imparting faint rays of light into the inky blackness. The album climaxes with horns blaring a sad but cautiously uplifting note, giving you the perfect ending to a truly stupendous journey. At 50 minutes, Heritage somehow feels much shorter, and despite the harrowing despair, you won’t want to escape its bleak cocoon. It almost hurts to hear the last strains fade away into silence. I haven’t had that experience in a long time. I’m at a loss to find flaws, and no song feels overlong or bloated. This is an album you must experience as a whole, and it’s shockingly easy to digest in its entirety.I’m nothing but impressed by what Bram accomplished here. His writing is at another level, and his guitar work is stunning. He does so much by doing so little, always opting for feeling over showboating. His melodic touches are perfect and arrive at ideal times to take some of the burden from the listener’s shoulders. His heavy riffing is spot on, oppressive, pulverizing, and inevitable. He shows a great ability to inject real emotion into the music without leaning too much on Goth idioms. It’s all so well-crafted and defined that Heritage is more like a master’s canvas than a recording. Many moments triggered an emotional response in me, though I strenuously resist such things. Mr. Blankenstein was the perfect choice to provide vocals. His ungodly death roars are powerful and tooth-rattling, and he pairs superbly with the larger-than-life material. He’s the ideal doom-death front man, and this may be his finest hour. Ayreon / Star One singer Robert Soeterboek provides very sparse, understated, clean vocals and does a fine job.
When you spin an album as heavy and depressive as this and immediately want to hit replay, there’s something very right about it, and something very wrong with you. Heritage is as close to flawless as it gets, and I’m unable to pinpoint any areas that could be improved upon. This is a stunning accomplishment, and I can’t do Heritage justice with mere words. You need to experience this yourself. A MUST HEAR.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Ardua Music
Websites: structure-doom.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/structure.doom
Releases Worldwide: April 25th, 2025#2025 #45 #Anathema #Apr25 #ArduaMusic #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #DutchMetal #Heritage #MyDyingBride #OfficiumTriste #Review #Reviews #Structure #The11thHour #Warning
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Ulcerate – Cutting the Throat of God Review
By Thus Spoke
“The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife,” cries the madman.1 And somewhere, the thought that “without God, everything is permitted,”2 becomes a slogan of apathy, a justification, or a cause for lament; if indeed, it is thought at all. However literally taken, the notion of morality’s divine origin is one that has loomed over Western philosophical tradition for centuries, whether as a guide or antithesis. In this light, it is clear that Cutting the Throat of God is no edgy, anti-religious statement. By titling their seventh full-length as they have, Ulcerate reach into the murky realms of human values, agency, responsibility, and the burden of choice, of freedom, of being. Never a stranger to the philosophical, the band have come also to pair their uncompromisingly intense dissonant death metal more and more with a melodicism that heightens, rather than eases, the music’s winding tension, and an atmosphere that never compromises brutality. It’s a sound that perfectly complements the solemn and unwavering gaze at the horrors of Being-in-the-world, and it’s a sound that one finds nowhere else but with Ulcerate.
Cutting the Throat of God does everything Stare Into Death and Be Still did, but better, and many more things besides. What that predecessor mused, this work lives, developing introspective, immersive progressiveness into a living, breathing consciousness you irresistibly follow. An aching pathos emanates from the more overtly mournful themes that span these pieces (“Further Opening the Wounds,” “To See Death Just Once”), while, at its blunter edge, refrains fade in and out dreamily in a way that belies their ability to compel. The riff that opens the album on “To Flow Through Ashen Hearts” already feels iconic, in an insidiously understated way. The premonitions of catharsis hinted at through resonant ebbs of guitar pull the thread of apprehension through fleeing peaks and flutters, and only when it reaches an unbearable tautness does it snap, and spark into flame, as tremolo burns a bright path downwards in a blaze of abreaction (“Transfiguration in and Out of Worlds,” “Undying as an Apparition,” title track). The album is just as, if not more, hazily atmospheric, mysterious, and fathomless, as the prior work, but it contains that blazing, stomach-clenching urgency that Stare Into Death fell short on; that spirit of catastrophe from The Destroyers of All; that malice and resolution from Shrines of Paralysis. All melds together under the unifying shapeless form of Cutting the Throat of God’s mesmerising trajectory.
I hardly have to even say, but I will. The percussion, which is more body than skeleton on this beast, is phenomenal. Drums are already the basis and pattern of a song’s trajectory, but with Ulcerate, Jamie Saint-Merat’s fluid, meticulous work drives every breath-catching pause, every rising apex, every stillness, every charge. Intertwining with refrains through rippling fills, with fading, crescendoing pulses of guitar that flood the undulating darkness with wailing light (“The Dawn is Hollow,” “Transfiguration…” “Undying…”) the resonant warmth of a dissonant bass hum and the roaring inexorability of Paul Kelland’s commanding vocals. It’s all one, bound up by percussive waves of stutter, circle, and sway. Like a tide, the lulls only drag you deeper, as whispers of cymbal accent an ambient undertow that precipitates a surge forward into devastation. A tremolo taking up the mantle (“To Flow…,” “Transfiguration…”), a catch in the tempo as low and high strings (“To See Death…,” “Undying…”), or the shuddering impact of cymbal (“Further Opening the Wounds”) converge out-of-sync to ring and drawl from every direction, and an almost-resolution, before it all ends, without release, only to begin again.
Like any good piece of art, Cutting the Throat of God stays with you beyond its literal scope. Long after its final notes play out I find myself unconsciously looking back, my mind magnetically pulled to it, like some kind of strange nostalgia. But more than that, it’s music with so many layers, that no matter how many times I listen to it, I find something new, and sometimes all I want to do is lie back and be immersed, just one more time. I am a shameless Ulcerate acolyte of the highest degree, after all. And if you’re not, it’s nigh impossible you wouldn’t be struck by something here. Because contained within are what I believe to be Ulcerate’s greatest manifestations of existentially anguished, veil-tearing truth and ambitious composition. Yes, it’s long—57 minutes—and yes, it’s loud—though not as loud as Shrines—but we don’t wait with bated breath for music we don’t want to play at high volume, or that we don’t want to end.
In saying all this, do I mark Cutting the Throat of God as Ulcerate’s best album? It’s impossible to call. It may not match the confrontational intensity of Everything is Fire, or the balanced intrigue of Destroyers. But of them all it is perhaps the most profound. A blissfully dark melting pot of the savagery, authenticity, and more recently, beauty that makes this icon of the dissonant death metal world who they are.
Rating: Excellent
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Debemur Morti
Websites: Official Site | Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: June 14th, 2024#2024 #45 #AtmosphericDeathMetal #CuttingTheThroatOfGod #DeathMetal #DebemurMprtiProductions #DissonantDeathMetal #Jun24 #NewZealandMetal #Review #Reviews #Ulcerate
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Ulcerate – Cutting the Throat of God Review
By Thus Spoke
“The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife,” cries the madman.1 And somewhere, the thought that “without God, everything is permitted,”2 becomes a slogan of apathy, a justification, or a cause for lament; if indeed, it is thought at all. However literally taken, the notion of morality’s divine origin is one that has loomed over Western philosophical tradition for centuries, whether as a guide or antithesis. In this light, it is clear that Cutting the Throat of God is no edgy, anti-religious statement. By titling their seventh full-length as they have, Ulcerate reach into the murky realms of human values, agency, responsibility, and the burden of choice, of freedom, of being. Never a stranger to the philosophical, the band have come also to pair their uncompromisingly intense dissonant death metal more and more with a melodicism that heightens, rather than eases, the music’s winding tension, and an atmosphere that never compromises brutality. It’s a sound that perfectly complements the solemn and unwavering gaze at the horrors of Being-in-the-world, and it’s a sound that one finds nowhere else but with Ulcerate.
Cutting the Throat of God does everything Stare Into Death and Be Still did, but better, and many more things besides. What that predecessor mused, this work lives, developing introspective, immersive progressiveness into a living, breathing consciousness you irresistibly follow. An aching pathos emanates from the more overtly mournful themes that span these pieces (“Further Opening the Wounds,” “To See Death Just Once”), while, at its blunter edge, refrains fade in and out dreamily in a way that belies their ability to compel. The riff that opens the album on “To Flow Through Ashen Hearts” already feels iconic, in an insidiously understated way. The premonitions of catharsis hinted at through resonant ebbs of guitar pull the thread of apprehension through fleeing peaks and flutters, and only when it reaches an unbearable tautness does it snap, and spark into flame, as tremolo burns a bright path downwards in a blaze of abreaction (“Transfiguration in and Out of Worlds,” “Undying as an Apparition,” title track). The album is just as, if not more, hazily atmospheric, mysterious, and fathomless, as the prior work, but it contains that blazing, stomach-clenching urgency that Stare Into Death fell short on; that spirit of catastrophe from The Destroyers of All; that malice and resolution from Shrines of Paralysis. All melds together under the unifying shapeless form of Cutting the Throat of God’s mesmerising trajectory.
I hardly have to even say, but I will. The percussion, which is more body than skeleton on this beast, is phenomenal. Drums are already the basis and pattern of a song’s trajectory, but with Ulcerate, Jamie Saint-Merat’s fluid, meticulous work drives every breath-catching pause, every rising apex, every stillness, every charge. Intertwining with refrains through rippling fills, with fading, crescendoing pulses of guitar that flood the undulating darkness with wailing light (“The Dawn is Hollow,” “Transfiguration…” “Undying…”) the resonant warmth of a dissonant bass hum and the roaring inexorability of Paul Kelland’s commanding vocals. It’s all one, bound up by percussive waves of stutter, circle, and sway. Like a tide, the lulls only drag you deeper, as whispers of cymbal accent an ambient undertow that precipitates a surge forward into devastation. A tremolo taking up the mantle (“To Flow…,” “Transfiguration…”), a catch in the tempo as low and high strings (“To See Death…,” “Undying…”), or the shuddering impact of cymbal (“Further Opening the Wounds”) converge out-of-sync to ring and drawl from every direction, and an almost-resolution, before it all ends, without release, only to begin again.
Like any good piece of art, Cutting the Throat of God stays with you beyond its literal scope. Long after its final notes play out I find myself unconsciously looking back, my mind magnetically pulled to it, like some kind of strange nostalgia. But more than that, it’s music with so many layers, that no matter how many times I listen to it, I find something new, and sometimes all I want to do is lie back and be immersed, just one more time. I am a shameless Ulcerate acolyte of the highest degree, after all. And if you’re not, it’s nigh impossible you wouldn’t be struck by something here. Because contained within are what I believe to be Ulcerate’s greatest manifestations of existentially anguished, veil-tearing truth and ambitious composition. Yes, it’s long—57 minutes—and yes, it’s loud—though not as loud as Shrines—but we don’t wait with bated breath for music we don’t want to play at high volume, or that we don’t want to end.
In saying all this, do I mark Cutting the Throat of God as Ulcerate’s best album? It’s impossible to call. It may not match the confrontational intensity of Everything is Fire, or the balanced intrigue of Destroyers. But of them all it is perhaps the most profound. A blissfully dark melting pot of the savagery, authenticity, and more recently, beauty that makes this icon of the dissonant death metal world who they are.
Rating: Excellent
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Debemur Morti
Websites: Official Site | Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: June 14th, 2024#2024 #45 #AtmosphericDeathMetal #CuttingTheThroatOfGod #DeathMetal #DebemurMprtiProductions #DissonantDeathMetal #Jun24 #NewZealandMetal #Review #Reviews #Ulcerate
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‘I hope we will glide into another world together’ – Calliope Tsoupaki composes Bosch Requiem ‘Liknon’ for November Music
Calliope Tsoupaki (c) Michiel van Nieuwkerk
In 1988 Calliope Tsoupaki (1963) came from Greece to the Netherlands to study composition with Louis Andriessen. Exactly 30 years later she was appointed ‘Componist des Vaderlands’ (Composer Laureate). In this capacity she has already composed a number of highly topical pieces. When Notre Dame de Paris went up in flames on 15 April, Tsoupaki immediately took to her composer’s desk. Five days later Jan Hage played the world premiere of Pour Notre Dame on the organ of the Dom in Utrecht. This year she is festival composer at November Music. She will compose its traditional Bosch Requiem, which will be premiered on All Souls’ Day.
Over the past three decades Tsoupaki has become one of the most important composers in the Netherlands. Unlike other students of Louis Andriessen, she did not embrace his percussive style, based on contrasting blocks of music, which became known as the ‘Haagse School’ (The Hague School). Instead of moulding her compositions from an amalgam of minimalism, jazz, popular music and modern-classical. Tsoupaki seeks inspiration from her personal background, weaving her own style out of the musical traditions of Greece and the Middle East, as well as early and new European music. Her work has an almost archaic, timeless beauty.
Death as a threshold
Nor does Tsoupaki deny her Greek roots in the choice of her subject matter. Already in 1993 she composed the successful Orphic Fields, later followed by successful oratorios such as St. Luke Passion, Maria and Oedípus. Last October Salto di Saffo for pan flute, recorder and orchestra was premiered in the NTRZaterdagMatinee. This double concerto was directly inspired by her own life. When she came to the Netherlands in 1988, her boat sailed past the place where the famous poet allegedly jumped off the rocks. – Just as Tsoupaki plunged into deep waters by exchanging her fatherland for an unknown environment.
For the Bosch Requiem she again drew on her Greek background. ‘I did not want to write a lament in the tradition of the Latin Requiem Mass’ she explains. ‘That presents death as something irrevocable, but for me it is more like a threshold, a transition into the unknown. That’s why I chose the title Liknon, which means something like “cradle”. It’s a beautiful symbol of the elusive position between life and death.’
Two icons were leading when composing, says Tsoupaki enthusiastically. ‘Last summer I visited the Greek island of Kythira. There I saw the icon Panagia Myrtidiotissa, where the face of Mary has completely faded into a black spot. According to myth, this image was found in burning myrtle bushes, hence its name, Madonna of the Myrtle. I find it very moving, as if hundreds of years of veneration for Mary have been concentrated in that black face. It has fathomless depth, you can suspect so much behind it and project your own thoughts, hopes and fears on it. For me, it symbolizes beauty in darkness.’
Theofanis 1392
She was also inspired by an icon of Theofanis from 1392 about the Ascension of Mary. ‘Maria is lying on her deathbed, surrounded by the 12 apostles and her son Jesus. He towers high above her, cradling his mother as a baby on his hand. This completes the circle: life and death are actually one, a comforting thought.’
Tsoupaki is perhaps moved even stronger by the icon of El Greco from the sixteenth century. ‘This has a gripping expression of feeling, which actually runs counter to the tradition of icons as neutral objects of faith. But it fits wonderfully well with the Marian songs of the Cretan monk Agapios Landos (1580-1656), from which I have used verses. In my composition I also veer between objectivity and passion. It is a musical prayer to Mother Mary in times of doubt and need.’
Maria icon El Greco
She wrote Liknon for the tenor Marcel Beekman, the countertenor Maarten Engeltjes and his baroque ensemble PRJCT Amsterdam. ‘I deliberately chose two high voices, because of their angelic countenance. What’s more, a countertenor is elusiveness incarnate: a rarefied voice that transports you to higher spheres; it balances on a threshold. That fits in exactly with what I want to express with my piece. In the instrumental accompaniment I have tried to capture that hesitation as well, this continuous moving back and forth.’
Liknon is not the only piece of Tsoupaki’s to be performed in November Music. On 3 November a new version of Narcissus will be performed. She composed it in 2013, fulfilling a commission from the festival. ‘It’s about the youngster who falls in love with his own reflection in the water and eventually dies from it. A flower with an intoxicating scent sprang up on the spot. I designed the five-tone Narcissus-chord that is counterpointed by a five-layer “scent-chord” designed by Tania Deurloo. Together they carry the whole composition.’ In the original version violin and piano – the two ‘lovers’ – were accompanied by alter egos, now they operate purely as a duo.
Still awaiting completion are new solo pieces for trumpeter Eric Vloeimans and recorder player Erik Bosgraaf. And, last but not least, Tsoupaki composes a new ritual choral work that will ‘launch’ her Bosch Requiem. This will be sung in the open air by choirs from Den Bosch, visitors of the festival and everyone present on the square in front of Concert Hall Parade.
Tsoupaki: ‘I hope we will all glide into another world together. – And, of course, return.’
November Music, 1-10 November, Den Bosch
#BoschRequiemLiknon #CalliopeTsoupaki #MaartenEngeltjes #MarcelBeekman #NovemberMusic
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Tues. March 17, 2026: Marketing Stats, Creative Feedback, and Art
image courtesy of Kev from PixabayTuesday, March 17, 2026
Dark Moon
Mercury Retrograde
Snowy and cold
Happy new week!
Pull up a chair and a beverage, this is a long post.
If you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, I hope you have a good one. Between living/working in NYC, where St. Patrick’s Day is even more of an excuse for people to behave badly than New Year’s Eve, and living on the Cape, where people were usually drunk by 10 AM – not a fan.
Friday, I did the laundry early, hauled it back, got it folded and put away. I headed up to the library to drop/off pick up books. There weren’t many to pick up, and I only dropped off those that were due, so I didn’t need the rolly cart. Swung by the post office to mail thank you notes from the birthday stuff. Ran two more errands on the way home. Was worn out, although I managed to get them done in good time, even on foot.
A Marketing Tangent
I got my royalties from the past few months (so I don’t have to have a Come to Jesus talk with D2D – we’re all caught up). The months I steadily marketed saw sales 10X the months I let it slide. I’m only spending about 15 minutes a day on weekdays marketing, but it made sales jump 10X.
Those sales cover a couple of bills. If I can maintain and then grow those sales, I am in good shape. Not that one can count on royalties, and they fluctuate, but if I can get back to steady and growing sales, it helps a lot.
The Nina Bell Mysteries are steadily growing their audience. If I can keep writing/releasing on a steady schedule and keep marketing steadily, we should be in good shape. Layering in the ANGEL HUNT series is a solid plan, because urban fantasy usually does well, and ANGEL HUNT was the most popular of the serials. There’s a lot of interest in the Coventina Circle series again, so getting those in the print editions and then finishing out the series is a good idea. 4 of the 9 planned books are out (I’ve got book 5 halfway written). After that’s complete, working on the spinoff series that goes deeper into urban fantasy rather than paranormal romantic suspense should work. Those spinoff characters introduced in RELICS AND REQUIEM, who show up now and again and even crossed over into the Gwen Finnegan series, are very popular. And getting back on the Topic Workbooks and prepping more for release should also help. The Topic Workbooks have always been steady sellers.
The trick is to find the sweet spot, both of creative energy to create the work, and to know when to release it. Every series has a different sweet spot. Wait too long between releases, and you lose audience. Release too much too quickly (in spite of the current binge desires many have), and people feel overwhelmed or as though if they miss one release, there will always be another. I find that especially true of the shorts, although sales of holiday-themed shorts bump up when promoted around their holiday.
It needs to first be about serving the work, or it can’t connect. But then, it also needs to look at the metrics of the business side of it, which are constantly shifting.
I’m getting questions about when LEGERDEMAIN will release in novel form from people who loved that world. The answer to that is that I’m not sure. The first arc of the serial (41 episodes) is pretty solid, but the rest sprawled too much, and it needs a lot of work to go in and tighten it as I adapt. I’ll have to pull out some of the shorter arcs and put them in separate stories, instead of trying to weave so many multiple plot lines at once. I need to have the main plot for each book, then a B subplot that gets resolved, then an over-reaching series arc that goes on for several books. Once in a while I can weave in maybe one more strand, but not the half dozen or so that were going on past episode 41. It will take a lot of work, and I need to have at least three volumes in solid shape before releasing anything. Plus, there were requests for spin-offs, especially when it came to the adventures of the all-female crew of the dirigible the Nervy Molls, and more built around the Fathomless Library. I’m so glad people connected to all of this, but it takes time and planning to make it all work, and I’m not sure I can do any of it this year.
Because I can’t drop the ball on the stage plays, either, and I have to get at least one-full length in shape for submission by the end of August, per a request. I can’t re-submit to this venue, so it needs to be something new.
I’d also love to get back to work on REP (the theatre company in space comedy) as a novel, but I can’t see fitting that in this year, either.
The most sales come from people who find me on Mastodon, with Instagram a close second. Bluesky is a distant third, with Tumblr and Threads trailing behind them. It took several years to build the audience on Mastodon and it’s a slower process than on other social media channels, but by posting/interacting regularly, marketing regularly, and taking part is games such as Writers Coffee Club, I’ve built connections there and am finding a growing audience. If all one does is post promos on a channel, sales don’t happen. There has to be interaction that has nothing to do with promotion, and that takes time and thought, which needs to be built into the workday.
I no longer promote on FB, and my sales have improved. TikTok was somewhat useful for serials, but hasn’t been for my books. I don’t do the kind of BookTok videos that work, nor am I willing to do them, and I’m not dealing with TikTok considering who owns it now.
Good to know.
I seriously would like to dump the FB accounts completely. Every time I open it, the first things that show up on my feed make me want to throw up. Blocking those accounts does nothing. For every block, 5 more of the gross things show up. The only reason I keep FB is because that’s how the city sends out information on emergencies. And birthday reminders, so I don’t miss anyone’s birthday (although I’m starting to add those to my paper datebook again).
The marketing that works (at the moment) is not brain surgery. It’s not spending a lot of money. It’s consistency.
It’s also looking at data over a period of months, and then tweaking one thing at a time, so you can see what kind of changes actually make a difference. I’m grateful to the Assets4Artists workshop and the local chamber workshop that gave me those tools to analyze this kind of data.
Now I have to figure out how to build on that, while continuing to have enough time and energy to keep feeding eager readers AND doing the more lucrative freelance writing work. I do that, knowing that I will have to look at the data every few months, and make changes. It’s not a career path on a highway, it’s more like floating down a river. Sometimes, there are rapids, and sometimes you get caught in the shallows.
The reason it takes me only 15 minutes a day is because I put in plenty of prep work. I have a content calendar for the month that I do about mid-month the previous month. (In other words, I better sit down and do April’s this week). It has the social media slots for each weekday, and what promo goes in each slot. I only promo one project per social media channel each day (except if I’ve dropped a day), so that I don’t saturate the channel and get annoying.
The only time I have the same ad on all channels on the same day is release day. Otherwise, I have them rotate through the channels: series ad, series video, single book ad for each book (one per day), single book video (ibid), and so forth. That way, it doesn’t come across as spam, even though content is repeated more than once in a month. Although I don’t do separate videos for each Topic Workbook. I have one for the group, and then flat ads for each book. For instance, February had a Nina Bell release (VICIOUS CRITIC), so all the promos in February were for various Nina Bell books. March has Nina, Topic workbooks, anthologies. April will include “Plot Bunnies” the short Twinkle Tavern mystery that happens near Easter, along with Nina, Workbooks, anthologies. And so forth.
As each book is going through the final production process, I work on the ad and the video. Or I edit/add to the series ad/video. That way, it’s all set up when it’s time to go. I’ve got the graphics, I’ve got the copy, I’ve got the links, I just follow the day’s schedule for the content calendar, and it takes 15 minutes to post through the channels. Each ad takes about an hour or so to create, but is designed to be evergreen and easily updatable if links or prices change. The videos take between 2-4 hours, depending how complicated they are. Longer, when the software I use updates claiming improvements that are actually detriments. As I explore new software, I might find something that helps me streamline that.
I treat myself like my own client. That was the biggest factor in making it work. It’s the same way I prepare materials for small business launches, and what I used to do for clients when I handled their social media promotions.
When I handled promos back in Twitter’s heyday, I could schedule an entire month’s worth of promos on Tweetdeck in about two hours. Under their current ownership and new name, I won’t deal with them. Hootsuite was useful to a point (not all the channels I need within my budget, but useful for some clients), but now they contract with the frozen water thugs, so I will not use them. Buffer doesn’t have enough of the channels I need within my budget.
Again, this is all about systems and information and tracking that then is used to support the creative work so the creative work can continue. It’s often difficult to face the reality of the business side of things, but it’s imperative if you want it to support the creative. They are the yin and yang of working in the arts.
Those who try to talk you out of paying attention to the business side of it are trying to exploit you and get your work for free, so watch out.
Back to the Life/Writing Stuff
On a completely different note, I did not get a slot in a 7-year residency for playwrighting. I knew it was a long shot, and they had 799 applicants. I had decided not to even apply, but then figured what the hell, nothing ventured and all that. But 7 years would mean I was in my early 70’s when we were done, and that’s not practical in my life right now. I’m glad I applied, and actually a little relieved I didn’t get it. Commuting to NYC at least once a month for 7 years would have been a lot, especially since they couldn’t guarantee the level of funding for the duration, just for the coming year. So why did I even apply? Because I felt there was possibility in the opportunity, and if I landed it, I was determined to find a way to make it work and grow in my playwrighting.
I am curious to see how many of the playwrights chosen actually stay in the residency program for the full seven years. I will follow along to keep track, and see how they blossom in the program (once they’re chosen).
Friday afternoon, I sorted out some practicalities with the ghostwriting client, and then go to work on the assignment due this Friday. I didn’t make as much progress as I hoped, but I have some ideas on how to fix that.
It started snowing around 3:30 or so. Sigh.
Got some research reading done for the May Morris project in the evening.
Didn’t sleep well Friday into Saturday. Up around the usual time, with Tessa shouting down the house because she wanted her breakfast. The morning routine was fine, although the 15-minute free write was more on the practical side than the creative side. But it sorted things out in my brain a bit, so it served its purpose.
It was supposed to snow from 9 AM – 1 PM, but started before 8.
After breakfast, I did some housework. I gesso’d my canvas for the collage. Tessa “helped” which means I now have to work a figure of a black cat into the collage to explain any cat hair I couldn’t wipe off. No, there isn’t any place in this house I can work where the cats can’t wander in.
Thankfully, Willa watched from a safe distance. Charlotte was asleep on the freshly made bed, and Bea was busy in the living room.
I got caught up doing more admin work than I hoped. I also re-read the first eight episodes I wrote of REP, and it’s funnier than I remembered, which is good. It plays a lot with tropes in theatre and science fiction.
I wrote myself into a corner on the latest chapter of BETTING MAN, and tried to get myself out of it, which was a chore. Not quite there yet.
I layered up and went out into the snow to pick up my mom’s prescription. They had two ready, which was nice. Usually, I go to pick up one, and the minute I get back home, there’s the notification for another one. Because making anything easier for their customers is beyond them. CVS = Corporate Vicious Hassle.
But there wasn’t hassle today, thank goodness. I stomped across town in the snow and into the wind, picked up the prescriptions, and picked up Chinese food on the way home. As I waited for my order, I read one of the local print publications, and there was an article by a colleague! I was so pleased for her, and it was very well done.
Trekked home, this time with the wind at my back, and we had an early lunch. It was yummy.
On the way back, as I trudged through the snow and wind, I had a breakthrough for something where I was stuck on the play CONSEQUENCE. It means going back and rewriting what I have of it so far, changing it a bit structurally, but still keeping it at three characters on stage. So that was good.
Then, I unpacked the 16 lb. bag of dry cat food and put it into smaller glass jars, which keeps it fresher and is easier to use. I set up the next couple of weeks’ worth of wet food on the shelf. I did some research. I finished reading the next book for review. It snowed on and off all afternoon, and there was a lot of wind. I started the spring cleaning, and got most of Tessa’s room done, although I still have to decide what I’m putting on the walls and how I’m hanging it. Cleaned all the lampshades, which always is more of a task than I remember.
Cooked dinner at night, read some more. Had busy dreams of working on various things all night with people I knew well in the dreamscape, but don’t recognize out of it. I felt like I put in a full day already when I woke up.
Good morning sessions of yoga and meditation. I figured out, in more detail, what to sort out in CONSEQUENCE during the morning free write, and also did some figuring out work on the sculpture.
After breakfast, I sat down and wrote a little over 1K on BETTING MAN, which was good. I’m still way behind where I hoped I’d be at this point, but I’m getting there. I wrote myself out of the corner, and had to remove a character from a previous chapter. But I made forward progress, which is important.
I did the Community Tarot Reading for the Week, which you can read here. I also wrote and submitted the book review, and scheduled the invoice to send on Monday morning.
I worked on some graphics that will be included on the sculpture, and started figuring out the text handout that will go with it.
I did research reading in afternoon and evening. I sort of kept an eye on the Oscars, but didn’t really watch them. I was, however, delighted with Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s win as the first woman to get an Oscar for cinematography. About damn time. I did some prep for Monday night’s Athena Project event (since my play was in it and all).
I did not sleep well, and was awake by 3 AM. When Tessa started complaining at 5, I just got up, without a fuss. Morning routine was fine. I like it when it’s early. It would be so easy to let the yoga or the meditation or the free write slide, but once you let it go for a day, it’s easy to keep letting it go, and the day is so much better when I don’t.
Again, consistency.
I knew Monday was going to be challenging because of all its moving parts.
By 8:30, I’d written a little over 1200 words on BETTING MAN.
I measured out the gesso’d canvas and started painting the background. The collage is satirical, so I’m using bold, bright colors, almost cartoonish. I had to mix the green with some white, to get it to the shade I wanted it, of “young child green grass.” Then I had to prop it and move chairs, etc. away from the kitchen table, so no curious cats would investigate it while it dried.
Bea also spent a good bit of time exploring my bedroom, and trying to figure out how to sneak on the bed without Charlotte noticing.
I received an invitation to join a playwrighting group about an hour and a half away (for a fee). I’d like to be involved with the group, but I am not an “aspiring” playwright. I’m a playwright, it’s part of my profession. I do not pay to work, I am paid to work. I sent a pleasant refusal.
Tried to catch up on some other email, and then switched over to the ghostwriting. I usually ghostwrite in the afternoon, but since my afternoon and evening were about playwrighting, on Monday, after I wrote my Nina quota and painted, I switched over to the ghostwriting. Since tomorrow, with the car repair, everything is a toss-up, I wanted to make sure I caught up yesterday and today, so I would be where I wanted, even if something goes cattywampus tomorrow.
I ran into an obstacle with the ghostwriting, and had to ask some questions, although I tried to work around them while I waited for an answer.
Honor Roll Playwrights session was on ZOOM for two hours, and that was good. We had a nice group. I rewrote/restructured what I have on CONSEQUENCE, and managed to move forward for a few pages. The restructuring didn’t add as much new material as I expected, which is good for pace, and I have a few ideas on raising the stakes.
After that session, I had a snack, then went back to the ghostwriting. They still didn’t answer my questions, which is unusual. So I will solider on in my own way. Whichever of the two roads I take will be the opposite of what they decide, and I will adjust as needed. I am behind where I hoped to be, and I don’t know how much I will get done tomorrow, with the car repair situation, so I will have to make up for it today and Thursday, in order to get it out on Friday on time.
We are having issues with a running toilet, so I had to make arrangements for maintenance to come this morning and take a look.
Cooked dinner and prepped for Athena Project. I gave the cats a snack right before the start of the session, so they settled down and napped, instead of crawling all over the computer and the screen.
It was a good session. Two of my friends who read earlier drafts of the play were there, and I appreciated it. It was a small group, but a good discussion, of both our plays. I appreciated that the readers loved the romance of the play as well as the more challenging elements, and they were all fascinated with the background.
Today, I will update the dramaturgy note at the back of the play to include thanks to Athena Project. It was great to work with the same dramaturg again, too. She really loves my work and gets the play.
It took me a bit of time to settle down and get to sleep. I woke up around 2:30 AM because of the rain. I managed to get to sleep again, and when I woke up a little after 5:30, it had changed over to snow. Sigh.
Today, I will send out thank you emails, update the Pages on Stages site with the play’s new information, deal with maintenance, try to get some work in on Nina, but the bulk of the day has to be about the ghostwriting.
This has been a really long post. Thanks for sticking with it! I hope you have a great day, and a great week.
#art #books #fiction #freelance #marketingStatistics #planning #playwrighting #reading #writing -
Tues. March 17, 2026: Marketing Stats, Creative Feedback, and Art
image courtesy of Kev from PixabayTuesday, March 17, 2026
Dark Moon
Mercury Retrograde
Snowy and cold
Happy new week!
Pull up a chair and a beverage, this is a long post.
If you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, I hope you have a good one. Between living/working in NYC, where St. Patrick’s Day is even more of an excuse for people to behave badly than New Year’s Eve, and living on the Cape, where people were usually drunk by 10 AM – not a fan.
Friday, I did the laundry early, hauled it back, got it folded and put away. I headed up to the library to drop/off pick up books. There weren’t many to pick up, and I only dropped off those that were due, so I didn’t need the rolly cart. Swung by the post office to mail thank you notes from the birthday stuff. Ran two more errands on the way home. Was worn out, although I managed to get them done in good time, even on foot.
A Marketing Tangent
I got my royalties from the past few months (so I don’t have to have a Come to Jesus talk with D2D – we’re all caught up). The months I steadily marketed saw sales 10X the months I let it slide. I’m only spending about 15 minutes a day on weekdays marketing, but it made sales jump 10X.
Those sales cover a couple of bills. If I can maintain and then grow those sales, I am in good shape. Not that one can count on royalties, and they fluctuate, but if I can get back to steady and growing sales, it helps a lot.
The Nina Bell Mysteries are steadily growing their audience. If I can keep writing/releasing on a steady schedule and keep marketing steadily, we should be in good shape. Layering in the ANGEL HUNT series is a solid plan, because urban fantasy usually does well, and ANGEL HUNT was the most popular of the serials. There’s a lot of interest in the Coventina Circle series again, so getting those in the print editions and then finishing out the series is a good idea. 4 of the 9 planned books are out (I’ve got book 5 halfway written). After that’s complete, working on the spinoff series that goes deeper into urban fantasy rather than paranormal romantic suspense should work. Those spinoff characters introduced in RELICS AND REQUIEM, who show up now and again and even crossed over into the Gwen Finnegan series, are very popular. And getting back on the Topic Workbooks and prepping more for release should also help. The Topic Workbooks have always been steady sellers.
The trick is to find the sweet spot, both of creative energy to create the work, and to know when to release it. Every series has a different sweet spot. Wait too long between releases, and you lose audience. Release too much too quickly (in spite of the current binge desires many have), and people feel overwhelmed or as though if they miss one release, there will always be another. I find that especially true of the shorts, although sales of holiday-themed shorts bump up when promoted around their holiday.
It needs to first be about serving the work, or it can’t connect. But then, it also needs to look at the metrics of the business side of it, which are constantly shifting.
I’m getting questions about when LEGERDEMAIN will release in novel form from people who loved that world. The answer to that is that I’m not sure. The first arc of the serial (41 episodes) is pretty solid, but the rest sprawled too much, and it needs a lot of work to go in and tighten it as I adapt. I’ll have to pull out some of the shorter arcs and put them in separate stories, instead of trying to weave so many multiple plot lines at once. I need to have the main plot for each book, then a B subplot that gets resolved, then an over-reaching series arc that goes on for several books. Once in a while I can weave in maybe one more strand, but not the half dozen or so that were going on past episode 41. It will take a lot of work, and I need to have at least three volumes in solid shape before releasing anything. Plus, there were requests for spin-offs, especially when it came to the adventures of the all-female crew of the dirigible the Nervy Molls, and more built around the Fathomless Library. I’m so glad people connected to all of this, but it takes time and planning to make it all work, and I’m not sure I can do any of it this year.
Because I can’t drop the ball on the stage plays, either, and I have to get at least one-full length in shape for submission by the end of August, per a request. I can’t re-submit to this venue, so it needs to be something new.
I’d also love to get back to work on REP (the theatre company in space comedy) as a novel, but I can’t see fitting that in this year, either.
The most sales come from people who find me on Mastodon, with Instagram a close second. Bluesky is a distant third, with Tumblr and Threads trailing behind them. It took several years to build the audience on Mastodon and it’s a slower process than on other social media channels, but by posting/interacting regularly, marketing regularly, and taking part is games such as Writers Coffee Club, I’ve built connections there and am finding a growing audience. If all one does is post promos on a channel, sales don’t happen. There has to be interaction that has nothing to do with promotion, and that takes time and thought, which needs to be built into the workday.
I no longer promote on FB, and my sales have improved. TikTok was somewhat useful for serials, but hasn’t been for my books. I don’t do the kind of BookTok videos that work, nor am I willing to do them, and I’m not dealing with TikTok considering who owns it now.
Good to know.
I seriously would like to dump the FB accounts completely. Every time I open it, the first things that show up on my feed make me want to throw up. Blocking those accounts does nothing. For every block, 5 more of the gross things show up. The only reason I keep FB is because that’s how the city sends out information on emergencies. And birthday reminders, so I don’t miss anyone’s birthday (although I’m starting to add those to my paper datebook again).
The marketing that works (at the moment) is not brain surgery. It’s not spending a lot of money. It’s consistency.
It’s also looking at data over a period of months, and then tweaking one thing at a time, so you can see what kind of changes actually make a difference. I’m grateful to the Assets4Artists workshop and the local chamber workshop that gave me those tools to analyze this kind of data.
Now I have to figure out how to build on that, while continuing to have enough time and energy to keep feeding eager readers AND doing the more lucrative freelance writing work. I do that, knowing that I will have to look at the data every few months, and make changes. It’s not a career path on a highway, it’s more like floating down a river. Sometimes, there are rapids, and sometimes you get caught in the shallows.
The reason it takes me only 15 minutes a day is because I put in plenty of prep work. I have a content calendar for the month that I do about mid-month the previous month. (In other words, I better sit down and do April’s this week). It has the social media slots for each weekday, and what promo goes in each slot. I only promo one project per social media channel each day (except if I’ve dropped a day), so that I don’t saturate the channel and get annoying.
The only time I have the same ad on all channels on the same day is release day. Otherwise, I have them rotate through the channels: series ad, series video, single book ad for each book (one per day), single book video (ibid), and so forth. That way, it doesn’t come across as spam, even though content is repeated more than once in a month. Although I don’t do separate videos for each Topic Workbook. I have one for the group, and then flat ads for each book. For instance, February had a Nina Bell release (VICIOUS CRITIC), so all the promos in February were for various Nina Bell books. March has Nina, Topic workbooks, anthologies. April will include “Plot Bunnies” the short Twinkle Tavern mystery that happens near Easter, along with Nina, Workbooks, anthologies. And so forth.
As each book is going through the final production process, I work on the ad and the video. Or I edit/add to the series ad/video. That way, it’s all set up when it’s time to go. I’ve got the graphics, I’ve got the copy, I’ve got the links, I just follow the day’s schedule for the content calendar, and it takes 15 minutes to post through the channels. Each ad takes about an hour or so to create, but is designed to be evergreen and easily updatable if links or prices change. The videos take between 2-4 hours, depending how complicated they are. Longer, when the software I use updates claiming improvements that are actually detriments. As I explore new software, I might find something that helps me streamline that.
I treat myself like my own client. That was the biggest factor in making it work. It’s the same way I prepare materials for small business launches, and what I used to do for clients when I handled their social media promotions.
When I handled promos back in Twitter’s heyday, I could schedule an entire month’s worth of promos on Tweetdeck in about two hours. Under their current ownership and new name, I won’t deal with them. Hootsuite was useful to a point (not all the channels I need within my budget, but useful for some clients), but now they contract with the frozen water thugs, so I will not use them. Buffer doesn’t have enough of the channels I need within my budget.
Again, this is all about systems and information and tracking that then is used to support the creative work so the creative work can continue. It’s often difficult to face the reality of the business side of things, but it’s imperative if you want it to support the creative. They are the yin and yang of working in the arts.
Those who try to talk you out of paying attention to the business side of it are trying to exploit you and get your work for free, so watch out.
Back to the Life/Writing Stuff
On a completely different note, I did not get a slot in a 7-year residency for playwrighting. I knew it was a long shot, and they had 799 applicants. I had decided not to even apply, but then figured what the hell, nothing ventured and all that. But 7 years would mean I was in my early 70’s when we were done, and that’s not practical in my life right now. I’m glad I applied, and actually a little relieved I didn’t get it. Commuting to NYC at least once a month for 7 years would have been a lot, especially since they couldn’t guarantee the level of funding for the duration, just for the coming year. So why did I even apply? Because I felt there was possibility in the opportunity, and if I landed it, I was determined to find a way to make it work and grow in my playwrighting.
I am curious to see how many of the playwrights chosen actually stay in the residency program for the full seven years. I will follow along to keep track, and see how they blossom in the program (once they’re chosen).
Friday afternoon, I sorted out some practicalities with the ghostwriting client, and then go to work on the assignment due this Friday. I didn’t make as much progress as I hoped, but I have some ideas on how to fix that.
It started snowing around 3:30 or so. Sigh.
Got some research reading done for the May Morris project in the evening.
Didn’t sleep well Friday into Saturday. Up around the usual time, with Tessa shouting down the house because she wanted her breakfast. The morning routine was fine, although the 15-minute free write was more on the practical side than the creative side. But it sorted things out in my brain a bit, so it served its purpose.
It was supposed to snow from 9 AM – 1 PM, but started before 8.
After breakfast, I did some housework. I gesso’d my canvas for the collage. Tessa “helped” which means I now have to work a figure of a black cat into the collage to explain any cat hair I couldn’t wipe off. No, there isn’t any place in this house I can work where the cats can’t wander in.
Thankfully, Willa watched from a safe distance. Charlotte was asleep on the freshly made bed, and Bea was busy in the living room.
I got caught up doing more admin work than I hoped. I also re-read the first eight episodes I wrote of REP, and it’s funnier than I remembered, which is good. It plays a lot with tropes in theatre and science fiction.
I wrote myself into a corner on the latest chapter of BETTING MAN, and tried to get myself out of it, which was a chore. Not quite there yet.
I layered up and went out into the snow to pick up my mom’s prescription. They had two ready, which was nice. Usually, I go to pick up one, and the minute I get back home, there’s the notification for another one. Because making anything easier for their customers is beyond them. CVS = Corporate Vicious Hassle.
But there wasn’t hassle today, thank goodness. I stomped across town in the snow and into the wind, picked up the prescriptions, and picked up Chinese food on the way home. As I waited for my order, I read one of the local print publications, and there was an article by a colleague! I was so pleased for her, and it was very well done.
Trekked home, this time with the wind at my back, and we had an early lunch. It was yummy.
On the way back, as I trudged through the snow and wind, I had a breakthrough for something where I was stuck on the play CONSEQUENCE. It means going back and rewriting what I have of it so far, changing it a bit structurally, but still keeping it at three characters on stage. So that was good.
Then, I unpacked the 16 lb. bag of dry cat food and put it into smaller glass jars, which keeps it fresher and is easier to use. I set up the next couple of weeks’ worth of wet food on the shelf. I did some research. I finished reading the next book for review. It snowed on and off all afternoon, and there was a lot of wind. I started the spring cleaning, and got most of Tessa’s room done, although I still have to decide what I’m putting on the walls and how I’m hanging it. Cleaned all the lampshades, which always is more of a task than I remember.
Cooked dinner at night, read some more. Had busy dreams of working on various things all night with people I knew well in the dreamscape, but don’t recognize out of it. I felt like I put in a full day already when I woke up.
Good morning sessions of yoga and meditation. I figured out, in more detail, what to sort out in CONSEQUENCE during the morning free write, and also did some figuring out work on the sculpture.
After breakfast, I sat down and wrote a little over 1K on BETTING MAN, which was good. I’m still way behind where I hoped I’d be at this point, but I’m getting there. I wrote myself out of the corner, and had to remove a character from a previous chapter. But I made forward progress, which is important.
I did the Community Tarot Reading for the Week, which you can read here. I also wrote and submitted the book review, and scheduled the invoice to send on Monday morning.
I worked on some graphics that will be included on the sculpture, and started figuring out the text handout that will go with it.
I did research reading in afternoon and evening. I sort of kept an eye on the Oscars, but didn’t really watch them. I was, however, delighted with Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s win as the first woman to get an Oscar for cinematography. About damn time. I did some prep for Monday night’s Athena Project event (since my play was in it and all).
I did not sleep well, and was awake by 3 AM. When Tessa started complaining at 5, I just got up, without a fuss. Morning routine was fine. I like it when it’s early. It would be so easy to let the yoga or the meditation or the free write slide, but once you let it go for a day, it’s easy to keep letting it go, and the day is so much better when I don’t.
Again, consistency.
I knew Monday was going to be challenging because of all its moving parts.
By 8:30, I’d written a little over 1200 words on BETTING MAN.
I measured out the gesso’d canvas and started painting the background. The collage is satirical, so I’m using bold, bright colors, almost cartoonish. I had to mix the green with some white, to get it to the shade I wanted it, of “young child green grass.” Then I had to prop it and move chairs, etc. away from the kitchen table, so no curious cats would investigate it while it dried.
Bea also spent a good bit of time exploring my bedroom, and trying to figure out how to sneak on the bed without Charlotte noticing.
I received an invitation to join a playwrighting group about an hour and a half away (for a fee). I’d like to be involved with the group, but I am not an “aspiring” playwright. I’m a playwright, it’s part of my profession. I do not pay to work, I am paid to work. I sent a pleasant refusal.
Tried to catch up on some other email, and then switched over to the ghostwriting. I usually ghostwrite in the afternoon, but since my afternoon and evening were about playwrighting, on Monday, after I wrote my Nina quota and painted, I switched over to the ghostwriting. Since tomorrow, with the car repair, everything is a toss-up, I wanted to make sure I caught up yesterday and today, so I would be where I wanted, even if something goes cattywampus tomorrow.
I ran into an obstacle with the ghostwriting, and had to ask some questions, although I tried to work around them while I waited for an answer.
Honor Roll Playwrights session was on ZOOM for two hours, and that was good. We had a nice group. I rewrote/restructured what I have on CONSEQUENCE, and managed to move forward for a few pages. The restructuring didn’t add as much new material as I expected, which is good for pace, and I have a few ideas on raising the stakes.
After that session, I had a snack, then went back to the ghostwriting. They still didn’t answer my questions, which is unusual. So I will solider on in my own way. Whichever of the two roads I take will be the opposite of what they decide, and I will adjust as needed. I am behind where I hoped to be, and I don’t know how much I will get done tomorrow, with the car repair situation, so I will have to make up for it today and Thursday, in order to get it out on Friday on time.
We are having issues with a running toilet, so I had to make arrangements for maintenance to come this morning and take a look.
Cooked dinner and prepped for Athena Project. I gave the cats a snack right before the start of the session, so they settled down and napped, instead of crawling all over the computer and the screen.
It was a good session. Two of my friends who read earlier drafts of the play were there, and I appreciated it. It was a small group, but a good discussion, of both our plays. I appreciated that the readers loved the romance of the play as well as the more challenging elements, and they were all fascinated with the background.
Today, I will update the dramaturgy note at the back of the play to include thanks to Athena Project. It was great to work with the same dramaturg again, too. She really loves my work and gets the play.
It took me a bit of time to settle down and get to sleep. I woke up around 2:30 AM because of the rain. I managed to get to sleep again, and when I woke up a little after 5:30, it had changed over to snow. Sigh.
Today, I will send out thank you emails, update the Pages on Stages site with the play’s new information, deal with maintenance, try to get some work in on Nina, but the bulk of the day has to be about the ghostwriting.
This has been a really long post. Thanks for sticking with it! I hope you have a great day, and a great week.
#art #books #fiction #freelance #marketingStatistics #planning #playwrighting #reading #writing -
Tues. March 17, 2026: Marketing Stats, Creative Feedback, and Art
image courtesy of Kev from PixabayTuesday, March 17, 2026
Dark Moon
Mercury Retrograde
Snowy and cold
Happy new week!
Pull up a chair and a beverage, this is a long post.
If you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, I hope you have a good one. Between living/working in NYC, where St. Patrick’s Day is even more of an excuse for people to behave badly than New Year’s Eve, and living on the Cape, where people were usually drunk by 10 AM – not a fan.
Friday, I did the laundry early, hauled it back, got it folded and put away. I headed up to the library to drop/off pick up books. There weren’t many to pick up, and I only dropped off those that were due, so I didn’t need the rolly cart. Swung by the post office to mail thank you notes from the birthday stuff. Ran two more errands on the way home. Was worn out, although I managed to get them done in good time, even on foot.
A Marketing Tangent
I got my royalties from the past few months (so I don’t have to have a Come to Jesus talk with D2D – we’re all caught up). The months I steadily marketed saw sales 10X the months I let it slide. I’m only spending about 15 minutes a day on weekdays marketing, but it made sales jump 10X.
Those sales cover a couple of bills. If I can maintain and then grow those sales, I am in good shape. Not that one can count on royalties, and they fluctuate, but if I can get back to steady and growing sales, it helps a lot.
The Nina Bell Mysteries are steadily growing their audience. If I can keep writing/releasing on a steady schedule and keep marketing steadily, we should be in good shape. Layering in the ANGEL HUNT series is a solid plan, because urban fantasy usually does well, and ANGEL HUNT was the most popular of the serials. There’s a lot of interest in the Coventina Circle series again, so getting those in the print editions and then finishing out the series is a good idea. 4 of the 9 planned books are out (I’ve got book 5 halfway written). After that’s complete, working on the spinoff series that goes deeper into urban fantasy rather than paranormal romantic suspense should work. Those spinoff characters introduced in RELICS AND REQUIEM, who show up now and again and even crossed over into the Gwen Finnegan series, are very popular. And getting back on the Topic Workbooks and prepping more for release should also help. The Topic Workbooks have always been steady sellers.
The trick is to find the sweet spot, both of creative energy to create the work, and to know when to release it. Every series has a different sweet spot. Wait too long between releases, and you lose audience. Release too much too quickly (in spite of the current binge desires many have), and people feel overwhelmed or as though if they miss one release, there will always be another. I find that especially true of the shorts, although sales of holiday-themed shorts bump up when promoted around their holiday.
It needs to first be about serving the work, or it can’t connect. But then, it also needs to look at the metrics of the business side of it, which are constantly shifting.
I’m getting questions about when LEGERDEMAIN will release in novel form from people who loved that world. The answer to that is that I’m not sure. The first arc of the serial (41 episodes) is pretty solid, but the rest sprawled too much, and it needs a lot of work to go in and tighten it as I adapt. I’ll have to pull out some of the shorter arcs and put them in separate stories, instead of trying to weave so many multiple plot lines at once. I need to have the main plot for each book, then a B subplot that gets resolved, then an over-reaching series arc that goes on for several books. Once in a while I can weave in maybe one more strand, but not the half dozen or so that were going on past episode 41. It will take a lot of work, and I need to have at least three volumes in solid shape before releasing anything. Plus, there were requests for spin-offs, especially when it came to the adventures of the all-female crew of the dirigible the Nervy Molls, and more built around the Fathomless Library. I’m so glad people connected to all of this, but it takes time and planning to make it all work, and I’m not sure I can do any of it this year.
Because I can’t drop the ball on the stage plays, either, and I have to get at least one-full length in shape for submission by the end of August, per a request. I can’t re-submit to this venue, so it needs to be something new.
I’d also love to get back to work on REP (the theatre company in space comedy) as a novel, but I can’t see fitting that in this year, either.
The most sales come from people who find me on Mastodon, with Instagram a close second. Bluesky is a distant third, with Tumblr and Threads trailing behind them. It took several years to build the audience on Mastodon and it’s a slower process than on other social media channels, but by posting/interacting regularly, marketing regularly, and taking part is games such as Writers Coffee Club, I’ve built connections there and am finding a growing audience. If all one does is post promos on a channel, sales don’t happen. There has to be interaction that has nothing to do with promotion, and that takes time and thought, which needs to be built into the workday.
I no longer promote on FB, and my sales have improved. TikTok was somewhat useful for serials, but hasn’t been for my books. I don’t do the kind of BookTok videos that work, nor am I willing to do them, and I’m not dealing with TikTok considering who owns it now.
Good to know.
I seriously would like to dump the FB accounts completely. Every time I open it, the first things that show up on my feed make me want to throw up. Blocking those accounts does nothing. For every block, 5 more of the gross things show up. The only reason I keep FB is because that’s how the city sends out information on emergencies. And birthday reminders, so I don’t miss anyone’s birthday (although I’m starting to add those to my paper datebook again).
The marketing that works (at the moment) is not brain surgery. It’s not spending a lot of money. It’s consistency.
It’s also looking at data over a period of months, and then tweaking one thing at a time, so you can see what kind of changes actually make a difference. I’m grateful to the Assets4Artists workshop and the local chamber workshop that gave me those tools to analyze this kind of data.
Now I have to figure out how to build on that, while continuing to have enough time and energy to keep feeding eager readers AND doing the more lucrative freelance writing work. I do that, knowing that I will have to look at the data every few months, and make changes. It’s not a career path on a highway, it’s more like floating down a river. Sometimes, there are rapids, and sometimes you get caught in the shallows.
The reason it takes me only 15 minutes a day is because I put in plenty of prep work. I have a content calendar for the month that I do about mid-month the previous month. (In other words, I better sit down and do April’s this week). It has the social media slots for each weekday, and what promo goes in each slot. I only promo one project per social media channel each day (except if I’ve dropped a day), so that I don’t saturate the channel and get annoying.
The only time I have the same ad on all channels on the same day is release day. Otherwise, I have them rotate through the channels: series ad, series video, single book ad for each book (one per day), single book video (ibid), and so forth. That way, it doesn’t come across as spam, even though content is repeated more than once in a month. Although I don’t do separate videos for each Topic Workbook. I have one for the group, and then flat ads for each book. For instance, February had a Nina Bell release (VICIOUS CRITIC), so all the promos in February were for various Nina Bell books. March has Nina, Topic workbooks, anthologies. April will include “Plot Bunnies” the short Twinkle Tavern mystery that happens near Easter, along with Nina, Workbooks, anthologies. And so forth.
As each book is going through the final production process, I work on the ad and the video. Or I edit/add to the series ad/video. That way, it’s all set up when it’s time to go. I’ve got the graphics, I’ve got the copy, I’ve got the links, I just follow the day’s schedule for the content calendar, and it takes 15 minutes to post through the channels. Each ad takes about an hour or so to create, but is designed to be evergreen and easily updatable if links or prices change. The videos take between 2-4 hours, depending how complicated they are. Longer, when the software I use updates claiming improvements that are actually detriments. As I explore new software, I might find something that helps me streamline that.
I treat myself like my own client. That was the biggest factor in making it work. It’s the same way I prepare materials for small business launches, and what I used to do for clients when I handled their social media promotions.
When I handled promos back in Twitter’s heyday, I could schedule an entire month’s worth of promos on Tweetdeck in about two hours. Under their current ownership and new name, I won’t deal with them. Hootsuite was useful to a point (not all the channels I need within my budget, but useful for some clients), but now they contract with the frozen water thugs, so I will not use them. Buffer doesn’t have enough of the channels I need within my budget.
Again, this is all about systems and information and tracking that then is used to support the creative work so the creative work can continue. It’s often difficult to face the reality of the business side of things, but it’s imperative if you want it to support the creative. They are the yin and yang of working in the arts.
Those who try to talk you out of paying attention to the business side of it are trying to exploit you and get your work for free, so watch out.
Back to the Life/Writing Stuff
On a completely different note, I did not get a slot in a 7-year residency for playwrighting. I knew it was a long shot, and they had 799 applicants. I had decided not to even apply, but then figured what the hell, nothing ventured and all that. But 7 years would mean I was in my early 70’s when we were done, and that’s not practical in my life right now. I’m glad I applied, and actually a little relieved I didn’t get it. Commuting to NYC at least once a month for 7 years would have been a lot, especially since they couldn’t guarantee the level of funding for the duration, just for the coming year. So why did I even apply? Because I felt there was possibility in the opportunity, and if I landed it, I was determined to find a way to make it work and grow in my playwrighting.
I am curious to see how many of the playwrights chosen actually stay in the residency program for the full seven years. I will follow along to keep track, and see how they blossom in the program (once they’re chosen).
Friday afternoon, I sorted out some practicalities with the ghostwriting client, and then go to work on the assignment due this Friday. I didn’t make as much progress as I hoped, but I have some ideas on how to fix that.
It started snowing around 3:30 or so. Sigh.
Got some research reading done for the May Morris project in the evening.
Didn’t sleep well Friday into Saturday. Up around the usual time, with Tessa shouting down the house because she wanted her breakfast. The morning routine was fine, although the 15-minute free write was more on the practical side than the creative side. But it sorted things out in my brain a bit, so it served its purpose.
It was supposed to snow from 9 AM – 1 PM, but started before 8.
After breakfast, I did some housework. I gesso’d my canvas for the collage. Tessa “helped” which means I now have to work a figure of a black cat into the collage to explain any cat hair I couldn’t wipe off. No, there isn’t any place in this house I can work where the cats can’t wander in.
Thankfully, Willa watched from a safe distance. Charlotte was asleep on the freshly made bed, and Bea was busy in the living room.
I got caught up doing more admin work than I hoped. I also re-read the first eight episodes I wrote of REP, and it’s funnier than I remembered, which is good. It plays a lot with tropes in theatre and science fiction.
I wrote myself into a corner on the latest chapter of BETTING MAN, and tried to get myself out of it, which was a chore. Not quite there yet.
I layered up and went out into the snow to pick up my mom’s prescription. They had two ready, which was nice. Usually, I go to pick up one, and the minute I get back home, there’s the notification for another one. Because making anything easier for their customers is beyond them. CVS = Corporate Vicious Hassle.
But there wasn’t hassle today, thank goodness. I stomped across town in the snow and into the wind, picked up the prescriptions, and picked up Chinese food on the way home. As I waited for my order, I read one of the local print publications, and there was an article by a colleague! I was so pleased for her, and it was very well done.
Trekked home, this time with the wind at my back, and we had an early lunch. It was yummy.
On the way back, as I trudged through the snow and wind, I had a breakthrough for something where I was stuck on the play CONSEQUENCE. It means going back and rewriting what I have of it so far, changing it a bit structurally, but still keeping it at three characters on stage. So that was good.
Then, I unpacked the 16 lb. bag of dry cat food and put it into smaller glass jars, which keeps it fresher and is easier to use. I set up the next couple of weeks’ worth of wet food on the shelf. I did some research. I finished reading the next book for review. It snowed on and off all afternoon, and there was a lot of wind. I started the spring cleaning, and got most of Tessa’s room done, although I still have to decide what I’m putting on the walls and how I’m hanging it. Cleaned all the lampshades, which always is more of a task than I remember.
Cooked dinner at night, read some more. Had busy dreams of working on various things all night with people I knew well in the dreamscape, but don’t recognize out of it. I felt like I put in a full day already when I woke up.
Good morning sessions of yoga and meditation. I figured out, in more detail, what to sort out in CONSEQUENCE during the morning free write, and also did some figuring out work on the sculpture.
After breakfast, I sat down and wrote a little over 1K on BETTING MAN, which was good. I’m still way behind where I hoped I’d be at this point, but I’m getting there. I wrote myself out of the corner, and had to remove a character from a previous chapter. But I made forward progress, which is important.
I did the Community Tarot Reading for the Week, which you can read here. I also wrote and submitted the book review, and scheduled the invoice to send on Monday morning.
I worked on some graphics that will be included on the sculpture, and started figuring out the text handout that will go with it.
I did research reading in afternoon and evening. I sort of kept an eye on the Oscars, but didn’t really watch them. I was, however, delighted with Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s win as the first woman to get an Oscar for cinematography. About damn time. I did some prep for Monday night’s Athena Project event (since my play was in it and all).
I did not sleep well, and was awake by 3 AM. When Tessa started complaining at 5, I just got up, without a fuss. Morning routine was fine. I like it when it’s early. It would be so easy to let the yoga or the meditation or the free write slide, but once you let it go for a day, it’s easy to keep letting it go, and the day is so much better when I don’t.
Again, consistency.
I knew Monday was going to be challenging because of all its moving parts.
By 8:30, I’d written a little over 1200 words on BETTING MAN.
I measured out the gesso’d canvas and started painting the background. The collage is satirical, so I’m using bold, bright colors, almost cartoonish. I had to mix the green with some white, to get it to the shade I wanted it, of “young child green grass.” Then I had to prop it and move chairs, etc. away from the kitchen table, so no curious cats would investigate it while it dried.
Bea also spent a good bit of time exploring my bedroom, and trying to figure out how to sneak on the bed without Charlotte noticing.
I received an invitation to join a playwrighting group about an hour and a half away (for a fee). I’d like to be involved with the group, but I am not an “aspiring” playwright. I’m a playwright, it’s part of my profession. I do not pay to work, I am paid to work. I sent a pleasant refusal.
Tried to catch up on some other email, and then switched over to the ghostwriting. I usually ghostwrite in the afternoon, but since my afternoon and evening were about playwrighting, on Monday, after I wrote my Nina quota and painted, I switched over to the ghostwriting. Since tomorrow, with the car repair, everything is a toss-up, I wanted to make sure I caught up yesterday and today, so I would be where I wanted, even if something goes cattywampus tomorrow.
I ran into an obstacle with the ghostwriting, and had to ask some questions, although I tried to work around them while I waited for an answer.
Honor Roll Playwrights session was on ZOOM for two hours, and that was good. We had a nice group. I rewrote/restructured what I have on CONSEQUENCE, and managed to move forward for a few pages. The restructuring didn’t add as much new material as I expected, which is good for pace, and I have a few ideas on raising the stakes.
After that session, I had a snack, then went back to the ghostwriting. They still didn’t answer my questions, which is unusual. So I will solider on in my own way. Whichever of the two roads I take will be the opposite of what they decide, and I will adjust as needed. I am behind where I hoped to be, and I don’t know how much I will get done tomorrow, with the car repair situation, so I will have to make up for it today and Thursday, in order to get it out on Friday on time.
We are having issues with a running toilet, so I had to make arrangements for maintenance to come this morning and take a look.
Cooked dinner and prepped for Athena Project. I gave the cats a snack right before the start of the session, so they settled down and napped, instead of crawling all over the computer and the screen.
It was a good session. Two of my friends who read earlier drafts of the play were there, and I appreciated it. It was a small group, but a good discussion, of both our plays. I appreciated that the readers loved the romance of the play as well as the more challenging elements, and they were all fascinated with the background.
Today, I will update the dramaturgy note at the back of the play to include thanks to Athena Project. It was great to work with the same dramaturg again, too. She really loves my work and gets the play.
It took me a bit of time to settle down and get to sleep. I woke up around 2:30 AM because of the rain. I managed to get to sleep again, and when I woke up a little after 5:30, it had changed over to snow. Sigh.
Today, I will send out thank you emails, update the Pages on Stages site with the play’s new information, deal with maintenance, try to get some work in on Nina, but the bulk of the day has to be about the ghostwriting.
This has been a really long post. Thanks for sticking with it! I hope you have a great day, and a great week.
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